The End of the Road?

Singapore, New Zealand and Australia 2020

by

Meyricke Serjeantson

Last year, my holiday was rudely interrupted when I had a heart attack in Melbourne. This proved to be scary at the time but, within a couple of months, I was restored to my usual state of good health, albeit one which depended on copious quantities of medication for its maintenance. I had to curtail my holiday and to return home about three days early and without visiting Guangzhou.

This year, circumstances curtailed my trip even more and may have curtailed my travelling for good.

As I left the UK, stories were emerging from China of a strange virus which had affected and killed many people in the previously little heard of city of Wuhan.

When I arrived in Singapore, the walk-through thermometers at Changi were manned and we were told to beware of strange coughs, temperatures etc etc. When I arrived at The Peninsula/Excelsior, I was asked to sign a statement that I hadn’t visited Wuhan or a few other places, didn’t have a temperature & wasn’t otherwise ill. The receptionist also applied a thermometer to my forehead and pronounced me fit to stay there.

The city was a little quieter than usual, there were fewer queues at some of the restaurants that I often visit, and more people than usual were wearing masks. The TV news bulletins were dominated by tales of the virus and, in particular, of the coach party from Wuhan, who had enjoyed a holiday in the city and had left a trail of ill health behind them.

The taxi driver who delivered me back to Changi was concerned that the city was notably quieter than usual and that his business was falling away.

I arrived at Christchurch Airport to find that there were a few leaflets asking us to self-isolate if we felt poorly but no other obvious signs of concern whatsoever. Concern about the virus obviously hadn’t arrived in New Zealand and I was able to watch passengers queuing to board a large cruise ship in Auckland Harbour.

When I left for Australia, a fortnight later, I found a similar state of affairs. No great concern at the airport and business continuing as usual. A week after I left, the Ruby Princess, another large cruise ship, docked in Sydney and released its passengers without any form of quarantine. It transpired that many of them had the virus, were busy infecting people in Sydney and had also infected many in New Zealand when they had docked there a few days earlier. The outbreak in China was being discussed on the TV but there was still no sense of urgency in the discussions.

My return to New Zealand was still without complications. Once again, there were requests to go into isolation if I had been to China, Iran or Italy but no attempt to check either my health or my itinerary.

Once more, I settled into the routine of watching the TV news, studying the internet and not worrying much about events.

When I reached the South Island, events in the real world were starting to become more urgent and I started to worry. This lead to a reduction in my hours of sleep which caused me to worry still more. In Dunedin, I tried to contact Air New Zealand with a view to moving my flight home forward by a few days and cancelling the stops in Singapore and Malaysia. This failed completely as their phone lines were jammed solid.

In the end, I left Dunedin several days early, drove at speed to Christchurch Airport and changed my flight. Two days later, this had been cancelled by Air New Zealand and I was back where I started and worried sick. Valerie’s travel agent found me another ticket and, still worried, I finally made it back to Heathrow. There was no real concern there about my health although I was given a letter asking me to self isolate should I feel poorly. I was able to stop worrying but that was as far as it went.

I now sit at home, not able to leave except for my daily walk and trips to the food shops and am wondering when, if ever, I will be able to enjoy another trip to the other side of the world.