The Pandemic that Never Ends - Follow up

I wanted to follow up last week's blog where I spoke about living again and not remaining cooped up and fearful forever. Australia is in the midst of an outbreak but two years on I think it can be avoided to an extent. I write this knowing that one day I will contract the virus and I hope that it doesn't take me. But regardless of what I do it is a matter of when not if and if it does take me I don't want my life and time with my children wasted by waiting at home doing nothing.

On the weekend a big thunderstorm rolled in and appeared a rainbow, little miss asked me what was at the end of a rainbow to which at first I said, not much. She looked at me puzzled than I decided. Stuff it! Let's go find out so we all jumped in the car and just drove.

3 and a half hours later we passed through the storm and ended up in Victoria's high country a place I had never been before called Bright. I'm so glad we decided to do so because it has become one of our favourite weekends ever!

We got accommodation at a caravan park by the side of the river and as I'd never been here before I didn't know what to expect and as it was dark as we rolled in nothing was visible. So we tucked in for the night and awaited the morning.

We awoke in the morning and it was adventure time exploring our new surroundings and what lay a head, little bloke was absolutely beside himself he had never been on a holiday and the last holiday little miss went on was 2 years ago to Queensland which she loved dearly and often talks about it because we got to go on a plane!

Located a short walk from our accommodation was the river and to our surprise the local swimming hole with its own splash park! The delight on little miss' face lite up my heart like you wouldn't believe. Two years of almost full lock downs and now she was free.

We went and bought some bathers, floaties and played in the river all weekend long. Due to the rains the water had quite a chill to it but it was flowing quite strong so we would walk a few kilometres along the creek and find a low entry point mount our floaties and ride the rapids back to the main swimming location. It was a ball of a time. Unfortunately we hit a raspberry bush which is quite thorny and it put a hole in our tube so we had to retire that idea.

But there was plenty of fun to be had at the splash park I sat the run throughs out as the water was too cold for me but mum got her fun on and ran through the water with the kids.

Unfortunately the town was in the midst of a COVID outbreak and most shops, restaurants and cafes were closed. The outbreak brought on by New Years Celebrations.

But good ol dad had food covered with the help of little miss we cooked up some of the best holiday food which was much better than cafes would have made 🤣

We spent a lot of time exploring and walking through the bush along the river, it was magical and little miss asked me if all rainbows had beautiful towns at the end of them and asked if we would be following the next one.

I smiled and giggled inside and promised to her that we would do a lot more exploring this year and get back to life. She asked about the virus and I said we still needed to be safe but if we were safe we could do a lot more than what normal had become.

As we headed home into the sunset after out two day random vacation chasing rainbows, I lay back in the car seat, kids asleep and my wife turned to me with a smile and said I really enjoyed this weekend, we need to be doing this more often for the kids I responded with a smile and it felt like life was returning to normal and it is.

That was two days ago and I have undertaken two COVID tests both negative thus far. I think we will be fine as we spent the majority of our time outdoors but the thought lingers on in my mind, will I catch COVID? Will the kids? Will they be OK?

An answer I will undoubtedly receive in the next few days. Even if it is negative this time there will come a time when it will be positive but I can no longer remain indoors and keep the kids away from life.