Common Sense vs Simple Rules

McMasters Beach

The authorities have tried, in their fight to slow the spread of COVID-19, to set down unambiguous rules about what we can and cannot do, and the police have been asked to enforce them.  Yet, every day the media publicises instances of the rules being enforced, seemingly nonsensically, such as the learner driver being fined in Melbourne.

Little Beach Track

I accept that many of these incidents do not make sense, and perhaps the rules could have been applied using more common sense, but I also accept that the rules need to be kept simple and enforced.  Although they will prevent some riskless activities, such as taking a child living in the same home for a driving lesson, it would require a very long list of permissible and prohibited activities to cover all of the possibilities and that would be a nightmare to administer and publicise.

Little Beach

After doing our respective training runs this morning -- Julie's repeats up a notorious local hill, and my 6km plod around Terrigal Lagoon -- we went for a walk in nearby Bouddi National Park.  Despite being "nearby" we did drive a few kilometres to Copacabana to be nearer the trails.  Strictly speaking, you could argue that we had already exercised and didn't need to go for a walk.  You could also argue that if we did want to go for a walk, we could have walked from home.  In fact, our original plan was to drive 40 minutes north to Munmorah Conservation Area and go for a walk there, but last night we decided that it would be easier to justify a shorter local drive, if indeed, we were questioned.

Looking towards Copacabana

Looking towards Third Point

As it happened, nobody queried why we were driving the ten minutes to Copacabana, although we did have a police helicopter circling over us at one point on our walk and also had to wilfully ignore a "Trail Closed" sign at another point.

It was a beautiful and peaceful 9km walk, if a little wet underfoot in places, and we enjoyed some spectacular clifftop views and coastal scenery, along with some lovely bush trails.  We raised a sweat on some of the climbs, so could definitely claim to be exercising, but it would be less easy to defend our drink stop perched on a remote rock overlooking a slightly ruffled vast expanse of Pacific Ocean.