When plans fall through; missed milestones thanks to COVID

Many of us have missed out on properly celebrating some big milestones over the last 18 months, thanks to COVID. Are you in that boat? In the scheme of things, if that’s the worst thing we’ve suffered during this period then we are doing okay! But even so, it can be frustrating when things don’t go to plan.

For me, I was coming up to the big 4-0 mid-2021. I had been dreading it; not because of the age factor, but the thought of what to do. Having big parties thrown in my honour is not something that I’m entirely comfortable with anyway, but add to that a separation in the first half of 2020 that I was not in the most celebratory headspace. But being a big milestone I felt I should do something; I just didn’t know what.

For a while I relied on the time-honoured human tradition of procrastination to solve this problem. Ongoing COVID uncertainty provided a perfect backdrop in support of this approach. But needless to say the problem didn’t solve itself, and a so I decided I better actually sit down and think about it. A party still didn’t hold much appeal, so I decided to think of something different, something I’d never done before and really wanted to do. It seemed a brainstorm was in order!

Don’t worry; there was no whiteboard involved! I’m not the type of person that can produce a whiteboard on wheels and a brand new pack of five coloured white-board markers at a moment’s notice. Not yet, anyway.

Photo by Jarod Barton from Pexels

Anyway, when I had jotted down a bunch of ideas and when I had finished my list and then circled the top three, skiing in New Zealand was at the top. Awesome! I’ve never been to NZ and I’ve never been to the snow; tick, tick! There was that little niggling thing called COVID that could present a problem though. The border-bubble was in operation at the time, but like all bubbles was liable to pop at any moment. And there was also the small detail that I had undergone an ACL reconstruction about six months earlier and was still doing rehab for it! I chatted to the physio I’ve been seeing and got the “yeah, no”. I was happy when she at least added “yet”. So perhaps not the smartest of ideas at the moment, but it can stay on the list for another time.

I drew a line through New Zealand and looked at the second option on the list, finding a trip to Melbourne; with a mandatory viewing of a Swans game preferably at the MCG while there, catching up with my sister and her lovely partner, catching up with some mates and possibly wrangling a few more to come along. Sweet; a respectable plan B. It eliminated the knee problem (then again, I’d love to see the stats on injuries gained whilst skiing vs injuries gained whilst celebrating a fortieth birthday with mates!). There was still the COVID issue, but Melbourne has been looking good after plenty of lockdown pain in 2020 and games had resumed, with audiences, at the stadiums. Surely they couldn’t go into another lockdown!

Photo by Robert Stokoe from Pexels

I think we all know how that one ended. Melbourne went into another lockdown and there was a big question mark on whether it would be lifted in time. There was an even bigger question mark on whether the games would go ahead and play, with crowds allowed. And the biggest question mark was on whether I’d be able to get back to Queensland without having the borders snapped close like a over-sized rat trap, sending me into quarantine for two weeks! QLD has proven trigger happy on that front, second only to WA! And given how quarantine had been travelling at that time there was a high likelihood I would do my time, only to be released, visit fifteen destinations in the space of three hours only to then test positive and found I had actually caught COVID whilst in quarantine and have to go back in and do another two weeks!

A pencil line made its way through plan B, and I cast my eyes down to plan C. Sydney. Good old reliable New South Wales. Good ol’ reliable Gladys would keep the borders open and COVID under control, with her crack team of the world’s best contact tracers. It didn’t tick the “do something new” box, but it was a good plan C, with most of my family and many long term friends based in Sydney. I could travel down, head out on the town, celebrate with family and friends, maybe seek out some attractions I’d never been to before. A good plan C.

And then of course, Sydney went into lockdown, even though they tried to pretend they weren’t for a while by not calling it that. Gladys was left with egg on her face, and I was left to seek out the dust-pan and brush and sweep up the tiny remnants of my list which I had proceeded to tear up on hearing the news. I did put them in recycling though.

So, fast-forward the last few weeks to the big day. I was recovering from a virus which had done the rounds (not COVID; my nose was still tender from the test!), feeling much better but still a little flat after five days of working from home, sleeping the rest of the time and doing nothing in the way of exercise. It was a Saturday, and I awoke to a glorious winter’s day with clear skies and a light breeze. It seemed a crime to stay inside and waste such a day, especially knowing there were others in lockdown who would jump at the chance to get out and about.

So I pulled on my shoes, grabbed my hat and sunnies, and jumped in the car and drove half an hour north to Mount Cooroora, in the Noosa Hinterland. It’s the mountain that they hold the annual King of the Mountain race; from pub to peak and back – a truly Aussie approach to mountain climbing!

I started off feeling invigorated by the morning air. Not far in I remembered that I had recently been sick and was a bit out of shape and feeling it. But I pushed on until I got to the actual climb. It was certainly steep; not quite rock climbing, but not bush walking either; somewhere in between. I pushed on up the track, smiling to the few other climbers I passed, some on their way up, some coming down, and trying vainly to limit the amount of puffing. The quads started burning when I was roughly half-way up, but I pushed onwards, climbing up over rocks and utilising the anchored chain that ran alongside the track to pull myself up the more vertical sections.

Finally I reached the top. The weather had produced a crystal-clear day, and the mountain view did the rest; offering a 360 panorama of the region; Noosa and the ocean to the East, the Sunshine Coast stretching out to the south, and the green hinterland stretching North and West. The glass house mountains visible in the distance, along with other, closer peaks. It might not have been skiing in New Zealand, watching the Swans crush the Bulldogs in Melbourne, or partying with friends and family in Sydney. But it was beautiful; just a tiny example of the many gifts that nature has to offer us, if we remember to look for it. Another great reason why we should be striving to preserve and protect the natural world.

I spent some time up there, recovering first admittedly, then enjoying the view and the peace it afforded. Finally, I checked my phone and noticed the many messages and well-wishes from friends and family that had been sent my way over the course of the drive and the climb. It was not the fortieth I had planned, but it was memorable none-the-less.