Hello from Australia

[philelltt]

You probably have read that down here in Australia, the borders are closed. They have been that way for quite some time and look as if that will stay for quite some time in future. I'll try and give a personal post as why we Australians don't write letters to our Members of Parliament to complain about travel restrictions.After all, we are locked in!

My partner broke his leg just before last Christmas and it is now getting better enough to think about travel. We had some holidays booked overseas and interstate for our June-July August Winter, but that didn't happen because of covid19, the broken leg and closed borders.

The airlines cancelled the flights starting in March and continued to do that all year. So eventually we got refunded for the Europe trip and a Jetstar voucher for the interstate trip. I don't want to repeat that airline cancellation thing again as it was a real pest.

What I do notice is that the garden centre/home improvement centres here are really busy. So are the local sports facilities, playgrounds and beaches. We are told that traditional local holiday spots are booked out for school holidays.Our state goverment put out one of those voucher deals for city hotels and local tourist places. The vouchers went in the first hour.

I'm wondering if we have got out of the habit of even thinking much about international travel, and other things have occupied us instead. After all, the stories from overseas don't paint a "fun" picture of overseas travel these days. We'd need to get special permission to leave the country and getting back would be a nightmare of trying to get approval for hotel quarantine.

Local and interstate travel are quite popular now. Mostly to see family, as our intertate borders were also locked while we got the virus under control.

Perhaps the aspirational aspect of overseas leisure travel has somewhat evaporated and we have got into other habits. That's a worrying thing if it is true, as it would mean there wouldn't be a quick rebound in overseas travel if and when international borders open. Can you imagine it if that was the truth... people here just got used of enjoying their local environment and have stopped even thinking about about Paris,Rome, New York, London, Bali etc. Maybe international travel just fell off our collective radar screen.

It would be interesting to hear from others what plans they have for travel.

 

[Bryan Barnfellow]

Hello philelltt,

Always great to hear from an Ozzie...love you guys. My wife and I are in Switzerland and are early retired (last five years). Our pre-pandemic lives were marked by international travel (mostly rest of Europe) every six weeks or so. Now, we settle for looking at our iPhone photos.

Switzerland is bucking the EU, whose members have closed ski slopes for the winter, and keeping ours open. It's not something I think we should be doing, but we opted out of the EU back in the 90s by a squeak in the national vote, so no surprise there. I live in southern Switzerland, which has a distinctly Italian flavour and feel (language, food, climate, palm trees). It is full of sun, so eating outdoors much of the year is doable. Even better, we live on a lake, so it feels a bit like we're on holiday most days. That said, we are suffering quite a large surge in virus contagion and hospitalizations. We have been in a semi-lockdown for the last month or so. All hopes are on the vaccine and the government has been excellent at planning for that.

As it stands we have refunds and/or rescheduled tickets for a London trip next March and Mallorca next June. London looks iffy; but we're hopeful for the June trip. We had been relatively frequent travelers to London in the past; it's only about a 90 minute flight and very cheap on EasyJet, a budget carrier in Europe. My wife's brother and his wife live in Rome, so we hope to resume visits there after things settle down.

So, in short, we are champing at the bit to restart our travel and continue to dream large. Hope to make it to Australia at some point...so much to see and do there!

-BB

 

[philelltt]

Thanks for your reply Brian! Back in the olden days , we used to take a month or 2 in Europe every year. In the Euro zone as that represented such good value for us using $AUD. So, for example to visit Switzerland, we'd stay in Büsingen am Hochrhein. A little bit of Germany surrounded by Switzerland and then we'd get the best of both worlds.

The vaccine is planned here for early next year. We are rather conservative and looking forward to seeing how it works in other places. After all, it hasn't been trialled much on old people like my partner (80) and myself(65).

There has been talk of travel bubbles here with some countries in the South Pacific , but in each situation that talk evaporates into the realms of dreams. Nevertheless Qantas holds out hopes of some international (Pacific Ocean) destinations midyear next year.

 

[Bryan Barnfellow]

philelltt,

Your European travels sound wonderful. We were all set to spend a month in Vietnam in February of 2020 (I had agreed to do some pro bono consulting for a university there). But we had to cancel due to virus worries. We love longer stays when we travel so that we can get a better feel for our location and feel more relaxed and not pressed for time. I dream about 2 or 3 month stays, but my wife prefers to limit these to four weeks.

I am 65 and my wife is 68, although we don't like to think that we are old. We wonder when our long flight travel days will be effectively over. Does your partner still fly? So far, we are doing fine, but definitely are planning to front load much of our long haul flights, such as to Asia. We are lucky that within Europe the train is an easy option. And, of course, driving...although I am trying to stay aware of any decline in my driving ability, which has traditionally been quite good.

Best to your partner on his recovery.

-BB

 

[philelltt]

Our "tricks of the trade" for travel to Europe used to be to have a stopover in Asia, then use a day flight to Frankfurt from Singapore,or to use one of the discounted business class airfares from Jakarta/Singapore/Bangkok/Kuala Lumpur through to Europe.It was the overnight flights in economy that gave us jetlag. But these days, most of those airports have quite strict rules about transfers.

And in Europe to use the French tax free car lease program. It used to be that we could pick up a car at a range of locations in France (even on the border) . Of course, as Australians,and used of driving on the wrong side of the road , we'd tend to have a very clean front windscreen rather than using turning indicators.

 

[DrRoy]

We had a couple domestic (US) trips get cancelled and a European one as well. By August we were willing to try a long weekend trip to a state park, followed by a two week cross country driving trip in Sept. and 1 1/2 week trip in Oct. Since then we have stayed home.

 

[DrRoy]

Always great to hear from an Ozzie.

Aussie.

