Canberra residents have been trapped indefinitely on the Victoria-NSW border by the sudden change in regulations blocking them from driving through to their homes in the ACT.
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"We have our dog in the back of the car and all our goods and chattels. The rain is coming down and it's freezing," Anne Cahill Lambert told The Canberra Times.
Other Canberrans have checked into local motels with no idea when they might leave.
The ACT Government said: "There is currently a serious border restriction problem for people wishing to travel by road from Victoria, through NSW, to the ACT.
"We have significant concerns that ACT residents, or those with an exemption (such as Federal MPs), to enter the ACT are no longer allowed to transit through NSW.
"These concerns have been urgently raised with the NSW Premier's office and the Prime Minister's Office."
Mrs Lambert and her husband, Rod, were returning home after four months in north-eastern Victoria where he was a medical director helping out because of the virus epidemic.
Mrs Lambert said the rules for transiting through NSW suddenly changed, at two hours notice, on Thursday night, leaving them with invalid permits to enter NSW.
They were sitting in the car on the border hoping the situation would be resolved soon.
Ross Muir and his wife, Helen, were in the same situation but had checked into a $100-a-night Wodonga motel with no idea when they might leave..
They went from Canberra to tend to his father in his last days on a property on the north-eastern edge of Melbourne.
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After the funeral on Wednesday, the couple decided to head back to their home in Chapman in the ACT.
They took all the right bureaucratic precautions for their return by getting a permit to transit through NSW back to Canberra.
But when they got to the Victorian border at Albury, the car was blocked.
The NSW police told the pair that the only way back to Canberra was via Sydney airport - and they would have to isolate there at their own expense in an approved hotel for 14 days before going on to Canberra.
Mr Muir said that what had happened showed disrespect by the NSW Government for the ACT Government.
"They are telling the ACT what to do," he said.
"The ACT is so low profile in terms of COVID-19.
"It hasn't been seen in the machinations between NSW and Victoria. The ACT is collateral damage."
The couple are not the first to get caught up in the confusion over the regulations, particularly as they change at very short notice.
Canberra removalist Colin Mitchell said his work is hampered because the NSW and ACT governments have different definitions of where closed areas are.
Mr Mitchell said the ACT Covid-hotline people say Batemans Bay is banned from the initial round-about on while the NSW Covid-hotline people say it's only the Soldiers Club (where there's been an outbreak).
The two governments "aren't talking to each other", Mr Mitchell said.
Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
