Only a few days ago did I learn I get a week off at the end of May. I have been dreaming up possible directions to ride in since. 

Only 2 hours ago I learned my country, The Netherlands, is closing all schools, cafe's, restaurants, coffee shops, sport clubs and sex clubs until the 6th of April.

The whole thing about flattening the curve, trying to keep health care available by slowing the spread of the virus. We will find out in 2 weeks or a month if these measures have the hoped for result. I am still banking on the cycle trip at the end of May to be good to go, but I will wait with planning for now.

Hi Susan yes I thought I was lucky just missing the NZ self isolation requirement but the Australian Government have just done the same. 

So that means I’ll need to self isolate for two weeks when I get home on Friday, and I’ll need to change my cycle tour plans with a postponed start. I’m not sure how long the postponement will need to be yet.

Hi Jet Age, 

It’s great to ‘see’ you here on CycleBlaze too. 
A couple of older cycle touring friends of mine from W.A. are now bunkered down in The Netherlands hoping to get a flight back to Australia before our borders are also closed. They are very impressed with the extent and rapidity of the Dutch response compared with ours. They said you have whole ‘catastrophe hospitals’ on standby by situations such as this pandemic. Their daughter is a medic working in the epicentre of the Italian COVID-19 so they couldn’t visit her, and they are shocked at the impact of COVID-19 on Europe.

Today the Australian Government has declared an unprecedented Level 4 global travel advisory. Basically this tells all Australians to Do Not Travel to any other country, and to get home soon or we might be locked out at the border. I have a ticket to home from NZ on Friday. QANTAS have offered me a credit if I decide to cancel my booking  and stay in NZ but I’ll try to get home as planned so I can go into self isolation for two weeks. Then I plan to still do a Canberra to Perth cycle tour which I’ve been planning for a while.

All the best with your May tour. Let’s hope  there is some semblance of normality by then.

Hi again Graham,

An update from Southport on the Gold Coast:  Shortly after we arrived in Aus, we realized we'd just got in under the wire, no 14 days of self-isolation required. I've managed to stretch my legs with a couple of short rides N and S along the coast, reintroducing myself to roundabouts the "wrong" way round, and getting used to the sun being in odd places again :)  I have one more planned for Monday AM, up into the hills. "one more", 'cos

We awoke last Tues to the PM urging Canadian abroad to return home while we still can, his categorical advisory echoed by our travel health insurance company saying we'd not be covered if we chose to linger in the sun. We rang our travel agent in Ottawa, and she, bless her, managed to advance our return flights by a month.  So we pack up everything in a couple of days, and leave Brissie on Wed/25th morning --arriving, Insh'allah, at 16:30 in Ottawa the same day (!!)

Then, we'll do penance in the form of two weeks self-isolation, emerging around April 8 like a couple of moles, blinking in the spring sunshine. "Just in case" we had stocked on food and other supplies up bef leaving Ottawa two weeks ago (habits learned on the farm decades ago...)

Post-iso, I'll follow my LBS' exemplary letter to its customers, urging everyone to practise cycling as a healthy form of social distancing.

Beyond that?  Well, we'll see. I'm not at all sure that my planned route in Atlantic Canada will be on for late July.  If not, then I'l scale back to a 10-14 days in the rural hills of E Ontario and W Qué.

Cheers,  mate.

John

John it sounds as we’ve just had almost identical experiences.

Last week I slipped into NZ beating their lockdown by two days. But I was only there (at my in-laws’ place) for three days and the Australian Government said come home or else. The local airlines also announced they are grounding most of their fleets, so I quickly bought a return ticket, just made it home via a very empty Sydney International Airport, donned a mask for the bus trip to Canberra and am now self isolating at home for two weeks. The dog is delighted. His human is trapped at home with him.

I’ve postponed the start of the Canberra to Perth ride. I simply don’t know when it’ll be OK to head off. If it was a normal tour, I would risk starting as soon as I finish the self isolation period. But because it is a fundraising ride for the ARLF, my co-riders and I will be seeking media attention, doing shameless self promotion and encouraging gatherings along the way to Perth to help with scholarship donations. Hence it is probably better to wait until spring, or until it appears that the COVID19 spread is waning.

I hope you and your family in both Australia and Canada stay healthy. The world is going to be somewhat different for a while even after this pandemic passes. Let’s hope the changes are for the better.

I am planning a section of the Trans-American Route that I have never done.  I'm lucky that it's "local" and my time frame is flexible so I can make unlimited route modifications or not go at all.

Hoping to go because who doesn't want to go on a bike trip, but it will also be nice to ride through some of the small towns (that are surely being hard hit by the economic times at the moment) and sprinkle a bit of money around.

Karen that sounds like a good plan. Today in Australia it became a whole lot harder to cycle tour as another two states announced strict border controls, and the federal government requested people stop all non-essential travel. To enter those states means a mandatory two quarantine period in self isolation. Several states and territories including my own have announced shutdowns within 48 hours. Basically people will be expected to bunker down at home with minimal social contact. The number of COVID19 cases is increasing dramatically. 

Hence I’ve delayed the start of my next tour for at least three months. There’s now a real sense of urgency and feeling that all but essential services will be shut. For examples restaurants, clubs, churches and pubs will close their doors. Only those with take away or delivery services will remain open. Supermarkets and pharmacies will remain open. 

Depending on how the situation develops I might do a short local tour in the nearby bush backcountry away from settled areas. 

We just finished a ten day circle tour of Idaho, Nevada and California visiting friends and family. It was the inaugural  tour towing our teardrop trailer - bikes attached. I suspect a sort of serial hub and spoke touring (maybe more of a rim and spoke touring) will be in our future when MJ retires in a little over a year. So far no signs of the virus. Being encapsulated in car and teardrop with minimal contact it gave us at least an appearance of safety and protection. Being someone who tics off several "underlying conditions" that we are warned put me a greater risk of more serious effects from the virus cautions are taken. But it seem nearly impossible to hide from all possible contact and for that matter being an agent of contagion. Eventually everyone will be exposed so for me it is do your best safe practices and then live your life (He writes after leaving his home only twice in the last week.).

All that said, I have a tour that's been in the planning for several years starting at the Washington, Idaho state line and ending at  the Pacific.  And yes I will evaluate the situation before taking off hopefully in the late summer or early fall. Maybe it will be all over by then. I think it would be less than convenient to contract a major illness two or three day's ride from a medical facility. So yes it will effect my touring. 

Robert I am surprised and pleased COVID19 is having so little affect in your area. The control measures are becoming tighter and tighter here. Friends and rels. have lost their jobs, others are hurrying to get home before more borders are closed. A week ago I was still considering doing my next long tour. Now it would be impossible. The next tour will need to a backcountry circuit from home avoiding settlements and carrying enough food for the whole trip.

One blessing is there have only been 30 cases in our city and all of those people were infected elsewhere, such as on cruise ships, before returning home to isolate. To date there’s not been any local person to person infections. No doubt it will happen sooner or later. 

I just read this thread today. As I come to terms with postponing our 3-4 month Balkans trip to 2021. Amazing how quickly the landscape has changed in the last couple of weeks. Choices that seemed quite  sensible then are impossible now.