The same couldn’t be said about others. There were people sneezing and blowing their noses all around us. At the B&B reception, in the rooms next to us, in restaurants and on buses, other trip goers had red eyes and chafed noses.
When would someone finally be struck by such a high number of illnesses? When would someone realise that it wasn’t an average cold or flu?
At the end of our second week in New Zealand, we finally arrived in Rotorua, where, according to our official plans, we were going to stay for eight days. Back in Perth I’d persuaded Dad to use this place as our base, that instead of travelling from one B&B to another, we could always just come back here. Luckily, this city had plenty of Maori culture and geothermal water, so there was always something to explore and experience.
Frank
This must be the first real holiday I’ve had since emigrating to Australia over thirty years ago. Any trips outside the country were always reserved for visiting Czechia to see my family so I could partially chase away the guilt I felt for abandoning them, or for the sort of holiday that would satisfy a small child or young lady overflowing with energy. Sure, I used to go on weekend fishing trips with Wyatt, or to the Australian bush or a beach house with Connie. But now, after all this time, I felt like this New Zealand trip was made to suit me. Once again I wished I had kept all those alluring leaflets about this country I’d been getting in the mailbox this last year.
If I had any reason to think that Constance or Ruby were bored and the trips and walks weren’t their kind of thing, I would have conformed and come up with a different programme. But everybody was happy. I only wished I had at least five more pairs of eyes to look at everything fully and enjoy it, and several times I’d even caught myself whistling in the shower. My daughter often looked deep in thought, and she didn’t mention work once, which I took for a good sign. And Ruby often exclaimed: “Mummy! Grampa!” as she was excitedly pointing at Kea parrots, purple kekeru pigeons or blue ducks. Everything was interesting in her eyes. I was glad that, like Connie, she loved nature and preferred to spend her time out in the world, rather than at home with toys or the TV.
I couldn’t remember the last time I slept so well, either. Ever since we arrived, I woke up each morning and realised that I hadn’t been plagued by any nightmares about screeching saws and cut-open heads. I felt refreshed, and it was such an invigorating feeling that I couldn’t help but share it with others. I got into conversations with passers-by and with guides so often, Connie sometimes laughed and told me to stop bothering them.
Every evening we pulled out a big map of the North Island and checked our list of planned activities. Connie had been very conscientious; everything was described in detail and meticulously marked on the map. Our route didn’t seem that logical to me, because according to her we were first going to travel around the top half of the island, then the bottom half, and then go back north and spend some time in Rotorua. She was probably basing it on the dates of the conference taking place in this town, but still. We could have moved the dates of our holiday a bit and think of a different route to avoid some of the travel.
An obvious reproach would have been that our trip was clearly organised by a woman and a man would have figured all this out beforehand. I laughed at the memory of mentioning this back in Perth, when Connie was staring into a map, marking out interesting destinations.
“Well, you can’t multitask,” she’d responded briskly.
I had kept my mouth shut after that. It was clear that she put a lot of effort into our New Zealand adventure. I was glad that she had less time to worry about work.
Tonight both Ruby and Connie fell asleep even before sunset. I didn’t feel like doing crosswords or reading the newspapers the B&B owner kindly gave me in the afternoon, so I switched the TV on and spent some time channel hopping. I took out the map and the list again, but everything was so well-planned, there was no point in double checking anything. Instead I let my mind wander, going through the experiences of the last few days, and the ones still awaiting us.
I couldn’t wait to be on the South Island, based on the photos I saw its nature was even more gorgeous and diverse than here in the north. A shame we’d given ourselves less time there.
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a lab technician on the TV screen, wearing protective glasses and a face mask, bending over a microscope. The image was gone a second later, but I managed to turn the sound up quickly enough to hear the report connected to it.
“The government is meeting tomorrow morning to discuss safety measures due to an unexpected mass surge in an illness, similar to the flu. Its symptoms are a cold, cough, headaches and sore throat, tiredness and general fatigue,” the Kiwi reporter was saying with a serious expression, while in the top right corner a smaller video showed doctor’s offices crammed with people and long queues circling around like snakes in front of pharmacies and health centres. “Medical centres have been brimming with patients for over three days now. Healthcare workers are unable to treat all of them and are sending the more serious cases straight to hospitals. Those are also reporting nearing full capacity. Testing of the viral disease has been delayed due to an inadequate number of employees,
