After our lovely holiday in Indonesia with friends and family, we spent a leisurely couple of months recovering – and then Covid hit! Luckily, we had a good safe anchorage in Currimundi and weathered out the storm safely (figuratively speaking). Our biggest worry was for the safety of our family and friends in the UK. Jas was called up to treat Covid victims in an Intensive Care Unit in London. She worked long and tough hours and survived the first wave. Working on the frontline was a very traumatic experience. She then worked on one of the vaccines developed so quickly. Her stories and insights highlighted the importance of self -isolation and, like our other family members, we locked ourselves down and caught up with everyone on WhatsApp.
Thankfully Queensland imposed the necessary restrictions early on and by the end of July we were able to travel intra-State and socialise – albeit with social distancing, hand washing, etc. Compared to other countries, life returned to more-or-less normal in Australia.
During all this, Keith was still attending appointments at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane to monitor his condition. By mid-2020, his condition had deteriorated to the extent that 80% of his bone marrow was diseased. The specialist recommended that he undergo further Chemo – he was keen to try out a new drug (not yet licensed in Australia) for Keith’s type of lymphoma. Keen to have a get-away before he began treatment, which would probably confine us to home for the duration, due to his compromised immune system. We negotiated a six-week reprieve to allow us to go on a trip to northern Queensland and the Northern Territory border.
In the midst of all this we celebrated our wedding anniversary and shouted ourselves a weekend in Brisbane and enjoyed riding the ferries up and down the river as well as a lovely meal at our favourite French restaurant.
Once the worst of the Covid restrictions were lifted, Keith and I decided to host a Murder Mystery dinner party – Christine had one called ‘Murder Down Under’ from her time in the UK. We had great fun selecting the appropriate characters for Gail & Garry, Lyn & Bob and Ruth & Kelvin – and decorating the ‘venue’ the ‘Sleeping Koala Restaurant’. Turns out Bob was the murderer! It was fun and we all agreed to do another at some time in the future.
Each of the Australian States had a different policy about travel – luckily for us, the Queensland Government allowed travel within the State – Queensland is a very big State – around 7 times bigger than the UK. It is around 2,000 miles north to south, with only a population of 4 million, so there is a lot of space for social distancing! The State has taken an isolationist approach – restricting movement of people across the border – frequently closing the border to the rest of Australia when outbreaks were discovered in other States. Foreign travel has been unthinkable due to quarantine requirements, but life for us has been more-or-less normal.
Queensland is a big enough state so we could keep our wanderlust satisfied. We tried to go camping at least once a month – but one of our trips to NSW to visit my relatives had to be curtailed – we had to make a mad dash back to Queensland to cross the border when a closure was announced due to an outbreak in Sydney. After that we confined most of our excursions to QLD’s national parks.
Keith and I decided to explore Queensland – when we were cruising, we’d only seen the coastline – and when we were in Brisbane for Keith’s treatment, we didn’t have a car so hadn’t done much travel. During our 4-week road trip we covered 4,000 miles and visited numerous locations, much in the outback – along straight red dirt roads. It is a very interesting State geographically. The northeast coastal strip has luscious green rain forests, then west over the Great Dividing mountain range to ancient desert-like landscapes littered with rocky outcrops and gorges with pristine rivers running through. Dinosaurs walked this land 70 million years ago and you could still see their footprints preserved in rock to this day. Old volcanoes have also left their mark, leaving behind large, cavernous lava tunnels and other strange features.
Camping in Australia is very comfortable, mainly due to the climate. The campsites often have free barbeques, camp kitchens and fire pits where people gather and exchange experiences in the evening. During our 4-week trip we only had one day of rain – at a place called Tully. Tully is perhaps best known for being one of the wettest towns in Australia, and home to the 7.9 m (25 ft 11 in) tall Golden Gumboot. We escaped to a motel for the night.
Returning home, Keith started his 12-month course of chemotherapy – tablets taken twice a day. After 3 months, blood tests indicated that the drug was working; he had much more energy and fortunately didn’t suffer any severe side effects.
We used the time to fix a drainage issue alongside our house – our neighbour complained that the watering system for our pot plants along the adjoining fence was flooding his path. Keith dug a drainage trench along the garden, laid a gravel bed and some agricultural drainage hose. This was plumbed into the grey water drainage pipes – which seemed to solve the problem. We moved the plant pots to alongside the house, rather than the fence. We were a bit disappointed as we had tried to use the plants to soften the appearance of the fence. Never mind…
We used one of the trips to Brisbane for Keith’s checkups to visit the New Farm Rose Gardens – magnificent with the Jacaranda trees in bloom and views of the city. We also took photos of the roses that we liked (and their name tags) with a view to planting some in the garden bed along our back fence in due course. We liked the roses that had lovely form and good scent – and we figured if they grew well in Brisbane, they should grow well on the Sunshine Coast. Next autumn, we’d have to order the bare-rooted plants from suppliers in Victoria.
In October we both started a strict 800 calorie per day diet to shed unwanted kilos; after 8 weeks we lost 25kilos between us, and were feeling trim, taut and terrific – ready to put it all back on over Christmas!
In December we invited Gail & Garry, Lyn & Bob and Noela and Juanita to join us for a traditional Christmas meal – it was lovely to decorate the table. And even more fun to decorate our Christmas tree with our weird and wonderful selection of Christmas Tree decorations we’ve collected on our travels around the world.