Driving into Wilsons Promontory National Park, more fondly known as ‘The Prom’, was like a flashback to being in the UK. Cows grazing in the rolling green fields, a rugged backdrop decorating the horizon; had it not been such a sunny and warm day, you could have easily been transported.

We found a spot one dune away from the beach and set up camp ready to explore The Prom over the next few days. Threaded with a labyrinth of walking tracks, many needing an overnight camp, there were a couple of must-sees among the list. The overnighters were something that we weren’t considering – it had been a while since we’d done much walking at all and there was a little persuading to be done with the 4 ‘littler legs’ in the family. Overnighters were deemed a step too ambitious!

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With this in mind, Alex and I already knew we were never going to get to the actual southernmost point of the mainland and see “the sign”, like we’d seen in the west and on previous trips to the north and east ☹. Alex suggested taking the drone up and seeing how far we could go virtually, but my little Mavic Air wasn’t strong enough to make the distance.

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With so many beautiful places, it was hard to know which walk to do first, yet we managed to take in a few sights even with some lazing around. We had fun making sounds on Squeaky Beach with its white quartz sand, the kids splashing around in the cool water and being fascinated with the little squirters as the sea levels ebbed and flowed around them. Around camp the local natives were bold, we had one audacious wombat waddling around through the camps in search of food.

The walking boots were strapped on for the Lilly Pilly circuit walk, as a contrast to the beach and coastline we’d explored so far. Starting off through the stringy-bark forest, the gradual climb led us to a lush rainforest. There’s a detour to a short boardwalk where the climate changes quite abruptly and a large open forest becomes dark, ethereal woodland, I’m sure there were fairies watching us! This initial half was apparently the gentle side of the circuit. As we continued on, the path became steep and the little voices became louder….”how much longer?”, “let’s turn back, I don’t want to do the circuit”, “are we there yet?”. There were no markers on the path, so I was keeping it honest with the ignorance this time. Reo’s little legs were out of practice and he was not that happy.

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One of the main attractions down here for us was another yellow boat ride. We’d done one in Tassie taking in the sites between Port Authur and Eaglehawk Neck and it’s a great way to see scenery otherwise inaccessible. It was also the only way we’d get close to the most southern part of Australia’s mainland!

Part of the excitement was due to our transport being an amphibious Sealegs boat; picking us up from the beach and then driving down to the water. Pretty cool. We were soon on the plane and skipping across the oblate, crystal clear waters as the sun shone down to warm us up. We’d chosen the perfect day to be out. 

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The jagged coastline is beautiful; weathered granite outcrops, battered by fierce winter tides and scorching summer sun creating spectacular rock formations. Cape Barron Geese were dotted over the coastline and isolated islands we passed. The aromatic aroma of the Australian and NZ fur seal colonies hit us before we saw them, and we were treated to playful displays of parents and their pups excited by their audience.

Next on the agenda was the granite monolith of Skull Rock, so big you can fit the sails of the Opera House in the hole of the rock that forms the shape of the skull. Dusted with Lichen, it gives a warm orange glow as the sun bounces off it, home to a Peregrine Falcon, the fastest bird in the world. Another ‘fun fact’ is that it’s the fastest animal in the world, when in a dive.

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The weather was beautiful for the time we were at the Prom. On our leaving day, the clouds began to roll in. Before heading into The Big Smoke of Melbourne to visit Auntie Chrissie, we made one last trip, up to Mount Oberon. It was a fairly ambitious walk – 3.4km UP – but it was so worth it. Rewarded with picture postcard views of the land clashing with the ocean to form the coastline, the vista across the Bass Strait and offshore islands was breathtaking.

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Over the last few weeks we’d been reading snippets about a new virus called ‘Covid-19’ which was ripping through Europe, but so far, few cases had reached Australian soil. What seemed more amazing was the shortage of loo roll, pasta, flour and rice in the shops. The shops had been stripped bare, in some cases, of EVERYTHING! We were beginning to feel an apocalyptic apprehension!!! We went searching for loo rolls as a gift for Chrissie and amazingly won ‘gold’ at the 3rd shop we popped in. Normally we can’t get Reo to take his hands out of his pockets, yet taking them both into shops now, after constant reminders to keep hands in pockets and not touch anything, was like dropping a buttered piece of bread and it landing buttered side up, it was never going to happen. They stayed in the car from then on.

