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HELEN KERR / Supplied
Helen Kerr with her grandson in Melbourne.
This story was originally published on RNZ.co.nz and republished with permission.
A Nelson woman whose plans to go to Melbourne were in disarray over the weekend came to what she said was a courteous welcome from authorities at the airport, and she is ecstatic to have finally met her baby grandson.
Helen Kerr told RNZ on Friday that she was relieved to be finally heading there, seven months after her original plans were thwarted by the level four lockdown.
She quit her job, rented her house, and was hired to fly to Australia on the same day the level four lockdown began in New Zealand in March.
Kerr aimed to be in Melbourne to help her daughter with a new baby, born in the middle of the year. Since then he has been in limbo, living among families, waiting for border restrictions to change.
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With the lifting of unquarantine travel to New South Wales last Friday, he booked a ticket to Sydney online and a flight to Melbourne the previous Sunday, without a hitch. He said his family in Melbourne checked with authorities that he could go to Melbourne and they told him he could.
At that stage, Victoria was not party to the agreement on non-quarantine travel for people from New Zealand, but its borders were open to domestic arrivals.
Last Friday, several New Zealanders immediately took domestic flights to Melbourne and were detained at the airport.
However, the Morrison government said the state had no reason to turn away travelers.
Kerr arrived in Melbourne on Tuesday as planned, to which he said was a courteous welcome from authorities.
“They didn’t make me feel like a criminal. The authorities were very nice … about three of us they asked for our passport, name, address and phone number and then they let us go.”
Kerr said a basic health check, including a temperature check, was not performed in Melbourne but was done upon arrival in Sydney.
She was enormously relieved to be reunited with her daughter from Melbourne and to have finally met her new grandson.
Kerr still had no date for a planned return to New Zealand, where quarantine rules still applied to New Zealanders returning home.
