Fairlie, NZ

Friday, March 20

Today was a bust. The pressure of getting back to Wisconsin safely amidst the COVID-19 outbreak is mounting. It’s Day 2 of waiting to hear back from Air New Zealand in regards to changing our return flight. As we’ve come to expect when traveling in New Zealand’s South Island, the minute we leave “town” — any town — we’ll lose cell service and risk missing a call-back from the airline.

This morning, Andi wanted to hang tight at Lake Pukaki where we had decent cell coverage. We ate breakfast and did school there. Around 11:00am, we decided to drive 15 minutes to Twizel. Twizel is the largest town in the Mackenzie District and the jumping off point for trips to Mt. Cook. There’s a campground in Twizel which we considered staying at for the night, but it didn’t have the best reviews. If I’m being honest, Andi and I were both feeling overwhelmed by all this coronavirus chaos. We’ve been wrestling with the decision to stay in New Zealand or return home; it seems our opinions change by the hour. Emotions run the gamut from fear, to panic, from worry to re-assurance that we’re safe here and everything will work out OK. Truthfully, we’re not sure if we should stay here or risk our family’s health by going home.

In New Zealand, everything is operating as normal. There’s a handful of COVID-19 cases here — nowhere near as many as in the United States — but no one is talking about it. Restaurants and schools are still open. Campgrounds are full of travelers. Earlier this week, New Zealand government mandated all new travelers self-isolate for 14 days which concerns Andi and I that some of those travelers are hunkering down in the same holiday parks where we’re staying. For that reason, we’ve been trying to avoid those places as much as possible and opt instead for freedom camping spots in nature.

Following the news back home, Andi and I can see that things are getting worse. We ask ourselves a dozen times a day if we’ll be able to get back to the USA when we’re ready to do so. The coronavirus seems like the only thing Andi and I are talking about these days. The minute the kids are tuned into their iPads wearing headphones during our drives, we’re brainstorming plans and considering travel options. The global pandemic has definitely sucked the fun and adventure out of our travels!

Late this morning, Andi and I made the decision to return home to Wisconsin. Last week, Air New Zealand cancelled 85% of their flights and existing flights to Los Angeles (LAX) are booking up quickly. If we wait too long for Air New Zealand to call us back, Andi and I are worried there wouldn’t be any flights left to book. The soonest flight available isn’t until next Wednesday. The way things are escalating in the world right, I hope that’s not too late!

Around Noon, I made the executive decision to drive to the holiday park in Lake Tekapo. Once there, we’d plug into power, charge our computer and figure out our plan for the week. Andi panicked the entire 30-minute drive to Tekapo because we were out of cell phone range and might be missing the Air New Zealand call-back. I felt awful for suggesting we go there in the first place.

Andi checked us into the Lake Tekapo Holiday Park and returned a few minutes later to say he got a bad vibe about the place. It was evident that many travelers were self-isolating there. That’s not saying they are currently sick, but they could be. The front desk employee barked at Andi to use hand sanitizer and stand 1 meter away from the counter. Tensions were high. The campground was purposefully assigning campers to every other camping spot to keep distance between them.

We decided to leave. Neither Andi or I wanted to spend time in a place where there were so many people. The next town called Fairlie was 30 minutes away. We drove there, again without cell coverage, and checked into the Fairlie Holiday Park. Unlike Lake Tekapo, this campground was dead. We were the only campers there.

Andi decided to call Air New Zealand once more to see if he could get through. Surprisingly, he was able to get through to talk to someone and they were cooperative in swapping our May 18th return flight for the one he just booked for Wednesday.

After all this stress, we didn’t feel like doing anything today. When traveling to New Zealand, I’d hoped to visit Mt. Cook and the Lake Tekapo Dark Sky Observatory, but in an effort to distance ourselves from others we skipped those two popular attractions. Instead, we hung out at the Fairlie Holiday Park for the rest of the day. It ended up being the perfect place to hunker down for the night.

Andi and Aden walked to town to stretch their legs while Tory and I stayed back at the RV to have some quiet time and to read Chronicles of Narnia together.

New game plan: Tomorrow, we’re heading to the town of Timaru to see the penguins.