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We arrived into Melbourne early evening and Auntie Chrissie had tea waiting. Chrissie and I had planned a night out, so after eating we left Alex with the kids and popped out for a drink…. or two. The last-minute debacle of the cancelled Grand Prix had left many sports fans and events hosts at a loose end, partying in the city; ironic really, given it was cancelled due to the risks of mass gatherings and the spread of the virus. It was this act that brought Covid-19 to the forefront of our minds and re-focused our plan.

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I may have had a bit of a sore head the following morning and we spent the day walking in the park and visiting The Shrine of Remembrance. Another great schooling excursion completed, as we explained the significance to the kids. Sunday we met up with James and Paulette for brekkie and as the weekend wore on, we looked at our plans and questioned why we were hanging around a city when this virus seemed to be spreading pretty quickly in densely populated areas. Decision made, we left the city Tuesday and headed out towards Ballarat, with an increased anxiety about what to do next. In the 4 days we’d been in Melbourne, Australia’s count of cases had more than doubled, so we were certain that the best thing to do was stay out of populated areas and get over to the Simpson Desert to meet James, Lucy and Tom and stay remote. Continuing our secluded, wandering lifestyle was definitely the best approach.

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We’d headed to Ballarat to visit Sovereign Hill, an open-air museum depicting Ballarat’s first ten years after the discovery of gold there in 1851. We stepped back in time and walked in the footprints of Ballarat’s early settlers. With new social distancing measures and restrictions in place of gatherings no greater than 500 due to the virus, all school excursions had been cancelled, of which there could be up to 1200 school children visiting a day, the place was like a ghost town. It was quite eerie.

The town is large and there is so much to do and see, you need 2 days to explore the place. Perfect with the 2 days for the price of 1 ticket. The town is made up of typical-looking shops of the period, with staff and volunteers wandering round the site in costumes re-enacting life as it was back then, many portraying the behaviours and prejudices of the 1850’s!

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With so much to do, it was hard to know where to start. Reo did. As soon as he heard the hooves, he needed to have a horse and cart ride around the town, just the like the prosperous town-folk did in the olden days. Over the 2 days admission, we saw the blacksmith in action, hammering iron on his anvil, popped into the theatre to take in a show, the Red Coats marched and gave their musket firing demonstration and we walked the streets of the town while the corrupt policeman patrolled keeping us ‘safe’ with his sword and musket (of which he gave us a rather loud demonstration!), he even roped Reo in for comedy value. Salaries for police were meagre in those days, 22 pounds a year, however, if you were happy to step on to the other side of the law, you could live quite a first-class lifestyle. Fines were common; 50 pounds for sly grog selling (alcohol for the uninitiated), 5 pounds for no mining permit and corrupt police took half of all fines, which would have added up quite considerably over a period of time.

With so few visitors now, people were generally good at social distancing, a lot of the time by default given the size of the crowds. If someone got too close for my liking, I pretended to cough, that soon gave me a bit of space! 🤧😆 We saw the Chandler in action making his candles, their source of light both for home and the mines. One mine would use 1000 candles per day. They were made from tallow (sheep fat), which was really smelly and full of flies. 400-600 sheep a day would be slaughtered to be able to keep up with demand. 6, 8 and 11 hour candles were produced and the length of your shift depicted the candle you chose to use. Lexi & Reo bought a candle each and then proceeded to dip it in dyes to colour it. Reo decided on a bilateral design, while Lexi chose a more elaborate pattern.

