In early January 2021 I flew to Auckland from Melbourne. I had been in Melbourne on business since early November. I had expected at the time that it wouldn’t be necessary to do the 2 weeks of ‘isolation’ that was in place when I left in New Zealand, there being no such requirement going into Australia at the time. But..
I kept a diary of the 3 weeks, a few days before, then the solitary confinement and then a few days after. And apologies for the photos, my camera phone was a little crap.
Early January
I’ve managed to book isolation for January 9th, leaving Melbourne at 12:10 and arriving in Auckland at 17:50. The trick is just to spend a dozen hours or so reloading the MIQ page, eventually something convenient enough will come up. But all spaces are booked until March 28th (and none have yet been available after March 28th) so on first log-in you’ll be lucky if you see anything available. I’m surprised by mine to be honest, I’ve already spent 10 hours on this after cancelling my December 30th allocation as I still had work to do in Melbourne & nothing before January 18th has come up before. But over the last few days the 7th of January has been often available as has the 8th. On logging on today the 9th is immediately available and I grab it.
An earlier not used voucher
9th January
The plane is late leaving (for which Covid is blamed and we’re told that our safety is paramount). Melbourne airport is a ghost town especially once you’re through customs. They already have their post covid machines working, the whole process is more or less automated except at bag check where there’s two machines to walk through rather than one & passport check is manual (although auto option is available and has been for a few years). Only Bar Pulpo is open so I buy a focaccia (6/10) & a double espresso. I don’t have food ordered on the plane.
The plane trip is uneventful (no bumps) and we arrive in Auckland at about 6:50pm. We’re then told that we won’t be going to Christchurch after all (I never knew that we were). Some talk around that Novotel in Ellerslie is where we’re heading. The arrival card has a page of covid questions which I’m unimpressed with. We’re then told that we’re only allowed off the plane 10 people at a time. Once you eventually get off the one person wide queue is from the plane to the customs booths (probably about 500 metres or so). The queue constantly stalls. A 4yo behind me says ‘I don’t want to wear my mask’. Kids then get to go to the front on the suggest of a fellow passenger. I get queue jumped by yuppies, it’s almost like the ski lifts at Verbier. But being woke they stopped for sanitizer and so I jumped them. The firm doing the security is something like Northern Managed Facilities which must mean Northern Hemisphere as someone with a Euro accent checks me and his dog sniffs me and my bag. A few minutes later the yuppies get searched (they had got their bags before me so once again were in front). I get stopped by someone from Skyline Security now asking more questions. I’m back in front of the frequently sanitised yuppies. Eventually get out and are taken to the Holiday Inn at Manakau. Only 20 allowed on the bus. The bus driver has a plastic screen to protect him from us.
I will add audio of the bus driver message here (now added)
At hotel bus driver tells us to put on disposable masks as cloth ones are not clean and to stay two metres apart from anyone else. Staff who check us in are in pathetic full plastic gowns but nevertheless gowns that are not at all secure against these magic viruses. This is just theatre. The gowns are also disposable so complete waste. These staff are a combination of Indians (quite expected in this part of Auckland) and Europeans (from Europe not NZ and not at all expected).
The wonderfully protective gowns.
I havn’t agreed to isolation on my arrival card so I wonder where that leaves them legally. My wife states (by text, she’s in Dunedin) that they’ll probably send me back. I tell her that I hear someone speaking Russian. It’s about 9pm and she tells me she’s going to bed. So I text Доброй ночи to her (I know a little Russian, I actually did a course on it in Moscow a decade or more ago). She responds in French (we both know a little French).
Eventually I’m given a second floor room with balcony but would have preferred ground floor with access to outside. I think of ordering a rope ladder.
Booking in room, and PCR testing room. Taika Waitati tweeted a picture of the same room a week or so ago
Sunday 10th January day 2 of 14
Suddenly realize that I live a pretty healthy life and that being locked up in a room for two weeks on the second floor is not going to do me any good on that front. If you’re sick, isolation is a good way of making you sicker. First floor is fine, they have access to outside although like chickens in a coop (come on humans, stop doing this) there’s not much space outside. We have a balcony which is better than not having one, but exercise is not going to happen there.
