More than a week has passed since my most recent scheduled tourist day. Global pandemic aside, my fortnightly day of long service leave still saw me with the day off, eight days ago.
Little did I know that 48 hours later my school would transition to a predominantly learning-at-home, working-from-home environment, and that the need to remain indoors and to maintain ‘social distancing’ would go from a wise idea to an essential (though temporary, let’s hope) way of being.
Already well and truly on the side of science, and thus well aware of the need to maintain my 1.5 metre radius of personal space, my fourth ‘tourist in my own city’ outing was an outdoor affair, and a brief one.
Camp Cove is one of Sydney’s gems.
A sheltered harbour beach, its calm waters and usually small number of beachgoers makes it perfect for a relaxing swim. That Friday didn’t disappoint, with beautiful warm weather and plenty of space combining for the ideal swim and relax, all with appropriate social distance still very possible.
It was the following day that Sydney hit the world news’ front pages, with a crowded Bondi Beach highlighting the disregard that many Australians were showing for the need to take caution and to maintain appropriate physical distance from others in this time of increasing community virus transmission.
Flash forward yet another day and our eastern beaches were officially closed to all visitors. That evening’s Twitter-feed, though, featured images of a cordoned-off Camp Cove, jam-packed, extraordinarily, stupidly, with swimmers and sun bakers defying the warning to avoid such close contact. People weren’t crowding Bondi, but they had moved north, squished into this usually quiet enclave. I’m glad I got my swim in while such activities were still permitted.
Things have changed significantly for Sydneysiders in the past week.
Other than grocery shopping and a daily walk with my dog, it’s been at-home only this week. My Tourist In My Own City blog posts are likely to take a much more limited geographical scope over the coming months, as my working-from-home and my days-off locations exist within the same 203 square metre perimeter.
Tourist time will probably be spent devouring books, playing my too-dusty piano, planning concert spectaculars for when performance venues open again, finishing house-tasks long left undone (or, let’s be honest, unstarted), TV binge-viewing and audiobook listening. These at-home pleasures might be the focus for a while.
Honestly, I think that sounds lovely.
Photo of the Day:
Adam Majsay 
Lovely day out. Glad you enjoyed it. Looking forward to more enjoyable reads. xxx
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