Above: A train of SpaceX Starlink satellites. (Image credit: Marco Langbroek via SatTrackBlog)
Leaving MIQ
Today is my day of freedom! I was discharged from Managed Isolation & Quarantine (MIQ) at 1530. That’s 1h10 later than expected due to my delayed flight arrival 10 days ago.
I consider myself very lucky to have managed to book MIQ when interest was low, due to the then upcoming reopening of borders in mid-February. Due to the Omicron variant, that reopening has been delayed and the demand (as seen in the lobby or virtual queue to the booking system) is crazy again.
[Edit: 11 days after I exit MIQ, new room releases for MIQ were suspended indefinitely. Covid-19 cases amongst arrivals had gone up ten-fold due to the prevalence of Omicron overseas. MIQ vouchers already issued were still honoured but the issue of new vouchers were suspended. I am so so lucky.]
I stepped out of my room a few minutes before the official time of 1530 and headed towards the lobby. I wasn’t the only one that hadn’t heeded the official word not to leave the room until that time. I appeared to be third in line at the check-out.
Having had my health-check on the phone this morning, all they had to do was give me my discharge letter. It was a one-step one-counter process this time (as opposed to two counters in addition to the health-check, last time). Also, they actually checked identification in the form of my passport (as opposed to just asking for my room number last time).
Outside, Kim was waiting for me for our departure to Lake Benmore. A friend Ming was also there, wanting to collect some stuff I had bought for her.
Text continues after this gallery.
-
- Day 6. Breakfast: Light muesli cereal. Lunch: Crumbed fish salad with pine nuts, parmesan and ranch dressing. Dinner: Lemon herb chicken with vegetable rosti, caponata and jus; cake.
-
- Day 7. Breakfast: Pancakes. Lunch: Steak and cheese pie, gravy and salad. Dinner: Mustard crust roast lamb, potato pea mint crush, onion gravy; cake and fruit.
-
- Day 8. Breakfast: Ham bagel. Lunch: Popcorn shrimp soft-shell taco. Dinner: Thai chicken green curry.
-
- Day 9. Breakfast: Cornflakes. Lunch: Chicken burger. Dinner: Super-delicious harissa beef stew.
-
- Day 10. Breakfast: Savoury pastry. Lunch: Smoked salmon salad on wholegrain batard.
Driving to Lake Benmore
We started our drive at 1540, much later than I had planned. It was a beautiful day and we arrived 4h later at the private campground of Brent and his friend. Shadows were long already and some shaded areas felt dark on the drive. But it doesn’t get dark till around 2200.
Even though we had snacked in the car along the way, we managed to chow down on dinner at the camp site around 2200.
After dinner, we sat under the stars briefly. The remote location with no light pollution makes this a great place for star-gazing. As it was also a cloudless night, we struck it lucky to see SpaceX’s Starlink satellite “train”.
I hadn’t kept up with news and it had to be explained to me that these satellites orbit kinda closely bunched-up and appear to the naked eye as a train (see photo above). It was an awesome sight to see. On Kim’s phone camera, it appeared as a continuous streak.
In the cool quiet environment, I had an awesome night sleep in a tent set further back from the water’s edge compared to two years ago.