…with an early morning alarm – this is one plane we can’t afford to miss.

However before worrying about whether we miss the plane, the plane has to arrive for us to miss it. Is it a bad omen when the incoming flight from Auckland to Perth, that is, the plane we will be taking for the return journey, turns back part way across the Tasman? Luckily not, and the flight arrives a couple of hours late, which translates into our flight leaving a couple of hours late. No need for that alarm then.

Armed with passports, managed isolation vouchers, negative Covid tests and wistful smiles, we check in with the world’s slowest check in agent – she tells us she is out of practice, but anyway there’s little chance of our bags heading to Shanghai or Vancouver as ours is the only international flight leaving. The airport is deserted and you could fire the literal cannon down the gate lounges and hit no one. This also means nothing, and I mean nothing, is open in retail so no chance of a coffee. Duty Free is open as we know they never miss a chance, and Scott wonders if we could buy a bottle of coffee liqueur in the stead of our flat whites. Desperation drives us to a vending machine and we grab a coffee milk – it will have to do. Everyone follows our lead and that selection quickly runs out.

I’ve never seen so few people at an airport gate: the flight has about 60 on board, the highest body:seat ratio is in business which has 13 of the18 seats occupied. It’s only five and a half hours on our direct flight which, aside from mask wearing, is the same as always.

Arrival in Auckland is a whole new experience. We offload and walk down, down, down to the bowels of the airport following the ubiquitous yellow Covid signs and arrows to work through the arrivals process, starting with temperature taking. Arrival cards now have a section asking about Covid symptoms, and at least 595 different people look at this form, ask the same questions already answered on the form, scrawl on it with red markers and point us to the next masked, screened, gowned interrogator – rinse and repeat.

It is a well oiled but excruciatingly slow process. No one knows the answer to the $64,000 question – “Where are we going?” Someone tells us the bus driver knows, but clearly he’s not sharing. When we get to the final door we see a sign taped to the window – Stamford Plaza. So we are in Auckland – bugger – but in one of the reasonably decent hotels – yay. We sit on the bus and wait 45 minutes for everyone’s luggage to be screened. At this stage we haven’t laid eyes on our bags, and won’t for another two or three hours when they arrive outside our room.

With Auckland more or less in lockdown, and on a Monday night at 9.00pm, it’s a quick trip to the inner city. From disembarking the bus it is a rigidly spaced 2 metre distanced, mask wearing, hand-sanitising line to be allocated rooms, read the rules, given written copies of the rules, choose meals for the next two days, pay a $200 deposit to the hotel, and get to the room.

There are pages and pages in the “Welcome Pack” with plenty of don’ts and not a lot of do-s. We are herded much as the animals onto Noah’s Ark into the lift by good humoured Defence Force staff, who I am certain didn’t envision this in their future when they signed up for a life of adventure on the high seas or as Top Gun.

Before leaving Perth we prepare for our two weeks isolation: at the charity shop I buy a jigsaw puzzle, two plates, knives, forks and spoons. We pack gloves, masks, sanitiser, wipes, good knives, tea towel, our coffee plunger, black pepper grinder, my yoga mat; we download movies and TV series in case of poor wifi, the Apple TV. All this is the equivalent of Bear Grylls taking a tooth pick and pocket knife.

On arrival, the room is a relief: spacious, plenty of storage, big ensuite with a shower and a bath, large picture window with a splendid view of the ANZ centre across Albert Street – no, the window does not open – they don’t want to risk anyone jumping out.

And, surprise! they provide two plates, bowls, knives, forks spoons and teaspoons along with the usual cups and glasses.

Our bags eventually arrive, presumably they have been sanitised in some way. We unpack, vowing to keep our space tidy. And surprise! our coffee plunger insert broke on the journey.

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Yesterday is known as Day Zero.

Day One: a 1.00am bedtime and half a sleeping pill means we wake at 8.30. Arrgh! Have we missed breakfast? No, it arrives about 8.45am, and is better than a lot of cafes. Lunch is sushi and dinner, fish or lasagne.

So that answers your questions about the food. I hope it stays as good for the rest of the week. As we put orders in (see menu above) for the next few days I specify, for me at least, no dessert, and we decide to share or skip a few breakfasts/lunches. If we eat everything on offer, we will be unable to exit the room.

Other than eat on day one, I do yoga, start this blog, chat on the phone, read my book, supervise Scott starting an exercise programme – we settle on the 1950s Canadian Air Force 5BX – I remember this and the accompanying 10BX being popular in the 1970s. We also respond to an invitation to the ballroom for our Day One Covid test. We are not allowed out of the room for outdoor exercise until this comes back negative. This is another two by two supervised entry into the lift, along yellow wallpapering warning signs, into the testing area where the test is short and sharp and less thorough than the one in Perth, back into the lift and “home” again.

And so ends Day One.