Qld border restriction chaos ends for Grafton couple moving interstate

A former Grafton couple have finally arrived at their new home after border restrictions turned a three-and-a-half hour drive into a three-and-a-half week ordeal.

Glen Sheather and his wife Gloria have been given news they’d been waiting for more than three weeks since leaving their Northern NSW home to start a new life in Ipswich.

They were allowed to leave their Queensland hotel quarantine room on Tuesday morning.

At precisely midnight, the couple packed their bags and officially became Queensland residents.

“We went to our son’s place who lives in Ipswich, and went to our house the next morning,” Mr Sheather said.

“It was very nice to sleep in our own bed – I’m over hotels.”

Gloria and Glen Sheather settle in at their new Ipswich home after their journey from Grafton took more than three weeks. Picture: Supplied

Mr Sheather and his wife Gloria were caught by Queensland’s border rules that forbid anyone to cross the border.

The rules came in just days before the couple left their Grafton home and began their trip to Ipswich.

“It was supposed to take three and a half hours, but it ended up being not quite a month,” Mr Sheather said.

The couple were forced to stay in a Tweed Heads caravan park for more than a week, before being let into the state and put into hotel quarantine for 14 days.

“I realise now that whole time we were being told that there were ways to get in, it was all c**p, they weren’t letting anyone in,” Mr Sheather said.

“It would’ve been a lot less stressful, but they let you bash your head against a wall thinking you were going to get through.”

Citing it as one of the “worst experiences he’s ever had”, Mr Sheather said he believed the passes and regulations needed to be made more clear.

“They’re full of very wordy bureaucratic terms,” he said.

“You couldn’t ring anyone, no one talks to you, I couldn’t have done it without the help of my daughter.

“Without her helping us I could’ve gone crazy.”

Mr Sheather said the couple were still settling into their new neighbourhood and was conscious of the fact that many residents around him might not be so sympathetic towards their plight.

“I now use sleeping pills where I didn’t before, because you lay awake now still thinking what should I say, what do I do?” he said.

“The whole process I didn’t enjoy it at all and it’s probably had some detrimental effect on my mental health.”