Couple counting down to reunion after year apart
When the good news finally arrived Rachael Forsyth had not seen her partner in person for one year, 22 days, six hours and 30 minutes.
Now the Nelson woman can switch from a phone app tracking the time of her separation from partner Jerry Lynn, who lives on the Gold Coast, to one counting down to a trans-Tasman reunion.
Forsyth and her daughter Olivia watched Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern make the trans-Tasman bubble announcement on Tuesday. Lynn was watching too on his phone.
The pair tried to keep their expectations in check after a rollercoaster year as rumours of bubble dates came and went.
‘‘When she said the date (April 19) I burst into tears and Jerry looked a little tearful too,’’ Forsyth said.
The couple met online two years ago, and in person when Lynn, a Kiwi, returned to visit family. Since then they have kept up a remarkable long-distance schedule, taking turns to visit each other an average of every three weeks. Their longest time apart was five weeks. That was until New Zealand shut its borders on March 19 last year.
Days before Forsyth had been visiting Lynn, enjoying the early autumn sunshine on the Gold Coast. She came home and went into selfisolation a week before the whole country went into lockdown.
The couple had been used to being apart, and were in contact day and night thanks to phone apps, but the Covid restrictions added another dimension. To compensate they went on virtual romantic weekends, connecting through video calls as they each travelled to holiday accommodation. They cooked meals together and once managed to go to the same movie at the same time in cinemas 2300 kilometres apart.
But there were inevitably down times as the months wore on. While it was possible for Kiwis to visit Australia from late last year, the time and cost of quarantine on returning was not feasible.
‘‘In the beginning we used to say one day closer, but after six months we just stopped saying it,’’ Forsyth said. ‘‘It kind of just raised our expectations, and then nothing would happen.’’
Their hopes were lifted and dampened again two weeks ago when Ardern scheduled a trans-Tasman announcement, only to say there would be no date nominated until this week.
Forsyth took a calculated risk and booked a flight anyway on April 23. It turned out to be on the money, with the non-quarantine bubble opening four days earlier. Now she just has to wait a little longer – as of noon today, 12 days, 23 hours, 15 minutes. And counting.