Trip to Australia

Adventures in dystopian travel

As we were finally allowed to I flew to Queensland (the first Australian State to open to the non-jabbed) on the 4th May via the cheapest place to fly out of NZ at the time, Wellington, catching up with both family and M from Substack in the Wellington region on the 3rd. I kept a diary. The last 9 days included an unexpected delay of 7 days, in a Melbourne apartment by myself, courtesy of Jacinda.

3rd May

It was a bit of a rush to the airport, was probably a minute or two late but after a brief word to each other the Air NZ staff allowed me on the flight. There was only one flight at the time, so no other passengers other than for NZ680 to Wellington (go for it numerologists but how do you know i've given you the right details?) so they knew I was travelling to Wellington.

Rikki is still hobbling a little and had taken car to carpark so I had to rush out there grab my jacket and say our goodbyes there. I didn't look for the poo car (Ingrid was not at home last night) as not enough time and it looks like she parks it up in a barn anyway due to spiderwebs. I was one of the last through "customs" (but not the last) and was asked by guy at bags if I had a mask. I said no I"m exempt which he accepted without argument. I then said something along the lines of 'it's about time that they got rid of this nonsense isn't it" to which he replied that he thought masks had done some good. That got my response that they had negative efficacy or in other words that they're harmful. To which he replied as I was now walking to the conveyor belt that in Minnesota that they had so many deaths and NZ had fewer. My reply to that was that all statistics were bogus (remember I have a short amount of time to make my point) which elicited his response that he didn't think so. I said that 'no you're wrong' which elicited an interesting response something along the lines of 'no I just have a different point of view' when in fact only one of us can be right about this. I stated again that he was definitely wrong but by this time I was moving out of his range. I briefly wondered if this dissent was going to cause any issues but my bags travelled the non intervention route so that was good. The next stop was at the gate where I was asked for mask again (it's rare to be asked these days) to which I replied once again that I was exempt (I think there's only one other maskless person today) to which the hostess asked if I had my exemption on my phone to which I replied that 'no I don't" and "I can go now right" having scanned my boarding pass. There were police around at all stages but they did not interfere and I then walked to the plane.

As almost always in Dunedin there was somebody I knew, Danny the Ukrainian protestor (he's from Israel) with his family. I have played tennis against him, last time he won.

At Wellington as arranged M picked me up and at about 11am after breakfast at hers we headed up to Fielding stopping in Otaki at her SILs to pick up some feijoas & Levin for a coffee break and a quick look around Palmerston North with a stop by the military takeover of Massey University with nice houses on other side. Then after contacting both brothers ascertained where dad was and went and said hello. Met his girlfriend (from Canada/Hendon - she mentioned Golders Green - next door to Hendon - which I said I knew as I'd spent some time there). Discussion went to Dad's father/grandfather, Dad didn't know anything about his father and grandfather’s decade or more in Toronto or his father’s military call-up and said that his father had been part of the home front here in NZ. When I mentioned that they were also obviously masons dad was completely unsurprised at that mentioning that his father never went along to (anglican) church with his wife or family (this might be the Methodist kicking in though). M was late picking me up from Dad’s and not answering phone so I assumed I’d been dumped and headed to local airport to make sure I didn’t miss flight in morning. But M turned up at bus stop before bus to airport so all good, had dinner with her and family back in Wellington at a nice restaurant in the political part of town which was new to me. Stayed at hotel nearby.

Dad has bad skin cancer on leg and is waiting for op. I told him not to get any more jabs.

4th May

Had coffee with brother & his wife in the morning (who had just come across on the ferry after visiting Otago) and then got a taxi out to airport. Brother's not going to get booster and has been kicked off Facebook marketplace without explanation or any idea why really. One of their daughters is in Queenstown the other in Roxburgh.

The taxi driver to airport was an atheist from the sub-continent and it wasn't very long before he was agreeing with me regarding the current nonsense. He said that NZ could not go rogue on its own, needed other countries around to join in, But added that we were far better off in NZ than China for example (it is quite mad in Shanghai right now)

Ingrid Leary was at the airport, I could see the surprise on her face, to see the neighbour that she tried to accuse of putting poo on her car, as I raced past her.

