Surviving MIQ

Following a hectic three days of packing up my life in Mareeba, I spent 14 days in the Stamford Plaza hotel MIQ facility.

There were similarities and differences to my previous 14-day quarantine experience at Howard Springs...

Similarities:
- emotional rollercoaster from the first 3-4 days of 'this isn't so bad to day 8-10 of 'it feels like I'm never going to get out of here'
- food being delivered in cardboard containers
- being able to use the time to 'check out' of a previous MAF programme and re-orient myself for the next phase

Differences:
- more comfortable bed :)
- no outside access :(
- bigger room :)
- virtually no human interaction :(

I really feel for the extroverts who have to go through it...

When I was packing up all my stuff I came across a pack of Post-it notes and decided to throw it in. On arrival in MIQ I decided that I would use them to create window art each morning. My room overlooked the exercise pen area so I hope it brightened people's day as they walked around.

Exercise area - an 80 m loop

Here are my daily efforts (flipped horizontally so you can see what people outside would have seen)

Day 1: Pacman

Day 2: Sunshine

Day 3: Waving

Day 4: Hot air balloon

Day 5: Lightbulb

Day 6: Exit

Day 7: Octopus

Day 8: Music

Day 9: Heartbeat

Day 10: House

Day 11: Tropical islands

Day 12: Bike

Day 13: UFO

Day 14: Bye

In 14 days you can also build up some substantial collections...

Cans (2 per day)

Brown paper bags (1 per meal)

Another stack I brought with me