Weekend Out East 2021
Friday we were under new Covid regulations since the state was about to pass 80% adult double-vaccination and the state in typical style wanted to get the easement of regulations in before the long weekend. The long weekend itself is an interesting thing, since the Melbourne Cup, "the [horse] race that stops the nation" will be on Tuesday and is a public holiday, leaving, like the American thanksgiving, a lonely one day or work between the holiday and the weekend, which many people contrive to take off to make a four day weekend.
Interestingly, while this change in regulations may have been an easement in some ways (masks not required in various outdoor settings? I'm not entirely sure), it actually felt like a tightening of regulations from my vantage point. Whereas previously we just had to make sure customers to our honey and beekeeping supply store checked in with their phones to the QR code on the wall (and they and us had to wear masks), now we hao both make sure they checked in and ask them if they were vaccinated, and if not not allow them in (and we're still all wearing masks either way). I absolutely agree with allowing vaccinated people to do more things than people who are willfully remaining unvaccinated, but it felt like quite the bother to have to confront everyone at entry and ask about their vaccination status.
It was a cold and rainy day as it happens (there had been a major storm the night before actually, with 300,000 homes without power (including work in the morning) and a tree down across the main entry into work (but our first customer apparently had a chainsaw in his truck and casually cleared it on his way in, as one does). So it was a slow day. The first three customers came in over the next few hours and breezily informed me they were vaccinated so it was starting to seem like maybe it wouldn't be a big deal. The fourth customer pulled in an SUV, a woman dressed just a bit granola-y got out smiling very cheerily, as did a small boy, and the husband, a big man with a big black beard, emerged from the other side.
"And you're vaccinated right?" I casually said as I ushered them to the door.
"Nope!" the man's response caught me by surprise. I looekd up to see him staring darts at me with his eyes. I quickly put my arm across the doorway and the smile froze on the slightly gap toothed smile of the woman, the kid looked a little bewildered.
"Oh, um. Well then I can't let you in but I can serve you out here" I awkwardly offered.
"Do you sell queen bees?" the man asked a bit querelously.
"Sometimes, but we have none today." Aside from the guy's tone, it struck me as rather ignorant to think we'd just have queen bees on demand, especially on a day of such poor weather. If he hadn't already leaped right onto my bad side I'd have explained more about the correct way to go about getting a queen from us but I wasn't in the mood.
"Is there anywhere else we can get a queen?" he demanded. With a perfectly straight face I gave him the information for another local beekeeper whom I was fully aware would not be open that day, and the man and his family got in their car to go visit this other guy.
The rest of the day passed without incident. My best friend Billie has recently moved to a sweet new pad way out east in the mountains of Gippsland and had invited a bunch of her friends over, and I haven't seen her in nearly a year again, so my plans for the weekend were to head out there. So for the first time I left work "early" as the normal knock off time at 4:30 to make sure to catch the Queenscliff ferry (at 6pm) about half an hour east to cut across the entrance to the Port Philips Bay rather than slog through Melbourne. To go through Melbourne might have actually been slightly faster but it is absolutely worth $72 to me to avoid driving through the city. Interestingly on the ferry I wasn't asked about my vaccination status. Just same conditions as before (check in and always wearing mask).
It was fully dark by the time I was driving through the forest up the curvy mountain roads close to Billie's place. There were lots of trees down across the road but none across the whole road (had probably been partially cleared during the day) but still it was an exciting night drive of tree dodging. Got to Bill's place around 9am. Her (non-identical) twin Alexis ("Lexie," or just "Lek") (they're actually triplets, there's another one of them that is identical to Billie) was there as well as another friend of theirs ("Sel?"). We all just chatted a bit and went to bed comparatively early. I got the couch.
Saturday
Saturday morning we headed fifteen minutes to the Thompson Dam where Billie now works. I'm not actually sure of her exact title but she does forest fire firefighting in teh catchment area when a fire is on and when things aren't on fire various things to maintian the continued servicability of the fire roads and facilities. The dam is pretty, well, dam impressive.
After that we went for lunch in the nearby Rawsome pub, "The Stockyard." Here we were a bit anxious because several of the girls hadn't yet gotten the government backed proof of vaccination working on their phones. I had miraculously managed to sort it out myself just on Thursday. There was a sign on the door advising guests that vaccination was required to enter the premises ("but we also have take-away available"), and the bartender/host/server greeted us and asked if we were all vaccinated. We asked if it was sufficient that several of us had the physical cards given at time of vaccination but not the app yet and he said he needed ot ask the manager and scurried off. A minute or two later he came back with an affirmative answer. The place had a fun decor of old farm implements, including a hanging lamp made from a windmill that we all admired. The food was good but their beer selection was so bad I was wondering if the owner had a particular hatred of beer -- they had nine different kinds of pre-mix (in Australia pre-mixed rum and coke in a can and suchlike are really popular), but just two basic beers on tap and maybe two more available as cans. They even had more varieties of hard cider. Seemed a bit weird for a out-in-the-bush pub. Premixes are popular but like, people do like beer, and I don't think I'm utterly alone in thinking that "Victoria Bitter" is NOT the be all end all only beer one would ever need.
But I had a delicious dessert item I'd never encountered before, "steamed jam pudding."
Then we proceeded another 15-20 minutes to this resurrected ghost town called Walhalla. A former gold town that had been booming around the 1910s and had at the time been one of the most productive in the state, producing 74 tons of gold, it later dwindled away until it was an abandoned ghost town, but in the 70s or 80s the surviving buildings began to be rehabilitated as a tourist attraction. It's in a very narrow valley and the old timey buildings are extremely picturesque. Here we met up with Billie's former housemate (and shire councilwoman!) Kerstin, and her boyfriend Dan, a quiet fellow wearing skinny jeans. Lek and Sel were gonna leave at this point in the weekend to do some other things but Kerstin used her powers of persuasion to persuade them to stay.
Walking amongst the other tourists here it felt weird not to be wearing masks (no longer mandated for outdoors areas) and I couldnt' shake this feeling of guilt and involuntary grabbing for my mask whenever I was passing near someone else.
The weather had been remarkably good but it began to rain after awhile and we returned to Billie's place where we had venison tacos/burritoes (Billie is a fan of hunting deer, wihch are an invasive species here, and hence has a superabundance of venison), and like the truly wild 30-somethings we all are we then spent the evening.... watching David Attenborough documentaries on netflix.
It's hard to get a good picture of Walhalla since it's in a narrow valley but here's a picture looking across from one side to the other, the building up the hill is the hospital, we were all a bit perplexed why the hospital would be up the hill, seems hard to get to in a hurry
And then there was another day to the weekend but it's late and this is long enough so I'll hopefully write that tomorrow (:
Edited to add: Today
Oh but I wanted to add, because it's thematically related, that today I arrived at work to find that those who had worked on Saturday had solved the conundrum of asking everyone about their vaccination status by moving the sales counter to the entryway of the store so _no one_ can enter and they therefore don't have to ask anyone. Ii felt like it was a big cop out!! Also just another way it feels like the "easing" of restrictions is actually in practical effect making us make more extensive precautions.