On March 18th I went to Ulva island with Sam and Laura. Ulva island has no pests which kill the birds, so there are a ton of birds there. I only saw one bird that I hadn’t seen before, and unfortunately I wasn’t able to get clear picture of it. Sadly I still didn’t get to see a kiwi. One of the highlights for me was the boat trip back, while we were there the wind picked up and with it the waves. They couldn’t send the regular ferry over because the waves were too big, so they sent a smaller boat to get us in groups of 9. The ride back was fantastic, we bounced up and down as we cut one direction and seawater sprayed everywhere around us (the boat was covered on all sides), then we changed direction and basically surfed one of the waves across the bay. It was a fantastic bonus!
Covid-19 was getting more concerning. Australia was requiring 2 weeks of quarantine for travelers coming from abroad. That means that if I went to Sydney on the 25th I would have to quarantine for 2 weeks and only have a week there before having to return home. So I thought about just staying in NZ for a couple weeks and then grabbing my original flight to Chicago on April 15th.
Sam and Laura were starting to get concerned about their flights back, they talked to the British embassy, who told them if they didn’t get back in the next week they probably wouldn’t be able to for quite a while. The USA has the advantage of not having to change planes in another country on the way, but I was thinking we are probably in for a similar situation.
At some point I realized that I have no medical insurance in America. NZ isn’t a problem, it’s rather affordable to have travel insurance here and even though “pandemics aren’t covered” it would still be a lot more reasonable to pay medical expenses out of pocket here than in the states. Between that and not having a place of my own to go (was planning on staying with family and friends while I figured out the work situation), I realized I was probably going to be staying in NZ for a little while.
New Zealand air canceled my flight and issued me a credit, they announced that they won’t be flying from Auckland to Chicago from March 31st to May 30th.
Jayden was still hiking around Stuart Island and wasn’t supposed to be back with signal for a couple day yet. We had joked that if Coronavirus became a big deal I could crash on his couch for a bit, it looked like that might be more likely than we thought.
On March 19th New Zealand closed its borders to non citizens or permanent residents. At that point there were 28 confirmed cases in New Zealand.
On March 20th I took a short flight from Oban to Invercargrill and picked up my bounce box. I felt kind of torn between waiting for Jayden and just trying to get north.
On March 21st New Zealand announced a four level alert system, currently at level 2, which asks workplaces to let people work from home when possible and when not possible to allow distancing, and to limit all non-essential domestic travel. Jayden got out of the bush to a crazy world
On March 22rd Jayden and I grabbed a ride to Dunedin, but when we got there we found out that New Zealand moved to level 3 and in just over 48 hours we would be moving to level 4, which is full lockdown, no travel between provinces, people are asked not to leave their house except for exercise locally, and all shops are to close except grocery stores and pharmacies. Level 3 allows more travel and more most stores to be open (takeaway only, no hanging out in public, no cafes), but is similar to level 4.
I checked into Central backpackers and was basically interrogated about where I was from, how long I had been in the country, where I had been staying the past couple days. They seemed concerned that I had been in Invercargrill (where there was one confirmed case already) and I swear they almost didn’t let me in, but eventually they gave me a room. Everywhere I went I had to put my name on a sheet with contact information so that I could be contacted if there was a possible exposure. Even to get take away sushi, I had to sign in.
Jayden wanted to fly out of Christchurch because it was cheaper, but was planning on hitching the almost 6 hour drive. I decided I could pay the extra money and fly out of Dunedin on the 24th to Auckland.
On March 24th I got to Auckland airport several hours before Jayden did. I took a walk, because I had nothing else to do, and by sheer luck ran into Laura from the trail, who works at the airport. She moving into an apartment building where they were housing all the airport firefighters. We got a bottle of wine and Doritots and dip and hung out until Jayden’s flight got in, then I went back to the airport and met him and one of his housemates picked us up and took us to their place in Mount Roskill. One of their flatmates was going to stay with his girlfriend for the (minimum) four weeks of level 4 lockdown, after which they’d consider moving back to level 3 if things were going well. I was able to sublet the other housemate’s room for the four weeks.
Holger got stranded at friend’s place unable to leave NZ, but he finally managed to get home to Germany on April 11th. Sam was only about 3 km away from me at an airbnb for a while but managed to get home during the lockdown. Amber, Will and Alex were staying with Will’s family in Wellington. I believe Sam and Laura stayed near Queenstown.
All visitor visas have been extended until September 25th, so luckily I don’t have to leave until then. My dad shipped my laptop to me, so I’m hoping I might be able to do some freelance work online, and was able to do my taxes and edit my pictures from the trail.
New Zealand announced that we will be returning to level 3 on April 28th, the early lockdown was very successful and there are very few new cases (3-5 cases per day the last week) and all of those have been linked to known cases.
America on the other hand is a hot mess, I feel like I made the right decision by staying.