Home Time! COVID-19 - March to June

Hello Everyone!

Long time, no speak! Things have been pretty crazy here from March until now but I wanted to do a final blog post wrapping up my time in Australia officially. 

COVID-19 has affected everyone in different ways, and I hope you are all coping well with whatever it has meant for you. For me, it meant that I came home early from Australia, and I've been in the UK since the end of March. 

It's funny now to think that mid-February I was flying back from my visit home in the UK to get back out to Australia. COVID-19 was a thing then but I don't think any of us really knew what was going to happen. I remember on that flight being offered some anti-bac wipes by the woman sitting next to me and we sort of joked about coronavirus, wiped down our seats and then thought nothing else of it. Jump ahead a month and a half, and every boarder in the world is shutting down and me and everyone else I knew who was on a study abroad year was scrambling to get home before we were actually stuck in Australia. 

But I want to quickly go back to March - my last month in Brisbane - before I talk about getting home!

Springbrook National Park

This was a trip that we made right at the beginning of March. Two friends and I went on a day trip to Springbrook National Park, which is known for being the filming location of I'm a Celeb! It's quite close to Brisbane and had been on my list of places to visit. Now that my friend from primary school Anna was in Australia and she had a car it was a perfect time to go. We had a few stops; Mount Tamborine, Cedar Creek Falls, Natural Bridge and a rain-forest Gallery Walk! 

It was a really lovely day, we saw beautiful scenery of rain-forests, lakes and waterfalls. We of course didn't realise it was one of the last trips we would have in Australia but looking back, seeing the stunning landscape of South-East Queensland was a nice way to finish things up. We had been hoping to see kangaroos but sadly they didn't make an appearance, however we saw glowworms and I had a visit from a little frog who was quite contented to sit on my coat for several minutes! 

We went on several walks, stopped and enjoyed some delicious ice cream and it was just really fun hanging out! I also enjoyed introducing Anna, one of my oldest friends, to someone who I became really close with in Australia and everyone got on really well which was awesome.

On the rain-forest walk

Stunning view of Springbrook

Gold Coast and Byron Bay

This very spontaneous trip occurred a week before I headed home! I had had an extremely stressful week. There were no restrictions set in place for Australia yet (apart from a toilet paper buying limit!) but COVID-19 was starting to get a lot more serious. I started getting emails from Lancaster, my uni back in the UK, that advised me to come home, but I had to coordinate with QUT in Australia about whether I would be able to continue my studies from the UK. There was a lot of going back and forth between the universities and constant checks on the news and airlines. It went so fast - one week everything was totally normal and the the next we all booked flights home! 

So this particular Friday I had booked my flight home for a weeks time and had just been into university for the last time, which was quite emotional! I really couldn't believe it was all ending so abruptly. 

I was on the bus home from uni when Anna messaged me asking me if I wanted to spend our last weekend in Australia together on the Gold Coast. I thought it would be the perfect end to my study abroad (and like I said coronavirus wasn't that serious in Australia at this point!) and so I quickly packed an overnight bag and headed to the Gold Coast.

It was such a lovely weekend, despite everything! The weather was perfect and we enjoyed the beach and ice cream and fish and chips! Then in the evening we went to a bar which was right on the beach and watched the sunset drinking gin and tonics. 

Our view while having a G&T

We also drove to Byron Bay on the Saturday just to have a walk around and enjoy it for the final time! It was perfect because some of my other friends also went to Byron that day - I think we all had the same idea of screw it, we might as well, we're heading home in a week! 

 It was a final weekend of us enjoying the very best of what Australia has to offer; stunning weather and beaches. And I'm glad I did that, it was a break amongst all the stress and it's lovely to have as one of my final memories of my study abroad year. 

Beautiful Byron Bay

Nightmare Week!

The week after that wonderful weekend was honestly the most stressful week of my life (and I hope no week will ever be more stressful!). Every single day all of us were glued to the news; the situation was changing so fast. The biggest worry was the Asian/Middle Eastern countries. The problem with flying from Australia to the UK was that you almost certainly have to stop somewhere along the way. So we were keeping an eye on the boarders of the counties that we were supposed to fly through. On Sunday they were all fine and open and suddenly by Monday half of them were closed. Some of my friends were supposed to travel with Etihad or Emirates and literally while they were at Brisbane Airport, the boarders of UAE were closed and everything was cancelled straight away. My friend and I were meant to fly via Thailand, which on the Monday was still fine, although the government said that we needed a doctors note to say we could travel so we booked doctors appointments for Thursday. 

