Coming home to Canberra from Aotearoa-New Zealand, January 2020: Rebecca

We drove home along the Princes Highway and the smoke got increasingly dense as we approached Canberra. I remember researching the type of masks we needed and ordering smoke masks online as we drove down, as we’d heard there was a shortage in Canberra. At a roadside stop near Bundanoon we felt like we’d stepped into a refugee zone: cars of weary families buying up massive amounts of supplies, obviously having just driven from bushfire affected areas of the coast, a feeling of tension palpable. It felt surreal, as we’d been otherwise so disconnected from the ‘reality on the ground’, having just flown in from Aotearoa-New Zealand. We carried on to Canberra and the smoke was very thick. We have evaporative cooling at our house which we couldn't use with the smoke, as it draws air in from outside to function. It was very hot. The smoke leaked into the house via a grille on the toilet window, so when we arrived home, there was a definite smoke smell throughout the house. I remember thinking that it felt like a very strange decision to leave the Aotearoa-New Zealand summer and clear skies for this smoky, apocalyptic reality. On bad days, particularly just after New Year, we could hardly see the street in front of our house, let alone any of the hills around us.