Quarantine Diary

You couldn’t find more bored people in such an isolated spot except at the SA/NT border on the 30^th of June. The people that I did see were one army officer, one RAAF officer and two police officers. They were huddled around a campfire and their peace was broken by my arrival. The casual cops looked at my paperwork, got me to tick a few boxes on it and sign it, then parted the traffic cones and I was on my way to Tennant Creek to stay for the night.

The next morning, I got home around lunchtime. I had a bog hole, a full water tank and I wasn’t expecting my shipping container until the next day. I set up a rough camp, turned on my Kindle for a quick read and did a lap of the block to see how it was faring. My neighbour three properties up has a donkey. It bayed all night. The cat wouldn’t speak to me, Aeroguard was in heavy use due to the gilgi still having water in it but I got a good night’s sleep under the stars.

The 2^nd of July was day three of quarantine. I’d been waking up well before 5am while on the road and this morning was no different so I had to force myself back to sleep. That was after I heard the alarm of one of the neighbour’s campers three properties up. When I finally woke at a proper time, I looked over at the Dog and she was following something with her eyes. As it came into my line of vision, I saw it was a big, grey, tabby cat. She did nothing about it as it sauntered past. After getting out of bed I went for a walk around the block and who drove past in their concrete truck? No other than one of my bestie’s. We couldn’t hug each other but we could wave like crazy and she could honk the horn on her truck. At the end of the day the shipping container still hadn’t arrived so I made a quick call and it had not yet arrived in Katherine. Maybe tomorrow?

Tomorrow came but the shipping container didn’t. The next day, both the phone and Kindle went flat. The Kindle got recharged on the powerbank which then went flat. A neighbour picked up the phone and powerbank and charged them both for me over that day and the next. I had bought a solar charger that I thought would be sufficient to charge my devices. It was totally useless and anytime that I tried to plug in the phone, the lights on the torch would start flashing and drain what power it had managed to generate. I was assured that the shipping container would arrive on Monday though I held out little hope. In the meantime, two kindly neighbours brought me more food and a rocket stove to heat water on. One of whom was the one who charged my phone and powerbank.

On the 5^th of July I went to get some pickets from around the dam but they broke off and I gave up. I then headed to the front of the property and discovered that all the old fence I thought I had finished in that direction I actually hadn’t.

Oh my goodness! The container is actually in Katherine on Monday the 6^th of July and will be brought out forthwith! So many happy dances. Everything I’ve needed has been in that container. More food, a garden hose, a butane stove, things to do etc. I strung up a clothesline and I tried to put up a tarp on the eastern side of the container for more shade for the animals but I had to battle the wind. The wind won. Instead, I used the tarp to store some of the hardier things from the shipping container in order to create more space. It also dawned on me how much crap I owned. Another neighbour dropped off a solar panel phone device charger that Dad had bought over the phone from the hardware store. Hurrah! This one works!

The cat finally emerged out of the car early the next day and did a great job of keeping me awake. So much got done this day now that the container had arrived. I cut the 44 gallon drum in half, put up my sign at the front gate, built a bathroom with the pickets one of my neighbours picked up for me, started building a yard for the animals, did a load of washing, started making a punitive effort in constructing a cubicle for the toilet, had a bath instead of a bogey and dug some holes for future banana plants to go in. The bathroom was very private. The bamboo screen I had bought from Bunnings did not live up to its expectations. I had also misjudged how much water was required for the bath and water overflowed when I got in. When I got out, I made a note of the fill capacity. At least I still fit in the tub which I hadn’t used since I was as skinny as a stick in 2012.

It turns out on the 8^th of July that I had overdone it the day before and had given myself a bad headache so not much was done on this day in order to ease it from turning into a migraine. The dog wasn’t feeling that crash hot either so I drove her out to the dam with the hopes to cheer her up but it didn’t. I did plant some dwarf snap beans from seed that I had for goodness knows how long. The packet said “Plant before August 2012”. They are unlikely to germinate but the garden bed I made for them looks quaint anyway.

