It’s not the start to the New Year anyone was hoping for … but new Covid-19 outbreaks in New South Wales and Victoria have once again created a huge sense of uncertainty for travellers.
Some states have already implemented border restrictions and there are fears that these will only become more severe if the situation in Australia’s two most populous states is not brought under control quickly.
It is all horribly reminiscent of the chaos that enveloped the grey nomad lifestyle last March when the pandemic – and the fear around it – first took hold on these shores.
There have been huge traffic jams at some border points ahead of announced closures coming into force, and there is also the anticipation of new measures being announced with little notice.
Queenslanders, for example, have already been urged to cancel holiday plans in NSW and Victoria as uncertainty looms over a potential border closure between the states.
Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said yesterday that the border situation ‘can change rapidly’, with Health Minister Yvette D’Ath backing the warning to Queenslanders to reconsider ‘their need to travel’ south.
For many grey nomads and other travellers it is a huge headache, while for tourism operators it has been a total nightmare.
At the Garden of Eden Caravan Park near Eden in southern New South Wales, 95% of campers a couple of days ago were from Victoria … but now they have pretty much all upped sticks and left.
Manager Allan Carlson told the ABC he was ‘really pissed off’ that his community, just a 45-minute drive from the Victorian border, was included in the hard closure, even though the local region didn’t have any coronavirus cases.
“We have a thousand people in their caravans and everyone was happy and now none of them are happy because they all have got to go home,” he said. “We’ve had basically no trade all year and we were looking forward to this Christmas and now it has been taken away from us again.”
Allan’s wife, Lyn, said it brought back memories of the caravan park emptying out at New Year’s last year when bushfires threatened.
“It is the same again, exactly the same day 12 months ago and we had everything planned for a New Year’s Eve party on the tennis court and there was smoke and nobody could breathe,” she told the ABC. “They all packed up and went on the first of January and they are all going tomorrow … I didn’t think anything could be worse than the fires but this Covid is 10 times worse.”
We are too scared to travel to Vic from SA to see family coz they are very quick to close borders. Today an Australian state gets a tiny handful of new cases and all the states shut their borders and go back into full-blown panic mode. And of interest, our national anthem has just been changed: the second line of Advance Australia Fair is now “For we are one and free” instead of “For we are young and free”. With state premiers acting like little dictators, we are NOT one and we are NOT free!
and we are not dead thanks to the hard stand the Western Australian Premier, Mark McGowan, has taken. We here in WA are quite happy.
” For we are roaming free “.
We are on the road and currently in SA with plans to head to Tassie in mid February. Fingers crossed it will be all under control in Victoria by then. We have faced 2 lockdowns in Qld and SA.. We weren’t able to go to WA which was a major part of our plan but have made the most of it by staying in NT and SA longer than planned. There are thousands on the roads travelling around and managing to keep Covid free just by keeping our distance. It’s not hard.