Friday 30^th October – Island Vibe Weekend at Stradbroke Island

Coronavirus Lockdown Day 222

1,172 cases: 1 new (acquired overseas, detected in hotel quarantine), 6 active.

In very sad news, Island Vibe Festival is not going ahead this year—postponed until next year because the local aboriginal corporation who runs the camping on Stradbroke Island wouldn’t support the festival because of the coronavirus risk. It turned out to be a mistake I suppose, given that the borders are now open, there’s no coronavirus in the community in QLD, and the island is not in any kind of lockdown, but it’s too late now…

So, because we miss our wonderful festival, we decided to go to Stradbroke Island anyway.

We left home at 5:17 PM and rushed to Cleveland—stopping quickly at Cleveland Coles to buy some cheese and iced coffee—and arrived at the 6:25 PM Gold Cat with enough time for me to find parking and walk back without stressing too much—though had there been no parking, I would have missed the ferry.

Fortunately the ferry didn’t sink, and we didn’t miss the connecting bus on the island, and managed to get to The Shed by 7:25 PM. We opened it up and set it up as quickly as we could, then headed down to Bob’s Shop to buy supplies (mostly ice cream), only to find that it closes at 7 PM—despite the big sign stating it’s open from 6:30 AM to 9 PM, it’s changed to 7 AM to 7 PM due to Coronavirus. I’m not sure how a virus which isn’t actually present on the island affects the opening hours of the local shop, but apparently it does.

Island Vibe Beach Doof

Ice-cream free, Bronwen and I went for a night walk along the beach, finding that there was a small “doof” happening on the beach outside where Island Vibe would normally have been. Sadly it was too dark for photos. It was after midnight by the time we got back to The Shed and went to bed.

Saturday 31^st October – Queensland Election

Coronavirus Lockdown Day 223

1,171 cases: 0 new, 4 active.

Butterflies

Bronwen and I walked down to Adder Rock, as there’d been reports on Facebook that there might be a gathering there—free belly dancing classes were mentioned—but it was actually very quiet, with just a handful of people on the beach.

There were, however, hundreds of butterflies.

Tax

Bronwen still had to finalise and submit her tax—today being the deadline—so as it began to get too hot to be out we walked back to The Shed and spent the hot part of the day inside so Bronwen could do her tax.

Storm

By the time Bronwen had finished her tax and it had cooled down enough to go outside again, some storms and rain had blown across, so we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon in The Shed, while the weather stormed, rained and huffed and puffed outside.

QLD Election

Bronwen and I watched the election results roll in on various news sites on our phones. There was some uncertainty for a while, but it soon became apparent that Labor had been returned with a slightly larger majority than last time, and that despite suffering a 1% state-wide swing against them, The Greens had got a second member into parliament—replacing Labor’s controversial Jackie Trad in the same electorate that Jonathan Sri—the Greens Councillor—represents. For a little while it looked like The Greens might also get another two members, but they were ultimately beaten by Labor.

Night

After having a really good sleep last night, I had a terrible sleep—probably because I’d dozed earlier in the day, and we went to bed early, so I wasn’t really sleepy. Mosquitoes came and bit me—or at least, I thought they were going to and kept thinking I could hear them—and the sheet was wrong and I didn’t fit properly and my pillow didn’t work as it should and I got thirsty and everything went wrong, but I was too sleepy to think coherently so wasn’t able to logically formulate a solution to any of my sleeping problems.