Covid Paradise

Christmas down under

The family tradition here in Oz. Christmas at the beach.

In Australia, it’s early summer, school holidays, three public holidays within a week, and time to escape the everyday.

Load up the car, drive for hours, meet up with the reels, and if you are a kid, get burned to toast trying out the Chrissy togs on a brand new beach towel, rinsing off any sunscreen by getting dumped in the surf, and cramming every fold of skin full of golden sand.

For adults, it’s a chance to get sozzled on fizzy wine, sit back under a floppy hat and sunnies to match, read through the latest thriller, and wonder which head amongst the tumbling ocean waves is your genetic heritage. Men may optionally consume beer with uncles and cousins in front of a television broadcasting some sports event in which to feign interest.

Out of the everyday

Last year, I drove up to Queensland with friends through an apocalyptic landscape. The air was full of smoke for hours on end. So thick that it was like driving inside a choking tan bubble, and if the shops hadn’t long since sold out of face masks, add a different layer of breathlessness to the journey.

Inland Australia — bushfires closing the usual coastal highways — was parched. Not a blade of grass to be seen unless it was dusty brown and dry as toast. Only the major rivers had any water at all.

We listened anxiously to the news for bushfires across our path, and at one point drove over a mountain spur where tall burnt trees stood on newly blackened slopes and all the road signs were bent and blistered. A temporary road detoured around a smouldering country bridge, its thick logs charred right through. Luckily there was no water in the creek, and we rattled over the gravel.

The smoke faded away after we crossed the border, and we did all the usual holiday things, ate all the food, drank all the wine, and coated ourselves with sunscreen. Ever since my painful experiences on a nude beach, I’ve kept as much of my skin covered up as possible. Once burnt, twice shy.

As our return trip loomed, we listened to the news with careful ears, wondering which roads would be clear of bushfires.

Next year would be different,

…we told ourselves.

And then the pandemic rolled in.

Melbourne had a strict lockdown over the 2020 winter. Not only could nobody cross the border to head north for sunny Queensland, but they could also barely leave their homes, and heaven help you if the police caught you jaunting off for a burger more than five minutes from your front door.

The restrictions finally eased, the borders re-opened, the annual Christmas trip north beckoned with a sunny smile as the year from hell drew to an end.

My friends produced a baby which, counting backwards, must have had its roots in Surfers Paradise. I was roped into spending two days a week babysitting, and while I have no interest in motherhood myself, being an honorary aunt has its benefits in cuddling a tiny human of generally sunny temperament.

Less room in the car this trip. Babies require an enormous amount of accessories, and once you strap in a baby capsule, try to fold a stroller into the boot beside a portable cot, and cram in a mountain of nappies and bottles and change mats, there’s just enough room left over for a pair of sunnies and a handbag for Auntie Britni.

2020 will no longer be linked to the word “foresight”.

This time it was Sydney that produced a plague cluster. As we headed north, we listened anxiously to the news broadcasts. Borders were closing, restrictions imposed, and our coastal route through Sydney became a gazetted hotspot.

Once again we took the inland roads, but this time, such a difference!

It has been a grand year for rain, and the dry land is green and pleasant and splendid. We might have to wear masks — and you may spot the Victorians by the creases in their faces where the mask edges have worn away the innocence — but only when getting out of the vehicle for careful dealings with the locals.

The same mountain spur was covered in a sparse fuzz of green — fresh leaves shooting directly out of blackened trunks, skimpy undergrowth covering the ash — and the temporary detour had gained a temporary bridge beside the still unrepaired old wooden structure, its charcoaled logs no longer smoking.

Approaching the Queensland border was a different experience. A queue of cars two hours long inched along the motorway, and we carefully monitored the charge on our devices where downloaded PDF files of our border crossing passes were loaded for display at the checkpoint.

“Melbourne, eh?” the burly constable peered at us with suspicion. “Which way did you come?”

“Not through Sydney!” our driver protested, rattling off the towns. “Albury, Dubbo, Tamworth, Armidale, Grafton…”

All well clear of the coastal hotspots, and hours added to the trip.

A sunshine state

And now, here we are, four souls perched twenty floors above the beach, stocking up for a Christmas feast in supermarkets full of cheerful Queenslanders ignoring the social distancing signs and not a mask to be seen.

The beaches are emptier than usual. No international visitors, for one thing. It is the perfect time to enjoy the Gold Coast, and finding a place to park the car is not quite the usual challenge.

The border controls have largely kept the plague out, and quarantine hotels are strictly guarded. No sneaking out for a burger, and no bonking the hunky security guards, which was apparently the reason Melbourne became an object lesson in how not to handle a pandemic.

Not that we are spending much time on the beach. We look down on the sparse bathers having no trouble at all finding space to spread a beach towel. A few surfers share the waves, and there’s even a couple of white pointers visible.

“I should go and show her how to rub the sunscreen lotion in,” the man of our house teases his wife, who is sporting a rack that has ballooned out to an impressive size under the natural attentions of a hungry and rapidly growing infant.

He has a lot to learn about women, I think to myself, wondering whether there will be a sibling coming along in nine months.

But there it is, a long curving expanse of perfect sand, wide enough to hold tens of thousands, now occupied by a few scattered dozens along the whole stretch. It is truly a surfer’s — and sunbathers and swimmers and beachside people-watchers — paradise.

Christmas is planned. Family and friends will be squeezed into our rental apartment, squeezing in turkey and stuffing and cake and seafood and good cheer in all directions. The new baby will be passed from aunty to aunty, we’ll all share tales of worry and gloom about the year past, and hope that with the stroke of midnight in a few days’ time, 2020 will become Hindsight.

We have yet to make the trip home, across a plague zone and over borders policed by keen eyes, but Sydney seems to have gotten on top of its outbreak, and so long as no clusters appear on our inland route, we are crossing our fingers that we can return home safe and secure.

Sailing into the future

The annual Sydney to Hobart yacht race has been cancelled for the first time ever. Amazing sight on Sydney Harbour as the great racing yachts jostle amongst thousands of spectators, it would be a fizzle this year if they set off from the eye of a Covid cluster to be denied landing in Hobart, capital of an island state that has been very careful indeed about anybody wanting to enter their plague-free zone.

It’s been a packed year in interesting times, to say the least, and as 2020 draws to an end, may I wish every one of my readers the best of days for happiness and health in the year to come.

Happy Holidays to all, whether they be full of snowmen and icicles, or sun-blessed days on the beach. What really matters is cradled in my arms: a tiny smiling face on a chubby little baby, the future generation rising from the ashes into a world full of hope and sunshine.

And the best part of my Aunty status is that if there are any wobbles in that smiling contentment, I can hand the wee person off to her mother to be returned twenty minutes later clean and fresh and full of the milk of human kindness.

May this plague year swiftly become a hazy memory, and may happiness be the gift we give to each other in the new year.

Britni