Melbourne Lockdown Life

I never thought I would move to Melbourne. Gold Coast was my home my whole life until 2019 when my partner and I made the move to help him accelerate his apprenticeship. Melbourne pre March 2020 to me already seemed like an extremely stressful place. I always wondered why so many people in Melbourne smoked but I quickly learned. The hussle and bussle of their daily life is crazy, the selfish and lunatic drivers, ridiculous road systems, strict government and council laws and no Zarraffas in sight. For us, it was harder as we only had some family close by with majority of our friends and family being back on the Gold Coast. That's just the top of the iceberg really but I couldn't think of a way it could get worse.

In late February, my friend had come down from the Gold Coast for an awesome weekend in the city seeing the Harry Potter stage show, drinking cocktails, losing money at the casino and partying in a nightclub. Only a few weeks later did the disaster strike.

The first part of the pandemic really hit me when the company I worked for made the early precautionary decision to send everyone to work from home. It was not an easy transition but it was a good precaution. However, after only a few days, bad news hit the employees like a tonne of bricks. We found out that about half of the employees would be put on reduced hours - only two and half days per week. This was well before any financial assistance was being provided by governments so in order to receive any extra income (which most of us needed to survive) we were required to use our annual leave. Not to mention there were times where we would still have to try complete 5 days worth of work within 2.5 days. Stress levels sky rocketed.

Slowly, other employees lost hours but things became more manageable. Some even were made redundant. In the initial, it was weird going anywhere and doing anything. I decided to buy a new desk but there were issues with delivery so decided to go in store to pick one up and get refunded for the other. Without thinking, I decided to go without my partner only to get there and be told no one was allowed to help me put this massive desk in my car. I had to manage on my own. In the early stages we were required to queue up to go into Aldi then not long after they brought in plastic screenings. There was starting to be a light at the end of the tunnel around June when we were allowed to do more. I was able to celebrate my birthday with family, go out for bottomless cocktails with limited seating, go to a restaurant with limited seating, and was able to go for a much needed massage! This changed very quickly. As things progressed downward again, I made the executive decision to quit my job (for a number of reasons). Not long after that, disaster struck again.

Mandatory masks were the initial phase in an attempt to reduce numbers. Yet, it quickly got worse. Locked down and completely restricted. Stage 4 restrictions meant we weren't able to see the few family members we had in Melbourne, we were only allowed within 5km of our home, only allowed to go out for essential requirements (working, essential items and medical reasons), only allowed outside for exercise for an hour maximum per day, mandatory masks, not allowed to be outside between 8pm and 5am, and only particular essential businesses allowed to be open. This caused mayhem.

People were frustrated but in the initial seemed to realise it was necessary. My partner was not able to work, so we were both stuck at home and not allowed to see anyone else. We struggled to know what to do day in, day out. Trying not to go insane from being inside constantly. We were lucky that we did have a quite large backyard and front yard to play with the dog. We also went for a walk basically everyday with our very energetic Kelpie, where we would pick up a takeaway coffee. Everyone wearing masks and avoiding each other as much as possible. I tried to avoid going to shopping centres by buying in bulk and using points to get online delivery discounts. Delivering items became commonplace, however, Australian Post could not handle it (and still can't). I ordered items from the Priceline that was 5 minutes from our house and the parcel took three weeks to arrive. It was hard to stay busy too. We caught up on some movies we had been meaning to watch, exercised, did yoga, watched youtube, worked on ourselves, read, tried some craft and drawing, cooking etc. We did anything and everything we could possibly think of. With no real sense of normality in sight, we started to struggle to really care about the things we were actually needing to do.

The longer the restrictions occurred, the more frustrated people became. Anti-masks protests in the masses, people blaming Dan Andrews for their mental health and basically all the problems in the world, and conspiracy theorists thinking they know best.

