The One That Got Away: Travelling in the Time of Covid
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley January 3, 2022
Author Ken Halley.
Distributor: Transit Lounge
ISBN: 978-1-925760-85-9
Publisher: Transit Lounge
Release Date: November 2021
Website: https://transitlounge.com.au
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In 2019 Ken Halley, The One Who Got Away, had the next twelve months planned out, almost down to the last dollar and detail. That was before the world as he and everyone else knew it changed, with the advent to COVID -19.
Undaunted, he took a long view of his plans and decided that as he was heading out to the small nations of the Caribbean Sea, via Cuba with a few small stops on the way through, the challenge of travelling in a what was then, a slightly changed world would be worth it. He headed out to see if his reading and expectation of these new frontiers lived up to speculation and anticipation.
Leaving Australia on 21 February 2020, he intended to return exactly one year later, but fate, as it so often does was to intervene in so many ways, eventually bringing him home to Australia 10 months later, older, wiser and very pleased to place his feet, or at least his wheelchair wheels, firmly on Australian ground.
Arriving in Canada as his first stop, he found conditions more or less as expected. He met with old friends before moving on to Cuba, the beginning of his adventures where he was to confront the reality and the very real challenges of travelling in a country that was ill equipped to deal with wheelchair travelers, let alone the Corona virus.
A very experienced traveler of more than 30 years traveling with his wheelchair, Ken had learned to be able to adjust to situations as they arose, changing plans as necessity dictated and still being able to accomplish his desired objective.
But what he had not been able to factor in was the effect COVID was to have on the small nations he would be visiting, the total disorganization that was to be found on Barbados and in several other nations. The fear of the locals being caught should they break curfew, and the constantly changing rules as to swab tests, quarantine and the general lack of accommodation, was constant and exhausting.
Along his journey he met many wonderful people who, time after time helped him along the way, and the obstruction of the government officials to so many areas became an exercise in not getting involved in local politics. Well almost not getting involved in local politics! He also became very familiar with the frustration of booking onward flights only to have them cancelled time after time.
Up until he was unable to rendezvous with his delivery of medical requirements, organized down to the last detail, things although not going smoothly, were still allowing him to see a little of the many places he had always wondered about. Until he could not, and things changed dramatically.
A well-read journalist and author, Ken Halley’s travel memoir The One That Got Away makes fascinating reading in a time when for many, travel has become a thing of the past, any travel is still fraught with very real challenges, lock downs, swab testing and the possibility of quarantining, and that is simply to go from State to State in Australia, let alone the anywhere in the World, is ever present.
Ironically now the world is opening up a little at the end of 2021, much of what Ken Halley experienced is still very much a reality; travel anywhere is fraught with instant change, Countries are now grappling with the still largely unknown effects of the new Omnicom strain and life, let alone life of the traveler, is still an ever changing kaleidoscope.