For the first time in my life, on the ninth day of quarantine, I used a butane stove. These things scare me, however, I put on a brave face and cooked pasta napolitana. I also finished putting up the fence for the animals and took the bamboo screen meant for the toilet and did another wrap around the bathroom. It made a slight improvement. I also planted some poinciana seeds. I hold out more hope for these than I do the dwarf snap beans.

On the 10^th of July, there’s nothing more haunting than waking to the sound of wild dogs calling. Adults calling to their litter who returned those calls. In my usual morning walk around the block I came across those culprits. The large, adult, very healthy wild dogs. I looked at them and they looked at the dog and I and thank God they chose to canter off because we would have been buggered if they decided we were easy prey. They watched us though as we followed the fence-line across the back of the property. Efforts had been steadily made since the arrival of the shipping container to create a cat enclosure. I had grand plans for this thing. Work on it this day stopped after I broke my little saw. It was mushroom risotto for lunch and dinner today.

On the 12^th day of quarantine my true head said to me “get off your lazy arse and finish banging in the pickets of your latrine!”. Before I left SA, I bought a little animal enclosure for the chooks and maybe the cat so on this day I assembled it. Quarantine gave me a call. It was a weird conversation that started out well.
Q - “We can’t find the address you listed on your quarantine paperwork”
Me – “Oh, because my road address doesn’t come up on Google Maps and half the time I forget what it is so I used my NTP”
Q – “So what area is your property?”
I told him my area.
Q – “That’s not a permitted quarantine zone”
Me – “Well, I checked the crappy map and it said K-Town Council and I pay my rates to K-Town Council so quarantined here”
Q – “You can’t quarantine there”
Me – “Well, there’s two French people up the road who were in quarantine and they’re in the same area and when the cops visited them, they didn’t get told off for it”
Q – “Is there somewhere in town you can go to finish your quarantine?”
Me – “Not with my own bathroom and kitchen and space for four pets, no”
Q – “You just have to disinfect everything once you use it but you can’t quarantine where you are, you’re out of the zone”
Me – “Dude, you do realise I crossed on the 30^th right?”
Q – “I’m going to talk to my boss and I’ll call you back”
Ten minutes later he calls back to tell me since I’ve only got two days left after today and I come from a low risk area I can stay where I am. Good, because I would have been pissed off if the Frenchies weren’t told to move yet I was. And why is it that I haven’t had a visit from the cops this entire time?
Q – “Your details were entered in wrong and you ended up on the wrong list”
I knew those cops at the border were too casual!

Day thirteen of quarantine: Because I’d used to the bamboo screen intended for the toilet on a second wrap of the bathroom, I decided to use an old tarp as privacy for the toilet cubicle instead. It was this this night that I shifted officially from Old Camp to New Camp. I’d been walking back and forth between the two and although it isn’t that far, the dog was sick of following me between those treks. It was also this night that the cat was dry-retching on my swag. I kicked him off and thought nothing more of it.

Oh, the final day of quarantine! I finally emptied the car and gave it a bit of a sweep out. I returned to my swag, as usual, to brush off the dirt and leaves before covering it up for the day. It was at this point that I discovered that I had to clean my swag for after I had left it the cat got on it and brought up his breakfast on it. Bastard! I put some besa bricks in front of the container to act as steps and started on getting more of the old fence out on the front part of the property.

During quarantine I read three books and made a significant progress on a fourth (which is not a short book). I coloured-in and napped a lot. Despite all the things needing to get done I also took it steady as this was the closest thing I was going to get to a holiday between now and December.

You couldn’t hold me back from town on the 13^th of July except it was an eerily quiet place to be. Though there was now freedom of movement within the NT, the lack of tourists was noticeable. Seeing a mate on my way to the town library while the car was getting serviced on the 15^th, she described the impact of the Territory’s lockdown as though it was permanently Sunday afternoon. On the 17^th of July it will be back on like Donkey Kong. Except for Victorians…