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You can’t visit Sovereign Hill without taking a mine tour; a tough job to have at the best of times, but certainly not one I’d have one wanted over a hundred years ago. They certainly didn’t have the little train we had to take them down!  A shaft with a ramshackle cage, able to carry 4 grown men was their mode of transport. As with anything mechanical, things tend to break down every now and again, not so bad if you had to climb down the ladder to start work, but if it went kaput while you were on your shift, climbing the ladder up 1000ft (300m) would take a fit miner one and a half hours. The conditions down below were cramped, dark (apart from the light of your candle), noisy and smelly – certainly no OH&S in those days. Apart from giving light, the miners heated their food by the candle, and if it burned more yellow than normal, it was an indicator of potential issues with the air in the mine.

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You even got to see what happens to it after the miners dug the gold out of the ground. A demonstration is given on casting a $250,000 gold bullion. Even before Covid-19 and social distancing / good hand hygiene, there was no passing this block around at the end the demo!! After hearing and seeing so much about gold, the must-do of Sovereign Hill is panning for the yellow stuff itself. $72,000 worth of gold specs are thrown into the river over the year for panning! I got bored after sifting through a couple of bowls, but Alex was dedicated and managed to find at least 5 specs of the stuff, I’m talking pin prick size, certainly wouldn’t have bought us a roll of loo paper! 🤑

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The kids’ favourite demo was the lolly making. So much so we went both days! A substantial amount of sugar poured into water to simmer down, with a bit of colour and flavour and the children were running around high on the effects for the next few hours. It really is a fabulous museum to visit and 2 days of sterling home schooling – even if I do say so myself.

We hung around camp for the next couple of days, mainly killing time. With the new rules about social distancing and us feeling unsettled about everything going on, it was totally contrary to the lifestyle we’d been living, telling the kids that they couldn’t just run up to the kids camping about 50m away and play. Reo really felt it and continued to say how sad it was making him feel that he couldn’t make new friends. Lexi & Reo won’t listen to the news, so we can’t have it on in the car, which meant Alex and I were continually on our phones in search of updates, for both Australia and UK. Boy, weren’t the Antipodes doing well in comparison?!

We’d planned a service for Minty and another house sit around the Mornington Peninsula which was going to give us space to cook all the food we needed for our Simpson trip and prepare the car as we’d be leaving Minty behind at a roadhouse. We began the trip back towards East Melbourne after checking in with the house owners to see if they were still going away in this constantly changing world, but as we were about 70km away from the city, I read a newsflash that South Australia (SA) were closing their borders on Tuesday afternoon (it was now Sunday afternoon).

If we did the house sit, we wouldn’t be able to get into SA to make the Simpson, so we had to give our apologies to the house sit people and inform them we were pulling out. I really hate cancelling on people, but with the current climate they were very understanding of our situation. We decided to still get Minty serviced, then we would head straight back to the boarder before it closed. We checked with the mechanic that he was still working, as non-essential businesses were ordered to close from the following day. All good on that front so we carried on. An hour later a call from the mechanic changed everything for us. The WA Government had just announced they were also going to be closing their borders the same time as SA.

We immediately turned around and started a mad dash to the west, with a plan to then go north and find some warmth. The Simpson was off. We had a quick call with James and Lucy to commiserate. The only rationale in this manoeuvre was that we didn’t want to be stuck in Victoria for winter. It would be like being stuck in the UK for winter (minus snow) in t-shirts, shorts and flip flops! Typically, we’d got rid of our warm weather gear, who needs that in the tropics of Aus?!  We had 2000km (~1250miles) to drive in 48 hours to get us to the border. Mission accepted.

We crossed over the Vic/SA border before stopping for the night. With the time zone change we gained an extra 30 minutes of sleep which was welcome. On the road again just after 7am, we had a long drive ahead of us. We felt like we were in some kind of movie, sneaking over to another state, it was a really strange feeling. The world felt suspended; news was changing hourly, reports from overseas of the thousands of cases a day spreading across Europe, it was like watching a thriller from afar. What was even more worrying was that this was just the beginning. Doors just kept closing; international flights from certain countries, state borders, what would be next?

Alex and I kept changing as driver every few hours to keep us fresh. To entertain us on the 1000km plus journey that day, we did a bit of schoolwork, sang along to songs, played eye spy and the kids got a week’s worth of movies. By the time we stopped we’d driven nearly 16 hours and were 5 hours away from the WA border.

