An Orwellian twist …

 The day didn’t start auspiciously in an extremely cold Yerong Creek. Following the routine hammered into me by my eldest son, I immediately called upon the Beanhunter app. Unfortunately in response to the command “Find coffee near me” the app responded with

 

 

It turned out that the best bet was a bakery 16 kms away in the neighboring town of Henty. Halfway there my phone pinged again. This time the news was great. The trip across the Bass Strait on the Spirit of Tasmania was back on!. A few minutes later Cath’s phone announced a similar result. 

 

Our celebrations were curtailed, however, by a sting in the tale that George Orwell would be have proud of – while I get to isolate at our property in Franklin, Cath (the only real Tasmanian in the family) has to go into government organized quarantine. The sheer stupidity of this kind of authoritarianism is breathtaking. We are travelling together, we both provided exactly the same information (verbatim) and yet the bureaucracy reaches different conclusions about quarantine. We thought about delaying for a few days and trying to sort this all out, but given the struggle to get the go-ahead in the first place we decided to sail.

 

So we are now imprisoned in our cabin on the “Spirit of Tasmania I”, unable to wander around freely – as per the latest regulations.  A “care package” has been provided – an orange, a kitkat, a bag of crisps and a litre of water! A few essential food groups missing there, not to mention the complete absence of alcohol! 

 

 … and if you are wondering about the coverless book on the table, Pepper doesn’t seem to like Thomas Keneally’s prose!