Margaret drove us to the airport, on nearly deserted streets, as we half expected to be stopped and questioned as to why we were out driving during the lockdown. Our tickets and passport were kept close at hand just in case we were stopped. But we made it to the airport, without issue, three hours before our flight time.
Wellington airport was almost deserted when we arrived, so check-in was super fast, although we got concerned when the check-in machine allowed us to enter all required information, before telling us to see an agent at the counter. At the desk, it was "please stand behind the green line", from where we could barely pass our tickets and passports to the ticket agent, but all was good and we soon had boarding passes for both flights.
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| Marlene At Deserted Wellington Airport |
Armed with boarding passes, we headed outside, where we walked around and around the empty parking lot, to get a little exercise while avoiding people. Two policemen yelled over to ask if we were okay, and laughed when we told them that we were just social distancing.
Our aircraft to Auckland was an A320, and there were less than 20 passengers on board, so we had nobody for 4 rows in front of us and 6 rows behind us....expensive social distancing for Air New Zealand. There were no hiccups along the way, and we arrived in Auckland on schedule.
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| Wellington City In The Rear-View Mirror |
The joy of arriving on schedule was that we had more than 5 hours to wait in Auckland, for our Vancouver flight. We wandered towards the international terminal, and paused in the shade of a pohutukawa tree to eat our packed lunch. With the lockdown there are no stores or eateries open at the airports, and we knew that it would be about seven hours until we got fed on the plane, so we had come prepared.
Eventually we headed into the terminal, which required verification of passports and tickets, as only ticketed passengers were allowed into the terminal. This terminal was a lot busier than the domestic terminal, but the extra health inspection involved only answering a few straightforward questions, before receiving a green sticker on our boarding pass, to indicate that we had complied with Canada's new requirement - no fever, no cough, not refused boarding on another flight because of covid-19.
Under normal circumstances, the walk from security to the gates meanders through the duty free stores, but today large moveable panels blocked all view of, and access to, the duty free stores. When you most need a drink, you cannot get one :-)
The flight to Vancouver was much busier than the flight to Auckland, and almost every seat on the 787 aircraft was occupied. A lot of the passengers were Brits returning to London, transferring in Vancouver. Our seat mate was a young woman from Saskatchewan, whose New Zealand adventure was cut short by the covid-19 pandemic. Thankfully there was no sign of coughing or sickness around us on the plane, but we wore masks the whole time, just for a little bit of extra insurance. It is sad that although we are all in this together, you have to treat everybody as a potential "enemy".
Although we were almost an hour late leaving Auckland, we arrived in Vancouver on time, and cleared the formalities very quickly - we had to answer a few additional questions on the electronic immigration / customs machine, and then a CBSA agent read us chapter and verse of the emergency regulations requiring us to self-isolate, and required us to acknowledge that we would do so. We were asked where we were going to, and when we said "Vancouver Island" we were asked how we were going to get there. We responded that we were planning to take the ferry, and all was good, we were free to go....almost.
They had problems with the luggage system, so with several false starts it took us almost an hour to recover our bags (almost the last bags to appear on the belt). But at last, the bags appeared and we headed for the taxi queue.
There was no problem getting a taxi, and we had a good chat with the taxi driver enroute to Horseshoe Bay. He told us that usually there are over 3,000 taxis operating in Vancouver, but now there are less than 100. Some drivers are too scared of catching the virus to work, while others have quit driving due to the lack of fares. Our trip took us through downtown Vancouver, where most stores were closed, but a few remained open, as the closure order is not mandatory. We made it to the ferry with about two minutes to spare.
BC Ferries was being very careful. Foot passengers boarded via the car deck, rather than an overhead walkway. Vehicle passengers were requested to stay in their vehicles, unless using the washrooms, and almost all of the passenger area was roped off, with passengers only allowed to sit in every second row of a small area on one side of the ship. All services on the ferry were shut down, but we managed to get two bags of peanuts out of a vending machine, to avoid having to gnaw our arms off....yes we were almost that hungry.
We took advantage of our time on the ferry to book a shuttle service to pick us up at Departure Bay and transport us home, so there was no waiting around once we got to Nanaimo.
All was good at home, and our friend Darlene had stocked the fridge with groceries, which was excellent, as you have to wait several weeks to have groceries delivered from any of the local stores.
So now we are in 14 days of mandatory self-isolation, but we are at home, and know that as long as we did not pick up the bug on the journey home, in 14 days we will be free to roam like the rest of the population, if roaming is still allowed in two weeks time. I suspect that restrictions will get tighter before they are relaxed.
All's well that ends well, except for the ten years that I have aged in the past 2 weeks.
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