At airport first problem was that machines demanded that I confirm vaccinations. So attendant started helping me but then said that I had to fill in the DFD before I could leave. Which took me close to the hour before flight cut off for bags. Next problem was that the guy who had said that I should do that wasn't there on return and the new guy said could not go in without vaxx certificate. I disputed this and he got the supervisor Mike (assumed name) to come over who repeated this which I disputed, he repeated, I disputed and then he asked me if I had Oz passport and then my departure card was organized. Mike said that the Australian Embassy had told them (they'd rung) to not let anybody on plane without vaxx cert and he asked me if I had to answer that question on the DFD which I said no that I didn' t have to. He said that they'd had to refuse entry for a few the previous day. This is not right, the Queensland government site makes no such requirements for entry and the Federal Government only requires that you fill in the DFD. The left hand doesn't seem to know what the right hand is doing. Or maybe this dispensation is just until after the election and they don't actually want people to get used to it.

On front page of newspaper Bill Gates, hands outstretched, still wants to kill everyone, still wants shit restrictions. Really he should catch the next flight off the planet.

Customs was a bit of a problem, machine put my NZ passport on stop and I had to go through manually. Not sure if that was passport issue (OZ or NZ) or a Cindy issue.

Was not asked for mask until I got on plane and even then attendant said I didn't need one on plane only when I got to Brisbane airport. I'm not sure what the requirements at airport are but I told her that I was both exempt and considered the masks to be harmful and then just proceeded to my seat. I was given the stares a few times on way to seat at back of plane but they looked like 'is he allowed to do that' stares rather than "I'm gonna die" stares. Sat between two mask but it all seems ok. Nevertheless I am unsure if passengers would be as happy as they were midflight in the US when the Florida judge said 'remove them' and basically everyone cheered.

Far too many security (covid) announcements. Took about 5 minutes.

Despite the goddawful DFD which we're supposed to fill out we were still presented with manual arrival cards for Brisbane on the plane.

Told the woman next to me that Americans were bypassing mask rules simply by eating nuts through the whole journey after she'd asked hostess if she could not wear one. I'm not wearing one, they're not hassling me.

Just had a very loud announcement that we must wear facemasks other mouth and nose.

Landed in Brisbane on time, when I got to customs I chose person rather than machine as I wanted to come in on NZ passport and I knew that wasn't working on the machines when I left Wellington. But customs goes on arrival cards not the stupid electronic DFD that you're told that you have to fill in at Wellingon. Anyway one of the questions on that is tuberculosis but only if you're not an Australian citizen. So half way through processing my NZ passport I was asked if I was an Australian citizen so then he changed me over to Oz passport and gave both passports to a woman and I was told to go to the counter 5 metres behind customs. Was asked to fill out a form which had 3 questions, are you v'd, do you have a medical reason not to be v'd or are you unv'd. I knew my rights at this stage so when they asked me if I was v'd or not I stated that it was no longer a requirement for entry into Queensland (or Victoria & NSW for that matter). This was acknowledged and they wrote a letter on my arrival card which I wasn't absolutely confident would get me outside without a hostile stay. But it did with no problems. The gist that I had was that despite travel into the 3 eastern states of Oz being allowed for the un'vd it's not really desired.

The Brisbane International terminal is basically deserted. I go out to the buses to Sunshine Coast because board in unpersonned info booth is saying there's one in 30 mins or so but guy out there says it left 20mins ago and after 90mins trying to figure it out I gave up and got the train up to Landsborough instead, about 30mins from Alexandra Headlands and then hopped on bus for rest of trip getting off at Sunshine Coast Uni where friend said he'd pick me up. The 90mins at Airport was not completely wasted as organised new sim for one phone and paid for the other. Kookaburras were very vocal at Uni bus stop. That’s a better welcome to Australia.

Went with friends to dinner down in new commercial part of Alexandra Headlands kind of similar to docklands. Nice enough. Great to have friends Apartment to use. Crashed out on sofa at about 8:30pm and went to bed at 1am.

More to come.

Alexander Headlands

Part 2 is here.