Grey nomads face chilly winter

With temperatures starting to drop in the southern states, it’s traditionally the time of year when tourism operators in northern states and territories prepare for the annual migration of grey nomads from NSW, Victoria and South Australia.

However, that’s looking less likely this year as the COVID-19 lockdown continues to impact road travel and RV camping in most states except Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

According to Peter Clay, GM Insights and Advocacy for the Caravan Industry Association of Australia, the stay-at-home rules are particularly challenging for the 40,000 or so 'full-time' RV travellers currently on the road, many with no fixed address and struggling to find a place to stay put until the restrictions lift.

Clay said that even those that have found a place to ‘self isolate’ after the COVID-19 restrictions kicked in around late-March, face other challenges including lost income from jobs that paid for living expenses, along with the inability to cross state borders to find other work or return home.

“(These people are either) working or seasonal travelers and these are the people who are predominantly still on the road at the moment, or bunkered down in caravan parks,” Clay told the ABC’s 7.30 program.

He said many people who live in their RV full-time have struggled to find a caravan park or campground still open and able to provide suitable accommodation.

“Caravan parks have to be very cautious; there were cases of police going into caravan parks and checking the residents to make sure they were long-time residents or permanent residents, and not travelers coming through…” he said.

Stuck in no man's land

After being on the road for a year, caravanning couple Les Rauert and Jan Senior were left stranded after their son’s Melbourne home was no longer suitable as a return base with their daughter-in-law working in a hospital.

“We were just waiting for the wet seasons up north to go away before we headed up, and then all of a sudden we can’t get across any borders,“ Les told the 7.30 program.

“We were up near Bendigo (Victoria) and we had notification about 5 o’clock in the afternoon that the park’s being closed and we had to be out of there by midnight,” Jan said.

The pair are now camped out at the almost deserted Halls Gap Lakeside Tourist Park in the Grampians, which is officially closed to non-essential travel.

“We don't know how long we're going to be here now but they've made it as comfortable for us as possible," Les said.

Another couple, Tony Hodge and Wendy Hervey, are currently stuck in their motorhome in NSW’s Southern Tablelands, camping out on a private property in exchange for doing odd jobs.

The pair have been on the road for five years and are regular volunteers with organisations like BlazeAid.

“We don’t have a residential address, so we don’t live in any one particular place,” Tony said.

“We were in no man’s land for a week or so, we didn’t know where to go. Every caravan park that I rang had closed up," he said.

“It’s a lot more relaxing (now), at least we’re somewhere now where we know we can stay, and it’s helping these people out, it’s good.

“It gets a bit cool here of a night-time, but we’ll have to tough it out, and if we can go north, we’ll try and head a bit further north.”

Grey nomad led recovery

Meanwhile, one Queensland politician is calling for a grey nomad-led economic recovery of the struggling west Queensland region, which has been hit hard by drought and now COVID-19 restrictions.

Gregory MP Gregory Lachlan Millar said recently that planning should begin now to re-open Western Queensland to self-drive tourists from southern states.

To revive tourism in the Western Queensland region, which to date hasn't recorded any COVID-19 cases, Millar is pushing for a plan that would allow self-drive tourists to complete a 14-day quarantine at a caravan park close to where they crossed the border into Queensland.

“They could then proceed with their holiday based on the condition that they stay in commercial caravan parks rather than free camping in the bush or country towns,” he said.

“Clearly, COVID19 means we can’t have large numbers of people moving through anonymously, so free-camping will remain out of the question until we have a vaccine. But if visitors are registered as guests at a caravan park they can be readily traced, if necessary. The availability of the COVIDsafe app will also assist with traceability,” he said.

While Queensland borders remain closed, the state's stay-at-home rules were lifted recently to allow travel up to 50km from a resident's home.

Also read:

Caravan holidays put on hold

Coronavirus tips for RV travellers