Breakfast is outside door. It’s pretty bad. I’m vegan mostly (my body, my choice) which I’ve told them and the outside of the bag has this information on it along with info that I am a little sensitive to sugar. So of course there’s a carton of milk (heh it’s NZ, it’s mandatory). There’s another pear (must be a deal with a pear grower) which I’m not going to complain about and a banana. So the fruit is passable (the banana just). The bread is honestly the worst bread that I’ve ever tasted, who knows what the ingredients are but they’re very unlikely to be vegan so a few bites of that and it’s back in the bag to be discarded as rubbish. There’s some awful looking gruel, probably not vegan, which I’m going to pass on and a plastic bottle of water (awful amount of waste in this food system). Because I’m vegan there’s a paper cup of soy milk which I’m not in the habit of drinking so that goes in the sink (soz). I’m left with the banana and pear and the banana is looking a little worse for wear. Luckily I’ve done a supermarket order at 2am in the morning and that should be arriving in about an hour or so. We are prisoners here and it’s only the first 24 hours. I’ve also thought that if there really was a virus rampaging around the planet (this ain’t it) then the air conditioning system of these hotel rooms would be an ideal carrier (Ed. yes in January 2021 I havn’t rejected viruses in full)
Fuck.
On picking up groceries from reception I note that there is a reasonably large outdoor area in middle of hotel which the prisoners are allowed access to. And that the cafe seems to be open, so an espresso is not out of the question. Also I’m a little older, and therefore a little less noticed than I was when I was younger and I’m also married so no chance of this happening, but on way back can’t help but notice the nice looking 28yo women ahead of me. I wonder how they keep people from having sex. I bet there’s a little breaking of the 2 metre rule going on around the isolation hotels in this regard.
Lunch was awful, some sort of soup which I just rejected, more of the bread that has to be the worst bread in the world & a banana & pear. 1/10 for both lunch & breakfast.
Dinner was only just passable, spaghetti with a tomato based sauce & some sort of nondescript vegetable texture, and it was luke warm - I gave it a 3/10.
I was rung and asked some questions about my health at maybe 16:00 or so. Lazy day, didn’t really go out of my room very much other than to collect groceries.
Monday day 3 to Wednesday 13th January day 5 of 14
Missed on diary.
Thursday 14th January day 6 of 14
In the morning wake up have breakfast (passable potatoes in tomatoes, spinach 5/10). Then realised that I had to deal with an ant invasion, something very small sticky left on table and they’d also attacked closed water bottle & cup of soy milk which was untouched. Sign of drought in Auckland maybe. Asked for vacuum cleaner and was told that quarantine had told them that we were not allowed them. Ended up with a brush & shovel which did the job reasonably. And a can of black flag. Imagined the ants as Ant I fa while they suffered a destruction. Not very vegan I guess.
Was rung by nurse in morning (Indian? accent) to ask if I was fine. Of course I’m going to say yes even if I’m not but I am so yes was the answer (ha). Still don’t have my results back.
About 11am they (male NZ accent, Navy I guess) come over the loud speaker to say that someone has tested positive for corona virus so they’re doing a deep clean and we have to stay in our rooms. 30 minutes later back on the loudspeaker to state that they’re halfway through this deep clean & that the victims are isolated in their rooms so there’s no danger to the rest of us. A woman outside doing her daily exercise in a mask was not keen on going back inside. They had to call reinforcements.
12:20 notified that the ‘deep clean’ is finished. Honestly this is Orwellian but I guess I’m not the only feeling it, I wonder how widespread the cynicism is amongst the staff, seems some there but of course they have to enforce the rules. That wouldn’t hold up on Nuremburg though right?
Lunch was passable, veggies in a tomato based sauce.
Received my negative COVID test back in the late afternoon.
Dinner was a passable dhal & rice but nothing else.
Watched a little bit of crap NCIS, of course there’s an agenda being pushed, not quite sure what it was. Looked at the TV schedule for the next few days, can’t say that I’m impressed.
Read Epidemics & Society on the Balcony.
Started registration for an employee on wage subsidy
Spent an hour on Twitter regarding COVID, epidemics, woke racism & Emma Espiner trying to bullshit NZ (why do they do this) and then another hour later on dealing with woke.
Ant invasion continued, had to eventually spray table with black flag for discouragement reasons. And then discovered them invading the bathroom, specifically my toothbrush recharger which consequently got a clean, a little later.
Friday 15th January day 7 of 14
Same breakfast as yesterday, passable, and the ants returned en masse twice, first in the bathroom and later to the rubbish bin that had been cleaned the day before but which I’d thrown the sugary desert into (plastic bag insert and covered). These ants are ridiculous. More black flag along the floor and the ants went for a swim because what the hell else can I do. And I’m definitely not a fan of sprays - this would be first time since I was in Mildura 30 years ago. Jumped on Tripadvisor and can see that ants are a constant problem here. Probably due to the dryness of Auckland’s climate over the last few years? Another problem is that there’s only the bathroom sink to wash dishes in. It doesn’t really handle a bucket of water at a time, probably dead ants from the last 5 years clogging it up I guess.
