Ballerinas Aren’t The Only Ones that Can Pivot

Well, COVID-19 has certainly put a spanner in everybody’s holiday works since it began.

We were all set to travel to Israel and Jordan in May 2020 but that pesky pandemic obviously put paid to that. In the lead-up, we were still holding out hope until the very end but alas, it was postponed for a year (and still hasn’t eventuated!)

Instead, we thought we’d explore some of our own vast and beautiful continent and venture down to the wilds of Van Diemen’s Land, for a family road trip around Tassie in January 2021. With overseas travel canned, we were being encouraged to bolster our own travel industry and to get out and see Australia. We were happy to oblige. During December 2020, however, a couple of weeks before we were due to go, there was an unexpected case of COVID in our immediate, local area, sparking an avalanche of cases. We had to go into a strict lockdown over Christmas and the rest of the country decided they didn’t want to take a chance on anyone from our community spreading disease in their pristine, COVID-fee states. We could almost hear the thud of the state borders slamming shut from here. We were locked out. Tasmania would have to wait. Tentatively, we re-booked for December 2021. Surely, we’d be out of this mess by then?

By the end of January 2021, we were lulled into a false sense of security, thinking we had virtually kicked this pandemic in the proverbial. Mask and worry-free, we were roaming the streets again, visiting friends, having parties, going to stadiums, living our normal lives. I’ll admit I almost felt a little smug - albeit with a pinch of sympathy thrown in - watching the news of overseas cases escalating, giving my fellow-Aussies a pat on the back for the way we’d knuckled down and beaten the virus. But…as the good Lord says, “Pride cometh before a fall!”.

By June, one measly little case - just ONE lousy case - acquired from an international traveller, had set things on a downward trajectory and we found ourselves back in the grip of COVID again. In the past, being touted as a “hot spot” was flattering. When Barry Manilow sang about the Copacabana being “the hottest spot north of Havana” I’m sure he had only good things in mind. When Sydney was christened a “hot spot” in 2021 though, the term had taken on a whole new meaning and we were a long way from the Copa. More correctly, we should have been called a “not spot”. Sydney-siders were not welcome to leave and visiting hours for the Premier State were off limits.

As cases rose into the thousands, we were all urged to get vaccinated as our only way to climb out of the COVID pit. By November, we were starting to see a glimmer of light peeping out from the end of the virus-ridden tunnel. Our state had achieved an impressive 90% vaccination rate and nationwide, state premiers were threatening to sweep the dust from their garden paths and cautiously reopen their borders. We waited with bated breath to see if Tasmania would greet us with open arms. Unfortunately, Tasmania’s arms remained firmly folded and our foray into the forests and ramblings around the rugged rocks of the elusive Apple Isle were not to be.

So, it was back to the drawing board. If Tassie wouldn’t have us, Victoria would. It’s all set. In early December, the whole Jones crew will travel down to the Great Ocean Road via the coast road through the South Coast of NSW, for our first ever ridgy-didge road trip. We can’t wait!!!