A complete circuit is 82 paces (87 for Lois). Each circuit takes about 40 seconds. Sixty circuits in each 40-minute exercise session. Four thousand, nine hundred and twenty paces. Anti-clockwise.
The outside decking area beside the pool and gym (both of which are out-of-bounds) has been made available for the inmates to exercise on (‘Walking Only, No Vigorous Exercise’) supervised by a member of the New Zealand armed forces – presumably making sure we don’t escape or break any of the social-distancing rules.
We are allowed to book into one 40-minute exercise slot per day and have to get in early to book for the next day as they quickly fill up.
There is another, smaller exercise yard in what was the main entrance to the hotel. You don’t need to pre-book that one, just turn up and take your chances. But given that it is only about 20 paces around, with no plants or view of the sky, it is less popular anyway.
We have got into a pattern of a 40-minute slot on the pool deck each morning before breakfast. Round and round. Anti-clockwise. Eighty-two paces. Sixty circuits. And then a short spell in the entrance lobby after supper.
Apart from that we are confined to our room.
I am developing a greater empathy for prisoners.
And for caged animals.
