Couple wait out lockdown in van

Caravan parks and hotels which were last week crawling with tourists have quickly been left deserted as tourists packed up and left to avoid spending lockdown stuck in the South West.

Leschenault Caravan Park manager Tom Voysey said given the school holidays were coming to an end, many tourists were checking out on Sunday regardless, but the news had affected bookings for this week.

“A few people have stayed, we have eight powered sites and three of them are being used,” he said.

“Lots of people were booked to leave on the weekend anyway but we have had to cancel some bookings for this week. Some people were holidaying until about the seventh of February anyway, so they have stayed on.

Mr Voysey said people seemed confident the lockdown would not last for an extended period, with bookings made ahead of time for the coming weeks.

“We have bookings made for Easter and the few weeks before that,” he said.

Perth-based couple Sandra and Loyd Collins made the decision to stay in the region, having arrived just hours before Premier Mark McGowan announced the lockdown.

The couple are sitting out the lockdown in their caravan, parked in a rest stop.

“We got here about 10am on Sunday morning, we got a permit and we parked up here,” Mr Collins said.

“We were going to spend two nights here and then head down south and tour round the bottom and then come back up to Perth. 

Mrs Collins said if the lockdown was to be extended beyond Friday, they would need to find a way home.

“We were quite shocked when we heard it, my son lives in Maylands so we were a bit concerned about that as well,” she said.

“We basically just decided we are here now and it is better to be here than stuck at home so it wasn’t really a tough decision.”