It’s Christmas – well, the timeless space between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day – and we’re in Snug, Tasmania, to visit family.

We were lucky to enter Tassie, actually. During these times of pandemic precautions, the relatively safe island of Tasmania requires all visitors to provide a negative test result from a COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of entry – but with the Christmas holidays leading to a rush on testing sites, our results took 82 hours to arrive.

When our results hadn’t arrived in time (we got tested at 10am Thursday in advance of a 5pm Saturday departure), we almost didn’t bother to board the Spirit of Tasmania ferry that would take us from Melbourne to Devonport. But, we felt sure our results would arrive before the end of our 12-hour crossing.

They didn’t.

Still, Tasmania’s border control appreciated the situation and sent us on our way, directing us to isolate at our family property and make no unnecessary stops on the three-hour drive there. It’s… a lot of trust to bestow upon visitors, but boy did we appreciate it.

Luckily, our results arrived while we were driving, so the trip has ultimately been untroubled. Well, apart from the stress of waiting for our results. (We were positive that we were negative (pardon the pun), but given the potential that we were asymptomatic, you can never know for sure!)

Here are some photos from our first couple of days.