Stranded travellers

It is yet again that we hear of more stranded travellers following heavy rain yesterday afternoon. I feel for those who couldn’t get through the road blockages. Northland was cut off again from the rest of the country overnight, though I have heard that some slips have been cleared, making it possible to travel, though I believe there are still a number of detours in place, and the mission will be finding the correct combination that gets one through.

There have been a number of issues affecting one’s ability to travel over the last few years. Having whole roads cut off was virtually unheard of several years ago. We planned a trip and we got there and back again. Nowadays, there is always that possibility that we won’t make either our destination or our return.

Covid was the biggest dampener to travelling. Northlanders were cut off from the rest of the country for the whole time Auckland was in lockdown. Passing through Auckland was the only way for road travellers to reach towns further down country. And we were in lockdown too, for long periods.

When Stephen and I finally did travel, after the restrictions had been lifted, we both got Covid and had to return home immediately. So much for the catching-up of friends that we had been planning.

But worse than that were the restrictions placed on overseas travellers. I have two children in the Gold Coast, Renee and Jason. Before Covid, I made the trip regularly. It was cheap and easy. And so did the kids. With two children, Renee could not afford both the quarantine expense and the time that would be required in isolation, to travel during the pandemic. Prices, since flights resumed, skyrocketed, making it too expensive for her to return at Christmas as she would have liked to have done.

In June, 2021, after quarantine requirements to Gold Coast were halted and flights had resumed, I decided to travel there myself. What I didn’t know was that this decision was about to be reversed the following day. Gold Coast went into lockdown and all flights to both that city and Brisbane were cancelled. I didn’t enjoy my holiday, as I was stressing that I wouldn’t be able to return home. Stephen, who chose not to come with me, had encouraged me to make the most of my holiday and to make my stay a fortnight, rather than the week I had been thinking of. By a stroke of fortune, the borders were reopened for returning travellers the day of my booking. I was so thankful for Stephen’s advice, as had I been booked earlier than the flights resumed, then I would have had to rebook and join the queue of people trying to find seats. I might have been stranded for weeks before I could find a flight home, as some people I know, were.

The international airport from Auckland was closed due to flooding a few weeks back, something unheard of in the past.

We are definitely getting more of these extreme weather events. I was watching one of my favourite U-Tube clips the other day, Itchy Boots. Her latest venture is travelling through Africa on her motorbike, documenting her travels as she goes. In the last series she rode through South and North America, finishing in Alaska. I am looking forward to this latest series as I don’t know much about the countries she will be visiting. I had no idea Morocco contained mountains and snow, for example. But what caught my notice during one of these clips as she rode through a mountain pass, was the beautifully concreted drainage on the side of the road. That run-off water would flow smoothly down the mountainside. Do we, here in New Zealand, need to address our drainage alongside the roads. There seem to have been an awful lot of slips lately. I know we have had unprecedented rainfalls, but still, our roads need to be able to cope with these extremes of weather.

The other thing I am going to mention here is the power of thought, or belief. I read a story once, where a foreigner was travelling by truck through the jungle and was unhappy that there was no spare tyre. The group got a flat tyre on that journey and blamed the man for having introduced that thought. They had never had a flat tyre before and in their eyes, he was the cause, because he brought the possibility into everyone’s consciousness. It seems a far-fetched concept, but is it?

Before lockdown, it was difficult to imagine getting stranded in a country. One could always catch the next flight, or the one after. Before lockdown, it was difficult to imagine not being able to jump in one’s car and go wherever one wanted to. Are we all like that jungle example? Our consciousnesses now all hold the possibility that we mightn’t be able to get somewhere. With enough of us holding that belief, does it make the probability of it happening, more common? The same with the weather, does the constant talk of more extreme weather events make our beliefs bring them to fruition?

Just a bit of food for thought.