However by Tuesday, Thailand said we actually needed a negative COVID-19 test which was impossible and then our flight was cancelled anyway! So we booked a flight with Air Canada. The only one was via Sydney then Vancouver and then to London. We were trying to sort all this out while packing up almost a years worth of stuff! There's so much to sort out when you've actually been living in a country so it was hard to get all of that done while you're stressing about whether your flight will actually go or not!

On Thursday we flew to Sydney. We actually turned up at the airport to find that our flight was suddenly cancelled, because as well as international boarders closing, Australia's state boarders were also closing very quickly! So our first flight was cancelled but they managed to get us on another flight. We had a night in Sydney; the airport actually gave us a free hotel room which was really nice! On Friday we were meant to fly to Vancouver. 

Now, I have a Canadian passport but did not take it with me to Australia, because if my luggage had gone missing I didn't want to lose both passports! I had called Air Canada during the week who assured me that it would be absolutely fine to travel through Canada on my British passport instead. However, I get to the check-in desk in Sydney Aiport...and was told I can't get on the plane without my Canadian passport! 

So I am stuck in Sydney airport, unable to leave the airport because otherwise I would need to enter two weeks quarantine and I don't have a flight to get! Cue many hours of stress, calling my parents (who were amazing especially as it was like 3am for them!) and desperately looking at flights to get. I managed to eventually get a British Airways repatriation flight for that day which was not cheap! 

The British Airways flight was 24 hours non-stop. The plane landed in Singapore to refuel but we couldn't get off. On top of that there was no hot food so I survived off of three KitKats and three sandwiches in 24 hours! But at this point I was just so relieved to be getting home, and I think everyone on the plane felt like we were in it together. For most people this was their third or forth flight they had booked in a desperate attempt to get home and at that point we all just really wanted to be back in the UK. 

London

Being in London as lockdown was starting was very odd. I had to get the tube from Heathrow to Kings Cross and then walk from Kings Cross to London Euston to get the train to Glasgow. I was walking right through the very centre of London and it was absolutely dead; I saw about 10 cars and probably the same number of people walking around! It was very very odd. 

London almost entirely deserted...

Luckily after the flight, the rest of my journey went smoothly and I got to Glasgow at around 2pm Saturday. With the time different taken into account I spent around 54 hours travelling. I was so tired, but really glad to finally be in one place for a while! And it was so nice to see Ollie; if there's been one good thing about coming home early it's been seeing Ollie a few months earlier than expected!

Glasgow 

So Glasgow is where I have been for the past three months. It has been exceptionally busy as I have had to keep up with uni work, including trying to do group projects between Australia and the UK (which was a nightmare!) and finish exams. I finally finished on the 18th June! I have actually since got my exam results and am thrilled with them! 

It's definitely been challenging studying completely from home. It was hard to stay motivated and of course you don't get the learning environment, immediate feedback on work or just discussing problems with other students! As sad as I am that my study abroad year is actually over, I am very glad that exams are done! 

Aside from studying, I haven't been up to much. Ollie's flat is right in the centre of Glasgow and all the shops are shut so there's not been much to do. We went on walks, although there weren't many places to go, and I've been enjoying baking, reading and cooking.

I am,  like everyone I think, quite over it all now! Three months is a long time for everyday life to be so different.

I've actually come back down to Exeter now...it's been so nice to see my family again after almost 5 months! I flew from Glasgow to Bristol and then went down to Exeter, there were a lot of regulations in place in airports and on the plane and only about 25 of us flying so it felt quite safe!

Hope that you're all doing well. Let me know how you have been in lockdown and what you've been up to!

This will obviously be my last post for this Australia blog. Thank you so much for all joining me on this exciting adventure...it's a shame that it ended like this but I have had the best time in Australia and New Zealand. 

Till next time...

M xxx