Where Am I Now?
Updated July 2022 from Gold Coast, Australia
I’m now currently house-sitting on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia and travelling anywhere new that I can.
My partner and I are spending time exploring the southern end of the Gold Coast, plus Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast and anywhere else we can get to.
Previous Entries of What I’m Doing and Where I Am Now
Updated May 2022 from Shropshire, UK
Look at how long it took, but I’m finally visiting my Nan in the UK. Such a long-awaited and amazing trip.
Strange to see how covid affected the place I’m from, in very different ways to Australia.
Spent time with my Nan and saw my hometown as a tourist.
Updated August 2020 from Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.
On the sunny Gold Coast in Queensland!
Crossing into Queensland from Sydney (which is considered a hotspot) felt dicey, but so glad we decided to do it when we did, as they’ve just announced they’re closing the QLD and NSW border.
(Unknown to us then, this border closure remained in place for almost a year and a half until everyone was vaccinated).
Now back to full-time house-sitting and travelling on Gold Coast and Brisbane until this pandemic fuckery calms down.
And I remain on high anxiety levels until we can both finally go visit our family.
Updated July 2020 from Queensland, Australia.
Got a couple of house-sitting jobs, so on the move again.
But we’re totally over being Sydney (especially with the pandemic in full force) so decided to cross the border into Queensland, hoping for some better prospects.
This update of what I’m doing now was so momentous, I’m leaving it on here for now, for some perspective.
Updated early April 2020 from Sydney, Australia (yea, that awful year).
I’m staying in the popular Inner West of the city of Sydney, Australia, with my partner. It’s April 2020 and we are affected by the covid-19 pandemic — Australia is currently on Level 3 lockdown.
For the last year and a half in Sydney, we have been house-sitting full-time and the many house-sitting jobs we had stacked up in amazing areas like Neutral Bay, Bondi and Maroubra, one by one cancelled as this global tragedy rolled out.
I also had a temp admin job at Sydney University to supplement my online work which I lost.
We had to immediately move out of our current sit, (homeowners had to cut their trip short and return home to quarantine), and find last-minute accommodation urgently. The only option of which was Airbnb.
All the Airbnbs in Sydney that we stayed in were expensive and had very high foot traffic — including incoming travellers — leaving us feeling like we were exposed to potential germs.
So we found a spare room offered to us by a friend of a homeowner and although we were largely incompatible housemates, we had to stay there and sit out this shitshow for a while.
With no jobs, no income and no entitlement to financial support from the Australian government, as I’m on a partner visa and Grant is here as a New Zealand citizen — our future looked bleak.
Sydney and the state of NSW have the highest number of covid infections and the highest death rates in the country so far. Although in comparison to other countries, we’re doing pretty well.
Sydney is at Level 3 lockdown. So all pubs, restaurants, nightclubs, cinemas, entertainment venues, banks, museums, libraries, swimming pools, gyms, indoor sports venues, outdoor gyms, skate-parks, outdoor & indoor markets, places of worship, most schools and colleges, and non-essential shops are closed indefinitely.
Supermarkets and pharmacies are open, and we can still get takeaway coffee and food, so that’s luckier than most. And we are able to walk around or exercise outside, use public transport and walk in parks or by rivers or lakes, but we’re moved on if it’s not for exercise purposes.
Most of the beaches are closed as people can’t be trusted not to loiter or gather in groups on them.
Around mid-March, the British High Commission called for all UK citizens to return home. (We’re both UK citizens but Grant is also a dual NZ citizen).
It’s a contentious subject as the British High Commission is not helping anyone actually get home. And there are no official processes in place for when we go home. No medical checks are being done, no places to go self-isolate etc.
Commercial flights out of Australia have almost stopped except for Qatar Airways, who are now allowing flights to transit through Doha. But most countries won’t even let planes into transit.
The UK has sent rescue flights to pick up UK citizens from Peru, India and Cambodia. But they’ve told anyone in Australia and New Zealand, not to expect help.
And the Australian government has recently announced that all temporary visa holders and sponsored workers should all leave Australia now, as we won’t be supported here during this crisis. Read the whole story on my Facebook profile.
We don’t know whether to stay in Australia (with no income or job prospects) or leave for the UK (where we have literally nowhere to stay) and also no income. Or go back to NZ, where my partner at least has citizens’ rights.
And I just want to go see my Nan, she’s so alone now because of this mandatory self-isolation 🙁
So currently, we are exploring options.
