Red Hill

The day started with a new letter from the Auswärtige Amt. The message was something like 'book with Qatar Airways NOW'. This was slightly stressing as the prices got very quickly insanely high. 11000 AUD per ticket!!! Who is willing to pay this? An hour later the next message followed saying something like 'Qatar will keep connecting Australia with Europe as far as we know. So you can also book tickets for April.' Sure for April the prices looked slightly better but even those were changing while you were looking at them. Plus, we already have 1400€ in flight coupons, we don't really want another one. In corona times booking a flight for 2 weeks from now feels like booking a flight 5 years ahead normally. There's too much uncertainty.

Just when we decided to wait for the Dutch government advice, we received an SMS from them. 'book Qatar Airways to Europe'. Ok, so again we checked the website for flights, now to Amsterdam. They were a bit cheaper. We considered booking but even then for something several days from now. Before finalising we decided to call the Netherlands. We actually reached someone quite quickly (beforehand we already tried to reach Qatar Airways or the German embassy to ask if the connection is really guaranteed in April, but neither of them picked up) . The phone line was breaking off twice but it was enough to get to know that Qatar Airways was not part the official Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs solution, but was kind of accidentally sent by the Dutch Embassy via the same communication channel.

To add a bit more frustration to our morning, we also got to know that our Airbnb hosts don't want to host us anymore. They are not the youngest anymore and don't want to take the risk. We of course understand that but it felt quite last-minute and it added another point to our to-do list.

We took a shower and drove to the next town hoping for better reception. Qatar Airways flights seemed hopelessly expensive anyways until 2 weeks from now. And booking that didn't really feel good. Before leaving we went to the local shop to pay our camping (10 dollars for 2 people, it was so cheap). We also bought pasta and sauce just in case. The employee working there was very kind and we had a nice conversation about our situation while of course adhering to the social distancing rule of 1.5m.

In the next town we finally found bread which we enjoyed for lunch in the local park. Machiel called with the Netherlands again before and received the confirmation that Qatar Airways is not the official solution and that we best wait to receive a phone call from the emergency line in the next days. It however sounded as if the actual repatriation flight could still take a while.

In the meantime we again received a letter from Germany. "Repatriation flights are also not for free. The difference is that you pay afterwards and not beforehand. The costs can be high." We of course never expected a free flight to Europe, but we appreciate a reasonable price together with the guarantee that it actually brings us there.

Next on our to do list was a call to Etihad. Surprisingly we also got through here. We wanted to know our options apart from turning our flight into a coupon. The employee was very nice and understanding. Apparently we could also get 80% of the price back. Her advice however was to wait a few days and see if Etihad changes their policy to allow a full refund. That was interesting to hear.

Because our flight was cancelled and we are now seemingly stuck in Perth before repatriation flights are in action, we had to find accommodation for awhile. We called OHRA to check if this was going to be covered in our travel insurance. They answered this wasn't strictly in their policy but that they would judge claims case-by-case out of 'goodwill'. Not perfect but we believe it might work for us.

We looked a bit at other Airbnb options but decided to postpone a booking to tomorrow. We didn't have the energy for cooking today so we went to a nearby takeaway and got some burgers. For the 2nd time in Australia we camped next to as cricket field, this time in Bindoon, pretty close to Perth. One of the great things of being more south again is the weather. We're probably almost a 1000km south of where we were 4 or 5 days ago, and that's definitely noticeable. It's just a little bit cooler all the time which makes the van more livable. We can now even start sleeping in our inlets compared to being soaked in sweat in just underwear.Read more