Lunch & dinner were a bit crap. Didn’t really eat my dinner, a kind of bland asian style soupy thing with tofu, which may or may not have been vegan. Vegan is definitely an afterthought with whoever is providing this food. And instructions on sugar are also ignored. This is luckily not a huge problem for me.
A lot of people do managed exercise in the carpark over my balcony. But I can’t be bothered as you have to wear a mask. The same with the public space in the middle of the hotel, it would be nice to sit there for a few hours (it’s been sunny and warm) but not if I have to wear a fucking mask.
Listened to a podcast on South Dunedin and did some tweets on that.
Had a stoush with Michael Tobis’s sock puppet on Twitter. Think it was a draw, he’s a smart man but maybe on the wrong side when it comes to climate change activism.
Read the epidemic book in the morning and spent some time on spreadsheets in the evening. Some conversation with the employees during the day.
Keeping to myself & not having the air conditioning on might save me from extra days at this hotel. There’s been 2 cases so far & I wouldn’t be keen to get a virus that I think is harmless as it would mean a longer fucking stay, possibly at fucking barracks.
The world has gone fascist in my view.
Saturday 16th January day 8 of 14
Breakfast & lunch were crap. Breakfast was porridge (3/10) I added the blackcurrant juice to it and some of my rather rubbish substituted muesli from Countdown. Lunch (1/10) was uneatable unless starving, soggy chips & corn from a can in a sugary tomato sauce. Dinner was ok, curried chick peas & rice. 5/10
Probably too much time on Twitter the last 48 hours, need to go cold Turkey on it this week, have cycling course to catch up on tomorrow & business to do. Read a few chapters of Epidemics book covering riots & resistance and suspicion in Naples re Cholera. The working class was given short shrift really and their suspicions of poisoning probably have quite a lot of basis in fact. Class warfare and the rich of Naples had a different water supply than the poor. The book is not totally onside with the upper classes but it’s not exactly radical either allocating a little too much blame to the poor of the Naples flat in front of the harbour. That the poor were poisoned seems undoubted to my mind, the only real question is how. Anyway their resistance worked, the burghers backed off probably for fear of losing. It is undoubted that we will have to resist again now, but this time it’s a worldwide game.
Ordered from Countdown again, bottle of wine included, but delivery is for tomorrow.
No interaction with nurses today. No temp checks, no questions from memory.
Ants attacked the ‘cooler’ which is hardly worth its name. But I hope that it was their last hurrah, they need to bugger off.
Spent early morning until 2am checking out the resistance to vaccines. I’m a little shocked, learned about Cytokine storms from Professor Delores Cahill. Add this to reading on Naples 1884 yesterday (epidemic book), Arena on 5g conspiracies & Gates and the conclusion that I’ve been searching for suddenly appeared. The idiots are stunning in their disregard for human life. Tat Loo also linked the ‘odd fact’ that Pfizer execs are not taking their own vaccine. That’s like a CEO selling all his shares all of a sudden.
Highlights of “The Hamburg Syndrome” are eerie to say the least.
Sunday 17th January day 9 of 14
Ants seem to have given up for now. A few stragglers around but most seem to have decided risk is too high. My vegan credentials are at risk.
Breakfast, hard potato, spinach. Crap. Had bag of crisps (yuk but heh) as hunger filler instead.
Lunch, piss weak soup of straggler vegetables that need to be used, debatably vegan so went back the same way it came. Went and asked for some buns (as bread missed the Countdown order) and a half bag of supermarket wholemeal bread was delivered. Manager tried to convince me that the reason the daily bread tasted of lard was because it was sourdough but the chances of that are very low in my view. It really is the worst bread I’ve ever tried to eat. Good of the manager to try and fix things though.
Nurse checked in on my temperature (36.2) in morning. Asked me if I had any concerns and I said yes I did with the vaccines & maybe she should resist attempts to spread vaccine to frontline health workers. Guess I’m just a conspiracy theorist at this level, might remember me in a few months though.
10am guests/prisoners are exercising in carpark outside, still my view that having to wear a mask to do so makes this a counter productive strategy to stay healthy.
Building up a big collection of pears. My avocados are not ripening despite being hung in the sun in a plastic bag with a banana.
Monday 18th January day 10 of 14
Ants had a go at bathroom. Tolerated them for about 30m. Told them to fuck off and they ignored me.