Up and ready to leave early again the next day, we detoured into Ceduna town, grabbed a couple of coffees and set off. Lexi then decided she needed the loo, back to town.  Alex then decided he needed some bait (to keep feeding those fish) and off he popped to another shop. Tic tok went the clock on the countdown to the border close…. I could already feel my stress levels rising and we hadn’t even left. As we chewed up the kilometres, we noticed more and more rigs on the road, both directions. People fleeing to their own safer places.

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It felt a little like the Whacky Races as we crossed the Nullarbor, with cars overtaking trailers, trailers overtaking caravans and caravans overtaking road trains. It was comedy value. We were making good time when Alex pulled off to look at the Bunda Cliffs. I wasn’t flying my drone last time we passed them, so he wanted me to take some pictures. Not really my priority and there was a bit of a discussion on ‘tik, tok, what about the border clock?’. I got him his Insta shots and we continued on our way. I will admit, tensions were high, cross words were said and it was a MASSIVE relief when we found ourselves at the end of a 30-vehicle line, all queuing to get into WA. We’d made it; 3 states, 2000km in 46 hours, with less than an hour to spare before it shut!

The biggest surprise was when we got to quarantine, no officer was wearing PPE, not even gloves. I was really surprised given all the hype about hand washing and potential cross contamination with them checking everyone’s cars. We crossed the border, parked up and blatantly walked back across to the SA side to have a shower in the roadhouse. It really felt like we were refugees.

Feeling tired, lost, overwhelmed and scared, we parked up at the beach unsure what to do next. We just needed to decompress from the last manic 48 hours and we’d think about a plan tomorrow. Lethargy set in and we spent a couple of days isolating ourselves in the middle of nowhere, literally, postulating on what to do and where to go.

As we scrolled through news and posts on social media (amazingly we had great reception in the middle of nowhere), they only served us with a sense of dread. Not only were state and territory borders closing, WA was closing its intrastate borders too. There was no way we could get north as planned and reading some of the horror stories from other travellers about local towns not serving them if they didn’t have a WA reg plate or in some towns, even proof of a local postcode, it looked like we could be in for a challenging time.

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Clearly, I’d been channelling my inner anxieties, as after a couple of days hanging round the beach, two guardian angels came to our rescue. The Roaming Reesons, who we’d met early in on our trip last year, had a farmhouse in Denmark and kindly offered if we’d like to stay there for lockdown. Erm, let me think about that for a nanosecond….. YES PLEASE! Such a generous offer and a real lifesaver for us.

We finished the Nullarbor with 2 very hard days of schooling, Lexi (day 1) and Reo (day 2) and made it to Esperance with no dramas (that is if you ignore Alex taking Reo out of the car and threatening to leave him by the side of the road if he didn’t stop being so rude!).

After working out the logistics of getting the key, we had a week before realistically we’d be able to pick it up from the post office. Even with a whole layer of tension now removed, we were still apprehensive as we passed towns, wondering if locals would be out with pickaxes and spades ready to run us out of their neighbourhood. As it was, locals were friendly and shops were quite well stocked, apart from your essential pasta, rice, flour, bread and bog roll aisles.

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As we continued our next 1400km stint to get to our safehouse, we stopped at some lovely beaches, returning to one we’d stayed at previously. We spent the days walking the coves, swimming in the sea, fishing, reading, playing Uno and talking Parseltongue to snakes. Life wasn’t bad. With the $50,000 threat of fines for crossing intrastate borders, we needed to make sure we were in the right region the day they closed. Luckily, this was the day the key was supposed to turn up. Reception was patchy at camp, but just as we were leaving, Alex received an email from Australian post saying that the letter (containing the farm keys) had been automatically redirected to our home address in Sydney!! OMG – what?!?! After a few panicked phone calls, the Denmark post office realised it made no sense to send a letter to the other side of Australia that had been clearly earmarked for local pickup and hung on to it. Phew. With key in hand and farm located just out of town, we unlocked the front gate to our sanctuary, for how long, no one knew.