Following up from Part 1 of my COVID experience, this is where our fate had been decided.
The morning after we all met in Blenheim, my friend Laurent was communicating with some fellow travel mates about renting an Airbnb for the lockdown. This by far was our best solution and after some back and forth on where it would be we finally found our location.
I would be spending 4 weeks in a beautiful 5 bedroom home in Queenstown with *drumroll*… 12 french travelers. HA! I was about to be in a home with 12 other people I didn’t know who mostly spoke French AND Emma wasn’t coming. On top of the other problems we were dealing with, this really wasn’t a problem to me but I did expect it to be a challenge and possibly a little isolating (no pun intended).
After we got news of the location, I moved my things from Emma’s van into Laurent’s, we gave a tearful goodbye, and left with a mixture of comfort and anxiety with a 10 hour drive ahead of us.
A little backstory on my friend, Laurent. We both met at the beach bar I worked in when I was in Akaroa and as fate would have it, we met 3 days before I was leaving for my trip. He began working the same day I met him and we hit it off right away! He was super friendly, willing to have a good chat, and was a genuinely cool guy to be around. Just before I left we discovered we both had plans to head to the North Island in a few weeks, so he asked if I would like to join him and being the spontaneous person I am I said, “Yes!” This was pretty much the gist of our relationship before we met again in Blenheim.
So here I am, heading down to Queenstown with a guy I barely know to spend 4 weeks with his friends. Oh Becca…the shit you get yourself into.
Spoiler Alert…it was amazing.
Laurent and I’s relationship quickly turned into him being my partner and rock through this lockdown. I lost a family member within our first 2 weeks of lockdown and he was right by my side without hesitation. Actually, everyone in the house became each others rock. I was so nervous about being in this house with no native english speakers, but they went out of their way everyday to make sure that I didn’t feel isolated from them. They were comforting through my loss, we cooked meals, watched movies, played games, and had ‘parties’ together. We all thought this would be the longest weeks of our lives, but time flew and we made the most of it.
When I say we cooked, I mean we baked so much I gained 10 pounds. When I say we watched movies, I mean we watched every Lord of the Rings movie in one day and watched cringe-worthy documentaries on the reg. When I say we played games, I mean we turned our kitchen table into ping pong and then turned it into a boozy ping pong game with egg cartons. When I say we had parties together, I mean we drank more boxed wine than we could afford and would spend the entire next day hungover and eating fish and chips on the sofa. Ya know…just so you get a real idea of how this went down.
I won’t lie, we were spoiled with our view.
I mean…damn.
Granted, this place cost a pretty penny to the average tourist, but when you shove 13 people into a ‘house’ that costs nearly $12,000NZD/month it costs us $900NZD each for our stay. For those of you back home, that’s $500USD/month which is quite reasonable.
About 3 weeks into our lockdown, the NZ Prime Minister announced that the lockdown would be extended for another 3 weeks. That’s a total of 7 weeks in Queenstown. We were getting a bit anxious to leave, so once it was announced that we would be in a Level 2 lockdown we planned our first convene trip with the vans to Milford Sound!
We needed that trip more than anything, and it gave us another amazing experience to share together before parting ways and making our way to more travels and work. Laurent and I headed north like we had previously planned and others did the same or continued traveling around the South Island. We all still keep in touch for the most part, and I can confidently say we shared something that we will always remember.
In tough times it’s easy to get yourself in a bad mentality, but it’s important to remember that no matter the situation a positive mindset can give you the ability to create a beautiful outcome.
Against The Grain Travel 