Friday The 13th. A Good Day To Travel.

We started the day with a final phone interview from ABC Albany. I was now able to confirm that Italy is in a full and proper lockdown and we're hoping to get on a plane out today. We'd booked our shuttle early in case of delays at the airport and after eating a final cooked breakfast we met out driver at the door, right on time.

The driver was clearly channeling his charioteer ancestors as he hurled his Mercedes van around corners and charged through what little traffic there was. He confirmed that he'd never seen the roads so empty and a trip that normally took 45 minutes took about half  that so we arrived at the airport even earlier than planned.

The Hotel Minerva where Edward stayed in Rome. Somewhat pricey these days but we'll spend a night there to celebrate if we ever get to resume Edward's journey.

However, that was probably a good thing because there were already long lines at the check in and security desks. The crowds were quiet and orderly and the occasional person who tried to push into a line was quickly made aware by others that that wasn't going to be acceptable.

Most people, including us, were wearing face masks, mostly just to be polite I suspect because according to the health authorities face masks only reduce the possibility of passing Covid19 on, if you already have it. However, there were some Japanese tour groups who were all kitted out in full Hazmat bio suits, like forensic workers at a crime scene, complete with visored bucket hats,  presumably supplied by their tour companies.

Our travel agent had got us fantastic front row seats with as much leg room as business class so the trip home was pleasant and uneventful. The most alarming part was when we landed for transit in Doha and some bright spark had arranged for all disembarking passengers to be screened for body temperature. However, they put the screening device right at the end of the airbridge off the plane, resulting in all the passengers being huddled together on said air bridge with no chance of keeping any distance apart, let alone the prescribed 1.5metres. If anyone on the plane had had Covid19, it would have just skipped through the crowd.

Then when they got everyone into the terminal they had organised for us all to pass through another security check and be herded into a corner of the terminal. Apart from the fact that security checking disembarking passengers seems a bit pointless, they then discovered that the area selected had no toilets so after some pleas from the more desperate, they started letting passengers walk through the queue for the security check, in order to get to the toilets, thus negating the whole purpose of the check. To make matters worse they gave no announcement whatsoever of what their plan was. It gradually became clear that what they were doing was sending airline staff down to take groups of passengers to their ongoing flights as they were due. All of this led to an understandable degree of irritation by some passengers, which could have been averted by better communication and planning. Had Edward been there I imagine he would have written some pithy comments about "sons of the desert" and their inability to organise effectively but given that it's 2020 and such comments are less acceptable these days, I shall say no more.

We landed safely in Perth in the early evening, local time. As passengers embarking in Italy, we were again temperature checked and briefly interviewed by health staff to ensure we had no virus symptoms. As an indication of how fast things change, these staff gave us a sheet of  Australian Government self isolation guidelines. We had been given a similar sheet on embarkation but already some of the conditions had become stricter.

We had decided that the safest course would be to book into an airport hotel and then book a flight back to Albany for the following morning. When we got into a taxi to go to the hotel, the driver fiddled with his meter and then claimed that for some reason it wasn't working. He suggested he could take us for a fixed cash fee which he nominated as $35. I suggested that from previous experience it should be no more than $20-25 but he then pled that he had been waiting for 3 hours and this was his first job in that time. Having driven a taxi myself I'm aware how little taxi drivers make so we agreed to meet in the middle at $30. I'm pretty sure he was having a laugh and it pains me to say that in many years of travel, often in third world nations where you are warned to look out for taxi scams,  I can't ever remember a driver trying it on. So for this to happen in Perth was a shame.
(My position was confirmed when our taxi back to the airport the next morning, came in at $25.)

We spent the night at the Airport Ibis hotel before returning to the airport next morning and an uneventful flight home and the prospect of 14 days self isolation at home to ensure we hadn't brought Covid19 with us.

At this point I will once again close this blog. The world is now an extremely strange place with pretty well everywhere locked down and economies in ruin. It remains to be seen what the long term health, social and economic effects of Covid19 will be but sadly I imagine they will  not be pretty. Hopefully some time, not too far on, we will be able to return to Italy and resume Edward's journey. Then I may be able to visit Pompeii before resuming Edward's northward route. But who knows?