A Stawell family have spent the better part of the last two weeks locked inside after making a mad dash on New Year's Eve to return to Victoria as its borders closed due to a coronavirus outbreak.
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Donna Holden and her family were forced to quarantine in their home since returning from their New South Wales holiday on New Years Day.
The family were part of a four-wheel drive convoy, which was travelling through outback New South Wales towards Cameron Corner, the three-way border town, but their trip was cut short as they heard the news of Victoria's imminent border closure with New South Wales late last year.
"We were travelling towards Cameron Corner, doing some sight seeing then it started to rain and the roads got really slippery; from dusty to muddy within a minute," she said.
"When we got to the Milprinka pub, we got phone service and that's when we got our first lot of messages from family and friends telling us we needed to get out of New South Wales as soon as possible because they were going to shut the borders."
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On Thursday December 31No new local COVID-19 cases in Victoria; traveller restrictions change, the Victorian Government announced they would be closing their border to New South Wales, from 11:59pm, January 1.
So, the Holden's were forced to charge back towards the border to beat the closure.
"We just thought 'oh no, we've got to cut our holiday short'," she said.
"We thought we might be able to quickly make it up to Cameron Corner, and go into South Australia, but we couldn't because the rivers we flooded and we were stuck."
The area had received so much rain, flashing flood occurred as "creeks turned into rivers" , forcing the convoy to wait for hours until the water had receded enough to safely start their journey home.
Without many options, the Holden's desperately headed for the Victorian border, driving through the night for almost 12 hours before crossing the border at Wentworth at 7am, New Year's Day.
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"There was five car loads of us and quite a few were getting very tired, so we pulled over for a 15 minute nap at 4am on the way back and then we just had to get going," she said.
"Then we had to go to Ararat to have the test that afternoon and we were stuck at home ever since."
Ms Holden said home quarantine had its challenges, but they managed to get through.
"We have two older kids who didn't travel with us, so they couldn't stay at home, so the last few weeks they have been staying at friends places and they have been doing the shopping for us," she said.
Fortunately, on Monday January 11, the Victorian Government issued a new directive which allowed quarantining travelers to leave their homes, if they had returned a negative test.
But Ms Holden said she still has still been at home over the last few days.
"I haven't left the house!" she said.
"But my husband has been out doing some jobs and he is back at work today, so things are getting back to normal."
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