March 31 - The Corvid 19 Apocalypse

Today after a week’s delay, we headed for home in Canada.  We flew from Sydney to Vancouver, then flew to Toronto and drove home to Port Stanley from there.  I wish I had taken pictures to support the eerie feeling I had during this journey.  This virus has made travel unrecognizable.

It started at the Sydney airport.  As we headed for the entrance of the International Departure terminal, we were stopped and asked to show our passports and our travel itinerary. Marg, properly concluded that was to turn away people who did not have tickets in order to reduce the number of people in the terminal.

You would expect that at the Sydney airport, it would be as the Aussie call it “Choc A Bloc” full of people waiting for their flight.  It was basically deserted. There were only two flights leaving, ours to Vancouver and a flight to Japan.  There were more security personnel than there were passengers.  At the Air Canada check-in counter, the self server kiosks were shut down and we were forced to join the line-up to get our boarding passes. While in line, we were constantly reminded to respect the distancing rules and stand on the designated “X”.  Luckily our security personnel was super polite but I can see some control freak ordering passengers around like they own the place.

At the check-in counter, we were asked a series of questions that what would become a common theme during the day. 

• ·        Do you have a fever
• ·         Do you have a cough
• ·         Do you have problems breathing
• ·         Where have you been
• ·         Have you been in contact with someone who has or had the Covid 19 virus

After passing through security, we sat with a group of young Canadians, who were returning home on the last flight out.  The common story for these people was that they had come to Australia and worked in the hospitality industry but had lost their jobs because of the virus lockdown. Now with no job prospects and with their health insurance cancelled because of the Canadian government’s recall notice, they were headed home.  Some of them were saying goodbye to partners, not knowing how long it would be before they could see them again.  They were all in agreement that once the situation returned to normal, they would return and start over again.  One gentleman was a missionary for this church and had been stationed in Sydney.  He seemed to be at a total lost as to what his future plans would be. Another lady told me that she had a job lined up in her home town, in BC, but had just been informed the stored had closed.

In most international departure terminals, you would find many stores, restaurants and duty free shops.  Today in the Sydney airport all the stores and duty free shops were shuttered. There were only two small coffee shops open.  This was a disaster because at the Air Canada counter we were told that in order to protect the cabin crew, the only food served, during our 14 hour flight, would be prepackaged sandwiches and water. There was no variety, no coffee, no juice, no soft drinks and certainly no bar.  For someone like Marg, with her Gluten intolerance condition, it makes flying a royal pain.

Once we arrived in Vancouver, were directed to a large assembly area, where we asked the usual questions and asked to sign to a document. The form, issued by the Public Health Agency of Canada, told us we had to stay in self isolation for 14 days and asked us for contact information so that we could be monitored. At customs were again asked the standard questions and told that we had to go into self isolation.  They didn’t even ask how much we spent on goods or duty free booze.  The customs agent told us that the maximum penalty for disobeying the quarantine order was $1,000,000.  That caught our attention.

In the domestic departure terminal of Vancouver airport, the situation was not much different than what we had found in Sydney.  There were very few passengers and only a couple of coffee shops were open.  Passengers on our flight to Toronto were mostly people returning from Australia with us.  I noticed on the departure board that all the Westjet flights had been cancelled.  We were told that because we had a paper based boarding pass, we would again be asked the standard questions of the day.  If it weren’t so serious, it would be funny.  

There was no food or beverage service on this five hour flight.  They were only going to give us a small bottle of water, when we entered the plane.

We arrived at Pearson airport at would be normally their busiest time of the day.  You could fire a cannon down any hallway and not hit a single person.  I think we were the only flight arriving at Terminal 1.  There were a few restaurants open for take away, but no customers.  We waited for over twenty minutes for our shuttle bus to take us to the car park.  Usually they run every five to ten minutes.  When you used to 25+ temperatures, waiting in 4+ temperatures is friggin' cold.

Once we were on the 401 heading home, we found the highway was basically deserted.  At this time of day, from the airport in Toronto to Guelph during rush hour would normally take up to 90 minutes of frustratingly stop and go traffic. It only took us about 30 minutes.  Not that I’m complaining but this was just weird.

So we made it home, but the world is a much different place than when we left, eight short weeks ago.