Pandemic, Pandemonium and a short stay in Warrnambool

The COVID-19 pandemic rolls on and along with it the constant changing of restrictions and new 'important' actions for us to follow. Terms like 'social distancing', wearing face masks, curfews, 'get the jab' and more took some keeping up with. 

Are we allowed to cross into the 'border bubble', can we visit, just where is the edge of the Greater Melbourne lock-down area, how many can gather and where? So confusing!

Sign in whenever you enter a public location, now get the Service Victoria app, you need photo ID proof of residence to enter this cafe, do you have your Double Vaccination certificate? These things change weekly and now we are having to request proof of vaccination from our Travellers social group. It seems that entry to most public places is dependent on producing evidence of vaccination. No Vax, no entry!

With all these restrictions the Delta version of the virus has still caused greater problems in Victoria with much higher infection numbers and more deaths, especially in younger people. 

The tension continues despite the fact that Melbourne was released from its long lock-down on Friday. The city has spent more than 260 days in lock-down. Victoria has reached the required vaccination rate to allow this to happen. It is expected that we will reach 80% double vaccinated and 90% single vax by next week-end, and this will mark the beginning of what has always been called 'the new normal.'

Victoria will be aligned with the Federal regulations and the Roadmap to Recovery. That will be a great relief in one sense as the damage done to inter-state relations & rivalries has been enormous.

Our Travellers group has had to cancel two more planned trips. First to fall was ten days in Broken Hill and surrounds, then the Cowra, Bathurst & Mudgee trip was cancelled (for the second time).

Personally we have managed a three night trip to Warrnambool in August, mainly to re-visit the McNamara/Macnamara family history locations and search for more leads on the elusive first arrival in Australia in about 1854.

                      Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village and Museum

  Tower Hill was where the original McNamara family originally settled. It is an        inactive volcano, the crater is 3 kms wide and 80 metres high. It is now a State    Game Reserve.

    The Tower Hill Common School at Koroit is a building of historic importance

    Hopkins Falls were in flood when we visited, a spectacular 90 metres wide and       only a 12 metre fall.

   We visited both Tower Hill and Warrnambool cemeteries and were thrilled to find    a burial place we had been looking for for years. We have arranged to have a        plaque placed here to commemorate this 2x great grandfather.

                                     Us visiting Warrnambool relatives

It was good to get away from home for a couple of days but not really like a normal visit as many shops were shut, the restaurants were closed and even the fish and chip shop we planned to go to was closed. 

Difficult times for all but especially for tourist towns.

French Impressionists & Italian Food in Melbourne and still we have COVID Restrictions

 It is now sixteen months since the pandemic Coronavirus COVID-19 struck us and for the majority of that time we have been under quite heavy restrictions. It is not possible to take a flight out of the country except for special reasons, and travel & holidays are not special reasons!

We have both had our second COVID jab but there is still a very long way to go before enough people are vaccinated to allow travel to start again.

So where do we stand now? Victoria has been almost COVID free for some weeks but now New South Wales has had a major outbreak and they have gone into lock-down. Hard borders between the states are once again in place.

Another window of opportunity to get away arose last week-end when a memorial gathering was held in Melbourne for a relative who died in May 2020 but the majority of family and friends were unable to attend the funeral. We took the chance to stay over night in the city and enjoyed the change of pace and scenery.

After attending the memorial gathering we went for a light meal in Lygon Street Carlton. The atmosphere was electric because the Azzurri, the Italian football team, were playing in the Euro Cup 2020 final later that night. With press cameras, scarfs, flags and supportive signs, it was fun to be a part of the occasion. The final did not start until 5 am Australian time so we awoke the next morning to the happy result.

                   

In the meantime we enjoyed pizza & red wine, then Nutella crepes with strawberries for me and a caffe corretto for him. Buono!

By the end of this pandemic we will be the most cultured art fans around! The National Gallery of Victoria has an exhibition 'Melbourne Winter Masterpieces - French Impressionism' so after booking tickets and a time to attend (crowd control) we were once again looking at great works of art. 

We are beginning to wonder how many lily ponds, Giverny bridges and hay stacks we have seen around the world but as Monet lived to 86 years I guess there are still more to see. 

This exhibition is beautifully arranged with great quotes segueing between each of the ten rooms; each further enlightening the reader. The circular room with fourteen Monet's was amazing, and there were another three amongst the more than one hundred paintings from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. As well as Monet there are canvases by Van Gogh, Renoir, Manet, Pissarro, Degas, Cezanne and several others. A new name that caught our attention was Eugene Baudin. It was Baudin who encouraged the teen-aged Monet to paint from nature, especially in 'plein air.'

No trip to Melbourne is complete without a visit to Mediterranean Wholesalers in Sydney Road Coburg. First the coffee and then the shopping!

Mid afternoon we were on the road home again...but not finished with art yet. A long-time friend of our daughter's had a small exhibition with the Seymour Arts Society so we called in to see her work. Entitled The Birds and the Bees, both artists used different media to portray their theme. This tiny exhibition only took ten minutes to see but how impressive to have such an opportunity in the small town of Seymour. Well done ladies and SAS.