THE QUARANTINE INTERVIEWS: 6

1 April 2020

Herzel is fresh off the Vasco da Gama and in mandatory detention on Rottnest Island. For two weeks.

 

How are you feeling about this situation?

A bit sore, but we adapt.

 

What’s been most difficult?

About being forced into an all expenses paid fortnight on a sunny holiday island, with balcony views over a turquoise bay and no kids in sight, you mean? Well, there’s no deck quoits here on Rotto.

 

That is hard. How are you entertaining yourselves?

We had a balcony-to-balcony singalong at Quarantini hour last night. Not original, I know, but we gave it our own spin.

 

What did you sing?

‘I Want to Ride my Bicycle’.

 

So you’re marooned, then?

Completely. I’m itching get out to Little Salmon Bay for a snorkel, but they’ve got the drones out. We can’t catch a cray or even drop a line off the jetty. Waste of a perfectly good barbecue area, if you ask me. The only blessing is that the Geordie Bay shop has caviar, and they deliver.

 

What do the quokkas make of it all?

They’ve really had to lift their game. There’s hardly anyone on the island, so titbits are thin on the ground. They’ve mobilised themselves remarkably quickly into several travelling cabaret troupes, moving from courtyard to courtyard giving private performances of their burlesque/ acrobatic fusion. They’re busking, essentially. I think they’re doing all right.

 

It’s been inspiring to see the quick pivots so many have made to survive in these brutal times, hasn’t it?

Yes, and not least the cruise ship community. We should have been steaming towards London, and now look at us! Doing our bit to avoid ‘Going Italian’, as the medicos like to say.

 

And forbidden from drinking Aperol at Pinky’s!

Exactly right. I hope our sacrifices are being clocked on the mainland. A round of applause at 7pm each night of our incarceration would mean a lot.