Marlborough Express - Weekend Express
I’m still too scared to fly back home
Flyer beware. It’s the kind of catchy expression we’re more likely to expect from Scotty from marketing, as Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been dubbed, than from his New Zealand counterpart.
Yet when Jacinda Ardern uttered these words in announcing the long-awaited travel bubble between the two countries, for many New Zealanders on the ‘‘wrong’’ side of the ditch it encapsulated our fears.
The bubble was a long time coming. For more than a year I’ve watched videos of Lyall Bay beach in Wellington, followed Wellington Walks via Instagram and gritted my teeth as others posted photos of themselves at ‘‘my’’ window table at the Maranui Cafe. There were times when I wanted nothing so much as to be there, giving voice to this longing in opinion pieces for Australian newspapers from Melbourne’s interminable lockdown, as New Zealand resumed a semblance of normal life.
Yet despite authoring wistful reflections such as one The Age headlined, ‘‘The two countries I love have never felt further apart’’, when bookings opened, I balked.
I’m not the only one. Airlines have talked up the excitement, and fares have not reflected the predicted price-gouging, but when it comes actually booking many of us have held back. One News has reported a major tourism operator as saying Aussie ‘‘window shopping’’ is not translating into sales.
Two daunting risks lie at the heart of this: fear of getting stuck across the Tasman, and fear of catching Covid-19.
Friends who booked early, one a grandad longing to see his toddler grandson, are relaxed about the prospect of borders closing, flights suspended, or being ordered into NZ quarantine. A valid excuse for more time off work is no bad thing, they say.
But for many of us it’s not so easy. We have jobs and homes and families and pets. Friends and family in New Zealand may be thrilled to have us visit – but would they want us quarantining in the spare room or stuck indefinitely?
Consigning my little cat Bertie, my sole lockdown companion for almost a year, to a cattery will be difficult enough, but what of her if I get stuck in Wellington?
And there’s pandemic paranoia. Community transmission is, for now at least, all but eliminated in both countries. But with new variants in our quarantine systems, we can’t count on that. The risk of four hours on a plane, of crowded airports, waiting in gate lounges, is unknowable. Safe as houses, or a potential superspreader event . . .
For New Zealanders, particularly those for whom a full-scale lockdown is a fairly distant memory, this may seem over-cautious. But for those such as me, over 65, with chronic conditions and having endured the rigours of Covid-afflicted Melbourne life for the past year, it is surely understandable. That’s especially so as Australia’s shambolic vaccination rollout means it is likely to be several months until my arm sees the sharp end of a needle.
Even readjusting to the kind of normal life to be found on the other side of the Tasman will take some doing.
Recently, I visited the triennial exhibition at Melbourne’s NGV International gallery, on its final day. After only my second train trip since the pandemic began, I arrived stressed, having travelled in a carriage of passengers without masks, despite their being compulsory on public transport.
With timed tickets, I walked to the entrance past a line several hundred metres long with no social distancing in evidence – those hoping to score admission despite no booking. And they did.
As the morning progressed, they were allowed in, the gallery becoming increasingly packed. For myself and my sister, who’d driven in from her small town, both graduates of the soloisolation-with-cat school of pandemic survival, it was too much.
If I can’t cope with this, I realised, how will I cope with the airport, the departure lounge, the plane trip, the arrivals queues?
Eventually and inevitably I will. I long to see my country, my friends, my cousins. But not yet.
Sue Green is a New Zealand journalist and writer living in Melbourne.