Planning a trip during a pandemic
It’s definitely not an easy task to be planning an overseas trip right now. With Government changes in both New Zealand and Canada throughout the several months of planning has meant we’ve needed to adjust and create contingency plans, though we’d take this roller coaster of requirements over the inability to travel at all and we recognise our privilege in being able to take this trip.
We’ve been fortunate that several weeks prior to departure, BC cases have dropped significantly and mask and vaccine mandates have now been removed. We might be able to experience the Vancouver that Martin remembers and not the masked up ghost town that it has been in recent years.
Two weeks before our flight, Canada have now dropped the need for a negative COVID test prior to boarding the flight for qualified fully vaccinated passengers. This change has been the most significant for us, taking off that enormous stress of missing our flight due to catching COVID at the most inconvenient time, not that I can imagine there is ever a convenient time.
With New Zealand cases rising, especially in Ōtautahi, we were able to retreat from our home of twenty people (a story for another day) to a small bach in Diamond Harbour, kindly offered to us by my parents neighbours, where we could pre-isolate, taking a lot of stress off our already stressful pre-departure list.
We’ve been in Diamond Harbour for a week, enjoying the sun soaked living room and ocean views, working remotely, reading and doing plenty of walks including walking up Mt Herbert, the tallest peak on Banks Peninsula over the weekend and tomorrow afternoon; we board our flight to Vancouver.
