Highlights
- Couple solidified their relationship after becoming "stuck" in Townsville
- Pandemic has allowed a new family dynamic to develop
- Chileans created an adventure-filled life in north Queensland
Francisca Caballero left Chile in December 2019, along with her six-year-old son Antar, to visit her sister who lives in Townsville, 1354km north of Brisbane, for a few months.
Soon after, they were joined by Sebastian, Francisca's partner of just six months at that time.
The idea was to spend six months travelling and getting to know each other gradually but the pandemic quashed their plans and the couple found themselves effectively “trapped” in Townsville, Queensland's unofficial capital in the north, for more than two years.
“We were supposed to just be on vacation and life presented us with a potential road block and instead of letting it throw us off balance, we said ‘well, let's settle in, let's see what we can do’. And many things also played in our favour,” Mr Araya, who is also Chilean, told SBS Spanish in their new podcast series Gracias a la pandemia yo...
During the more than two years that their adventure lasted, these travellers were luckily able to secure rent-free accommodation.
“An Australian generously allowed us to live for free on the second floor of his house,” Ms Caballero said.
Listen to the story in Spanish:
The couple, together with Antar, quickly transformed the space into a home packed full of happy memories.
But it wasn’t always an easy time. Mr Araya and Ms Caballero said they had had to work very hard to provide a stable base for Antar.
We never thought it was a pandemic. We said: it will be three months, in three months everything will be solved. We never thought this would spread.
When Ms Caballero realised that they could not return to Chile for some time, the first thing she did was look for a school for Antar, she said.
A major hurdle was the fact that her son did not speak any English at that time, Ms Caballero said. This situation has definitely changed.
"I didn't speak English. Then I started watching other people speak English and that's when I started speaking English,” Antar said.
“And I kept practicing and now I speak better than these two!"
As Antar adjusted to his new school, new language and new friends, his mother and Mr Araya went out to look for work, because with a tourist visa they had to pay more than AUD$4000 per quarter just to keep him in school.
The family made Townsville in Queensland's far north their home for more than two years. Source: Arterra/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Over the next few months, they worked gardening and cleaning houses.
But the exhausting heat of Townsville and encounters with spiders, snakes and green ants convinced Ms Caballero that it was better to look for another job.
Weeks later, she found work as a cleaner in the student dormitory section of James Cook University.
It was this job that in turn gave her “essential worker” status and the opportunity to apply for the COVID visa for herself and her companions.
Under this new visa, Antar could go to school for free.
Even though money was still tight, the new family made man friends and enjoyed an active social life, Ms Caballero said.
In the last two years in north Queensland, the family has been camping with friends and attended multiple parties and birthday celebrations, a couple of Christmases and New Year's celebrations.
Ms Caballero says the pandemic and Australia gave her the opportunity to create a family.
We hadn’t planned on living together so quickly but the three of us were thrust together in a sort of family dynamic which was successful in the end.
“I think the best thing the pandemic has given me is that, starting my family again,” she said.
