Light at the End of the Tunnel

Covid19 has consumed our lives for the past couple of years, but there now appears to be light at the end of the tunnel.

While Australia’s vaccination journey at the start was slow and bumpy we now appear to be in a much better position with Canberra over 93% and NSW over 80% fully vaccinated and Australia as a whole over 70% fully vaccinated, and climbing. With these high vaccination rates we are slowly emerging from this Covid19 winter and moving towards a new normal. No doubt, given time, much of life will bounce back, but that will take time and there will be some things that will never be the same again. Office work for example will not be the same – before all this started working from home was only something people gave lip service to and certainly not something that was widely supported. No that’d never work. Staff productively would take a beating. We couldn’t trust our staff to do the right thing. Just No.!

This has been one huge social experiment and overnight everything we had known was put on its head. And there is no putting that genie back in the bottle. If someone told me five years ago that we’d be working like this and that management would be looking at how to implement this in an ongoing fashion I’d look at you like you were smoking something. But that’s exactly the world we live in now.

For me I struggled with working from home as I like staff around me and I like the frenetic nature of the office environment. I struggled with the video style of communications as I felt like I am always in presentation mode, which sucks the life out of an introvert. I struggled with the blurring of home and work life, and as lockdown continued all time blurred together until it felt like we were just existing. And the longer it went on the more I felt like I was walking up and down the boundary fence like a caged lion looking out at the wilds … lost.

But life is slowly getting back to some semblance of normality as we are slowly opening up. With spring well and truly here it’s been great to be able to get on the bike over the last few weeks and gradually ride further and further afield.

My first escape into the country was a few weeks ago. Although it was only for a few hours, rolling through the hills, the patchwork of yellow canola fields, the smells of the open road and even the stench of road kill. It was just so good not being suffocated by the city scape. The joy of just sitting and enjoying a coffee surrounded by the charms of a small country town.

Bike riders talk about this as two wheeled therapy, and this was one session I needed.

Next week felt different, Oh how I missed just getting out for a ride in the country. This is what I’ve been missing. This is where I recharge, and I was given a new lease of energy for the next week.

A week ago we called up some friends and organised a ride to the coast just to smell the salt air, have a feed of fish and chips by the beach, and just hang out for a few hours.

And it was great.

And Go.!

And yesterday I had the day off and took the opportunity to duck out for a 580km coastal loop down the Brown mountain to Bega up the coast to Batemans Bay and back up the Clyde mountain and home.

Pulling out of the driveway in the predawn light at 5:30 as the city was coming to life we headed south. My mistake was dressing for an expected 25 degrees and not the current temp of 7 degrees. Unfortunately the temperature dropped further to 3 degrees as we headed to Cooma – I think I did my days exercise in shivering.

After some wake up juice to warm us up at Nimmitabel the fog cleared revealing a glorious riding day.

And from 1 November fully vaccinated people can move freely between ACT, NSW, and Victoria so it truly does feel like we are emerging on the other side.

But what does the other side look like…???

I guess only time will tell.

Cover photo – tunnel in Zion NP, Utah from a ride in 2013