 

[Alan]

Welcome to the forum, our SIL is from Adelaide and he and our daughter have plans to retire early in a few years and move there. They are both living in California at present but have a family and friends network waiting for them in Adelaide.

I have a niece who is currently on route from MacKay to Perth. She and her partner have lived and worked in Queensland for the last 25 years and have decided to start a new life in Perth. Because South Australia currently has restrictions in place they are having to go a northerly route taking several days to drive it. Tonight they are going to stay at Newman, WA, and reckon to have 1 day driving left to get to Perth. They sold their house in MacKay already. Their belongings and one of their cars is being shipped to the rental house they have organized. The partner has a job lined up and my niece will find one after they have arrived. It sounds like a great adventure for them, and we’re hoping it all works out well for them.

 

[stepford]

You guys are killing me here. DW and have spent time in both Adelaide and Perth and either sound absolutely lovely compared to the locked down nightmare of exponential spread that is the USA at the moment.

All we can do now is hope things improve and open up for renewed travel in 6-12 months.

 

[Nemo2]

Aussie.

I still have this book, (although the page glue is drying/has dried):

Let Stalk Strine

Strine

 

[brett]

We will miss Australia this winter as we had planned....and any other warm location.

IF travel resumes it will be either Greece/Cyprus or Morocco/Portugal for two months next fall. Winter 2022 hopefully will see us able to spend a month or so in Thailand, then fly to Gold Coast from Krabi for three of four weeks. Hopefully Oz will be open to us by then.

We love Australia. So much more for us to see.

We hear from or Australian friends regularly. Your country has done such a great job on covid. It puts North America to shame.

 

[target2019]

Aussie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Australia#Oz
it's complicated.

 

[Nemo2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Australia#Oz
it's complicated.

The country be Oz, many of the inhabitants, primarily males but I've encountered the female variety, are often known as Ockers.

 

[Bryan Barnfellow]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Australia#Oz
it's complicated.

From the wikipedia entry: The spelling Oz is likely to have been influenced by the 1939 film, though the pronunciation was probably always with a /z/, as it is also for Aussie, sometimes spelt Ozzie.

I am on some message boards with lots of Brits and Australians and they use Oz and Ozzie left and right. Thus my usage. If you say "Aussie" be sure to pronounce the two "s" characters as "z".

-BB

 

[brett]

Last year we took advantage of a Jetstar sale. We flew over to Tasmania, rented a car, and toured for ten days.

Very different, very enjoyable. So glad we did it. Flew into Hobart and out from Launceston.

 

[Alan]

Last year we took advantage of a Jetstar sale. We flew over to Tasmania, rented a car, and toured for ten days.

Very different, very enjoyable. So glad we did it. Flew into Hobart and out from Launceston.

During our tour of Australia in 2014 we rented a condo for a month in Bellerive, a short walk from Hobart over the Tasman Bridge. Absolutely loved it.

 

[brett]

During our tour of Australia in 2014 we rented a condo for a month in Bellerive, a short walk from Hobart over the Tasman Bridge. Absolutely loved it.

Very nice area, interesting homes. We walked through there a few times. We stayed in a similar area in Launceston. Next time we go back we want to return to Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road drive. Loved it.

 

[kaudrey]

We can't wait to travel internationally again, of course when it is safe. Right now our only scheduled trip is to the Galapagos, which we rescheduled from May 2020 to May 2021. Hoping we can do it! We live in Virginia (east coast US), and we drove to Kitty Hawk, NC for a week in October, which was a nice break. We took one flight to Dallas for family reasons in October as well, but that's about it for us since March.

Grand plans for when all of this is over, though!

 

[Alan]

Very nice area, interesting homes. We walked through there a few times. We stayed in a similar area in Launceston. Next time we go back we want to return to Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road drive. Loved it.

Before flying to Hobart we stayed in an apartment in St Kilda, short tram ride into Melbourne centre. We then picked up a car for a week and drove the Great Ocean Road staying at motels. Wonderful, wonderful vacation. In St Kilda we would walk down to the pier jutting out into the sea at dusk and watch all the tiny penguins come swimming in and jump out of the sea to find a cozy spot among the boulders lining the inside of the pier.

https://stkildapenguins.com.au/skp/?page_id=93

 

[brett]

DW only likes to be away for 2-2 1/2 months at a time.

My preference would be 5-6 months at a time. Rent for a month, two, maybe more if we like it. Home for a month or two, then out again.

 

[brett]

For those interested in Uruguay...we spent a thoroughly enjoyable ten days there. Flew in from Santiago on a discount airline.

We found it to be very different from Argentina, Brasil, or Chile. Lots of expats. Montevideo was very safe. We spent time in the Punta del Este area. Lots of fabulous ocean view home -owned by expats and by foreigners. We ferried over from Colonia to BA....it was a different world!

 

[bearkeley]

We spent our first winter solstice in 5 years in Florida this year and was reminded of why we have chosen to travel south of the equator each winter since we’ve been FIREd...it’s too old and dark here! (Ok, so maybe not as bad as Virginia, where our home of 18 years, until we sold last month used to be)

We have spent a total of about a year in Australia over 4 trips these past 5 years and loved it. Last year, we were in South America but our trip was cut short due to COVID, so hope to return next winter.

Until then, we plan to appreciate traveling on our little trawler, Mary Jo, around Florida this winter.

 

[gerntz]

You probably have read that down here in Australia, the borders are closed.

What borders? Ozland has no borders.

 

[Nemo2]

What borders? Ozland has no borders.

State/Territory.

 

[Alan]

What borders? Ozland has no borders.

People cross borders by land, air and sea. Just because Australia has no land borders doesn’t mean they have no borders with other countries.