From Ireland to Perth

(VIA HOTEL QUARANTINE IN BRISBANE)

BY DEBBIE CASHMAN

If you are lucky enough to be granted an exemption to visit Ireland, or unlucky enough to need it, mandatory hotel quarantine is par for the course. These days depending on which route you take, you may need to do it on either side of the big trip. As if having a loved one at home in Ireland sick or dying isn’t hard enough! Saying that, I count my blessings everyday that I was able to get back home to Cork last January to spend my Dad’s last few weeks with him, he got to see myself and my three kids and was surrounded by family in the end. In an Ireland that was ravaged by Coronavirus at the time, we were the lucky ones, just to be there. After he passed, we had to wait months to get flights back to Perth, and just when our eventual flights home were coming Top: Happily reunited at home. Above: The empty airports we travelled through on our way home to Perth to fruition, they got cancelled in early May. The lady who we booked our flights with was great, she answered emails at 2.30am her time and desperate phone calls at 3.30am my time. We got flights booked, not the usual one hop from Dublin to Doha and then onto Perth, but Dublin to Germany overnight, kids sleeping on airport benches, then onto Doha, where you are praying your Covid tests a couple of days earlier are still valid, before an eventual flight to Brisbane – because it’s any port in a storm! It ain’t home but it’s as close as we can get for now! The past few months in Ireland I would joke about the trauma I had ahead of me, being locked in a hotel room with 3 kids, ok, I was only half joking. I knew, like the trip I had just done, it was not going to be fun, but it was a case of get the head down and just get through it, as freedom beckoned on the other end. After four months of lockdown in Ireland, it was enough of a carrot to dangle! We were brought through the airport by the police with the rest of the overseas potential contaminants, and processed, processed, processed, even my passport had jet lag! After a few hours we were assigned a hotel in Brisbane city, other families were being sent to the Gold Coast, which I knew was another hour or two on a bus so I was happy enough to get somewhere closer. Our cohort were taken by police and army to the city, we were forbidden to take photos or film of this surreal escort, not quite the cead mile failte you like after travelling for 3 days, but with Covid raging through India, and the rest of the world far from having a full handle on this pandemic, there was a huge relief in just being back into the safety of Australia. From Ireland having over a thousand cases a week for months, you’d be constantly and anxiously trying to avoid people and surfaces, where as here in Australia, you would be very unlucky to catch it.

Above: Sleeping at the airport in Germany. Right, from top to bottom: The exercise bike which we used to kill many hours while in quarantine, the view from our hotel in Brisbane, home to freedom at last in Perth

Once we were processed at the hotel reception, we were sent up in the lift by one cop, met at the 22nd floor by another cop, and told not to open the door for any reason, bar food deliveries or Covid tests. They said when you open the door, you must wear a mask, the windows must be closed and everyone inside also had to wear masks, we had been wearing face masks so often for months it was like a second skin. I thought – you had me at windows! Once inside I was only too delighted to see we had a two bedroom, two bathroom, two balcony apartment. Fully fitted kitchen, proper bathroom, two TV’s, washing machine, dryer, iron (not that I’d use it) for pajamas… Gorgeous views over Brisbane city, out of my daughter’s bedroom you could see Suncorp Stadium and see the fireworks after a big game! Life looked so normal from inside looking out! I know, I am probably bucking the trend of whiners, but our quarantine wasn’t too bad at all! I dare say I enjoyed it a bit. We played card games and board games, watched movies, pulled the furniture around and did some class of ninja warrior course, ordered Uber Eats, watched electrical storms, housework, homeschool, Facetime, exercise bike competitions, then more Uber Eats. Seriously it could have been a lot tougher. Or maybe that feeling comes when I get the bill! Flew six hours home to Perth (only in Australia could a domestic hop take so long and still be in the same country!) to be finally reunited with my husband, emotional airport scenes, and gratitude of the life we have and all we enjoy. Readjusting to a normal life, kids back in school, I am back to work, we have been to the cinema a few times to see movies we’d hadn’t known were released, been to playgrounds that had been so long out of bounds, to Latitude (the kids fun centre in Joondalup) to watch my kids, jump, flip, sweat and laugh with their friends, and know that the little sacrifice we make to keep the unseen serpent that is Covid out, is more than worth it.