We were given the message a few days ago that they’d be cutting hedges outside today. They weren’t, the vandals cut down the trees instead. Hell of a racket all day long, from early in the morning until about 5 or 6 or so.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner were terrible. I didn’t even eat the dinner. Vegans are catered for by getting the 3 vegies on a standard meat & 3 veggies diet. Maybe might get a bit of sugary tomato sauce added. Today I’ve received a sugary orange drink in a can, not for the first time, despite telling them that I don’t want these. The meals are, without exception, really fucking awful.
Finished my cycling course but nobody peer marked my essay (late in) so I will have to go back to it in the next round. Have a strong suspicion that maybe this version was a little too bolshie (Ed. it was but I passed by having one guy give me 100% which overcame a woke attempt to have me fail - I think if I remember correctly 4 markers in total).
Tuesday 19th January day 11 of 14
No ants to report. Strange as my glass of wine was left out all night, some sugar there in the bottom.
Breakfast & lunch have been awful so far. Only good thing is that there’s always some fruit but I can’t keep up with it. Have a collection of 6 pears & 3 apples right now. One banana is doing duty trying to ripen the avocados that I bought. Made myself some muesli with the berry juice that came. Yes I know the berry juice is sugary too, but not as bad as sugar & liquid with 5% (bet it’s lower) of orange juice.
Temp checked early afternoon, 36.7, god help anyone who’s into the 37s or higher.
Being locked down is a pain. I’m sick of it. Now we have to wear blue things on our wrists too, which is kind of like we’re the elites of the prisoners and those who don’t have the blue wrist bands are the plebs and subject to being removed from any common areas where you have to maintain 2m distance anyway.
Just for the record there is no way that I’ve contracted COVID while I’ve been here, I’ve mostly kept to myself in my room. No air conditioning turned on whole time. Time outside my room 15 minutes max, more like 10 minutes. Yesterday I didn’t go out at all.
Wednesday 20th January day 12 of 14
An eventful day. Spent too much time on Twitter, will need to cut that off tomorrow.
Breakfast was crap, two weetbix but no way of being able to heat up milk, which I despise anyway even if it’s soy.
Had the test in the afternoon, and this time they weren’t going to let me off with just a throat swab. The team that was in the hotel was from outside and the hotel didn’t know of them. So they insisted that I had to have a nose swab as well which I objected to. TBH I don’t want any fucking swabs going up my nose but I also had a very badly broken nose when I was younger which required reconstruction surgery and it’s not terribly straight as a result, so I both get blood noses reasonably frequently (last one a few days before arriving in NZ) and don’t trust the swab to not cause some damage on the way up to where I don’t want it to go anyway. It took about half an hour to attend to it, the arseholes basically got a security guy from Navy to stand guard “just in case” and eventually they made it clear that I could choose a throat swab but that they also took a swab from the end of my nose (not the back of it) as well, which was fine but maybe they should have made this clear from the start. Also throat swabs are no less accurate than nose swabs (German paper) so I’m not sure why there’s all this sudden interest in throwing a swab right up next to your brain, but I suspect the reason is rather unpleasant, like most things these days.
I also finally complained about the food and the noise outside my room, reasonably nicely but unfortunately the manager when he rang back said he’d spoken to the chef about it. That’s never a good thing when there’s only one chef.
The noise outside the window won’t be stopping this week unfortunately. I got a bottle of wine for my problems. Which briefly may have stopped me complaining about this place.
When dinner came it was the normal absolute crap but this time I’m ‘suspicious’ of the rice. I rejected it, didn’t eat more one small bite when my suspicions were raised due to the taste (if they want to get up to this mischief probably better not to have absolute bland fucking food). The colour of the rice didn’t alleviate my suspicions.
I have kept a sample of it and will test it. Hopefully there’s a simple test which I will then send along for a proper analysis if my suspicions are correct. (Ed. I still have it but have not sent it to be checked)
The suspect dinner.
