Halls Gap Post Office reduces hours thanks to lockdown

The Halls Gap Post Office runs out of Adrian Manikas' business, Absolute Outdoors, located on Grampians Road in Halls Gap.

Mr Manikas said during lockdown, maintaining the post office is a community service.

"Since the lockdown, we couldn't sustain full hours due to limited traffic," he said.

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"We haven't had all that visitation to the region."

Absolute Outdoors offers guided walks, canoeing, and rock climbing tours, so without the traffic of people, it makes it harder to keep the doors open for that vital service of being the Halls Gap Post Office.

"Throughout last year's lockdown we dropped down hours as well to cut some costs where we could, but at the time we had Job Keeper and we were able to maintain our staff," he said,

"This one without Job Keeper, it hit a little bit harder."

Mr Manikas said they had to make the call to decrease the hours again.

"If Job Keeper was still going, it would have essentially covered the shops staff," he said.

Mr Manikas said the community response "has been pretty amazing."

"It's been pretty tough on everybody," he said.

This time the Post Office is actually able to open on Saturday mornings, from 9am to midday.

"We're doing something we didn't do last time, we're able to offer post collection because there is no road side delivery," he said.

The Halls Gap post office is open from 10.30am to 4pm Monday to Friday.

Mr Manikas said he hoped the hours will return to normal next week.

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