We have recently escaped back to the Gold Coast and are in the beginning stages of our quarantine. Moving from VIC to QLD at the moment, especially during Stage 4, was truly painful with so many elements required. Firstly, we had to arrange to get our cars transported. Secondly, we had to fly the dog to Queensland prior to us leaving. Thirdly, we had to get removalists to take all our shit. We intended to sell a lot of our stuff to move back but without the ability to do a garage sale and people only within 5km allowed to venture out, it was impossible to try. Then finally, we had to arrange our flights. Plus a shit tonne of hiccups along the way:

(1) We initially booked for a POD but due to the setup of the driveway and the mechanics required for the POD to get off the truck, they would need to put it on the nature strip which we would need council approval for. However, due to the increased number in people wanting shipping containers etc on the nature strips, we required to get a traffic management plan (which would cost an additional fee of god knows how much), approval from neighbours and public liability insurance from the company plus paying $60 for the application. Unbelievably strict and painful.

We had to scrap this option and get more quotes for another company

(2) Flying the dog to Queensland, we wanted a direct flight for him which we managed to book but needed to hire a different crate to the one we had resulting in an additional charge of about $40. However, the day after the booking was finalised, we were contacted to find out all flights had been cancelled and there was nothing available for another month for pets to fly. Yet, our flight was still available for people to fly on. This meant an additional $400+ for him to be transported by truck.

(3) We had organised a hard rubbish collection for a Monday with the Hume Council. We were told we needed to place the items in a 3m x 1m x 1m area inside our property boundary. We had a fence out the front on our driveway, so they requested us to leave the items inside the fence on the Sunday night, leaving the fence open for them to pick it all up the next day sometime between 6am and 6pm. My partner needed to work the Monday, so we couldn't physically do this. We ended up having terrible winds the Saturday night that resulted in the gate not being able to open properly, so we left the items outside next to the driveway and made the council aware of this first thing Monday morning.

It got to about 4pm on the Monday and I called the council hard rubbish contractor to confirm it was still being picked up. I was then told that the Council was providing incorrect information and that the booking was actually for between 6am Monday and 6pm Friday with the Monday booking being for a week period where the rubbish could be picked up. Thankfully, it was picked up on the Tuesday but terrible organisation and expectation for us to keep items within our property for a whole week? Ridiculous.

(4) To get into Queensland, we of course required a border pass declaration. When filling this out, we provided that we will be moving back to Queensland as previous residents. With this, it was required that we needed evidence pertaining to where we will be staying but no indication as to what kind of evidence. As we were both staying with family, we had no idea what would be required. So, I had to call the QLD Covid Hotline to ask the question to which we found out we needed statutory declarations signed by a JP from the people we will be moving in with. I also just happened to ask the question as to whether we needed to write our current address in Melbourne that we are moving out of or the address we will be moving to. The consultant originally said the address we would be moving out of but said she would just confirm for me. She put me on hold then came back to say we actually need to put the new address we are moving into on the Gold Coast.

(5) We needed to get more cord for the whipper snipper to finish cleaning up the house and needed a globe for one that broke. However, Bunnings was only doing Click and Collect so we just had to hope we could get it asap. Plus, they didn't have the exact globe we needed and ended up giving us the wrong ones. I had to call Woolworths to see if they had any in stock that they could hold for me to go pick up. THEY HAD ONE LEFT. Thank goodness.

It is pretty clear all the governments are acting in unprecedented times but there is a considerable lack of clear details.

Right before we left VIC, it was also clear people were becoming complacent. I walked into a petrol station about a week ago to the man in front of me not wearing a mask and seeming to be happily being served by the staff.

Personally, I strongly believe many mistakes were made - whether that was Dan Andrews or someone else, doesn't even matter. However, end of the day, the safety of the people is the paramount concern. Mental health is imperative with this, but at the same time, it is not someone else's fault. Each individual person needs to deal with their own problems and illnesses, not blame others. Most people I'm sure had issues well before any sort of restrictions were in place that they weren't properly dealing with so to blame the government is a bit excessive. The requirements in place by the government are extremely intense and difficult but there were also so many individuals not adhering to the rules that caused it to become necessary.

Melbourne have done so well at reducing the numbers in a short period. An extreme period but it has worked. You are so close Melbourne, I wish you all the very best. Be smart, and stay safe.