Thursday 21st January day 13 of 14 (well 15 really, I don’t get out until late afternoon Saturday)
Not getting out until 6:40 pm is an issue. The last flight to Dunedin is in the early afternoon. Although I’m probably going to get the train that too is a little problematic. There is one on Sunday morning but then I basically just have an evening here before jumping on it and heading to Wellington. Won’t see anybody up this way as a consequence. If I don’t take that one, Monday is the first train down to Wellington so I won’t be able to organise my Australian passport on Monday morning, and if I miss that one It’s Thursday before there’s another train. My choice is Wellington for passport on Monday and trip to Dunedin on Tuesday or here until Tuesday at least (fly) or Thursday (Train to get back on Saturday I suspect)
The isolation is unfair on non-Aucklanders and especially any South Islanders (or lower North Islanders) doing isolation in Auckland. You cannot guarantee that you will be allowed to leave, if you fail a test on the 3rd to last day or the last day then you’ll be staying longer and your flight booking, or train/bus booking, will disappear. You can’t book early to get a cheaper airfare either, or if you do it’s more than likely you’ll lose it. There is also only 3 trains a week between Auckland & Wellington and if you get out late in the day you’re likely going to incur another day of hotel expense whether by air or train as the train leaves in the morning.
I wonder if those taken to Rotorua or Christchurch get flown or bussed back to Auckland, if they do that’s pretty unreasonable in regards to those of us who have to purchase our own flights (you can currently only fly into Auckland from international destinations).
Breakfast, yes well. For the first time while here my breakfast was very obviously not vegan (instead of not so obviously) and there was a nice little egg for me this morning. Fuckwits. Glad I didn’t eat the dinner last night (but then wouldn’t have anyway). I did my time as a kitchen hand when younger so I know what absolute shits chefs can be (and the occasional kitchen hand). I wrote a dirty email to Ian the manager cancelling the rest of my meals & ordered enough food to keep me going until Saturday via the absolutely shit Countdown (min order $50, $14 for delivery).
Lunch arrived regardless, I ate the banana. The lunch doesn’t look too bad (some beans) but they can go fuck themselves after these earlier shenanigans. I’m on meals strike.
Temp checked by nurses at 10am or so. 36º
Friday 22nd January day 14 of 14 (well 15 really, I don’t get out until late afternoon Saturday)
Had a few bowel issues today, sore stomach at one stage, not sure what did it, maybe the (sugar free) chocolate.
At about 6pm visited the Nurses station to find out about my results. They seemed surprised I had failed to receive them but assured me that if I had had a positive test that I’d already know. Basically anybody can have a positive test (due to what PCR ‘tests’ pick up) so that didn’t exactly reassure me but then WHO has in the last 24 hours stated that PCR tests should not be wound around so many times so that is one way of catching them out, obviously WHO is finally waking up to this shit but whether the antigen tests can be outrun is still an unknown.
I have absolutely no symptoms of anything. Maybe all the colds & flus I’ve had in the past is an advantage here.
Spent all day on Twitter, not sure if that’s unproductive or not, it can be, but I definitely outran a few foes today, when you’re angry that’s definitely an advantage.
Saturday 23rd January day 15 of 14 the last day (one hopes)
Woke up early, did some Twitter, maybe slowly some people are getting this. Then went back to sleep and woke up closer to 9am
Tidied up a little, everything is more or less ready to go at this stage (10:00am)
At 10:30 am I went down to find out what my results were, because quite unsurprisingly I still don’t have them. I was told by the nurses station that the wellness team next door was looking into it. So I popped next door and spoke to Maddie about it and she said that they were looking into it and would ring me when they found out. I asked her if I was the only one that had not got my negative result back yet and she said that she didn’t know and when I rephrased that she said that she couldn’t tell me other people’s results only mine, which is not what I was asking for of course.
At about 11:15 Maddie called me and told me (on the hotel phone) that my results were negative. I passed this on to others. My wife heard the conversation on a mobile phone call.
Letter re departure (camera phone was awful soz)
Prologue.
That’s the end of my diary. I spent the night in the Auckland CBD (went there by bus) where some unexpected fireworks around midnight or so got a few people going. Someone ahead of me on the street joked that it was ISIS. Not out of the question. There was also some disturbance on Twitter later when I looked about these fireworks. Honestly it sounded like Auckland was being bombed.
Scooter riders don’t really care for the environment.
The next day (Monday) I hired an electric car (a BMW) to see how they performed (pretty good) and went and saw my brother and sister in law in Tauranga. Stayed the night down there and was too late back to Auckland for my passport interview. So flew down to Dunedin (next train not until Thursday, and train only goes to Wellington, so you need Ferry and Bus as well - quite a trip) in the evening.
The Wellerman Song is about as well. Is it viral or manipulated?
That’s all. I will now try and get the Bus Driver audio added, I havn’t done that before.
The whole thing you experienced was a level of ridiculousness that defies logic. I'm just imagining all the player bots conducting the charade of Quarantine Hotel. Scary that they all likely believed the narrative, good little drones that they are.
Frightening. And funny. A very good short film l can envision, stark, shot with stark angles