Covid restrictions needn’t stop long weekend fun

Restrictions on regional travel mean there’s nowhere to go. But that doesn’t mean you can’t recreate your own fun at home.

Who needs Puffing Billy when you can have someone blowing cigarette smoke in the backyard? Picture: David Caird

Welcome to another long weekend where we can’t go invite our friends over or travel any further than 25km.

To cheer you all up, here’s how you can recreate some popular tourist experiences from the comfort of your own home.

MORNINGTON PENINSULA

Pretend you are at Sorrento by putting on a black puffer jacket and standing in front of a black Range Rover while talking to your friends from the yacht club about the chance of getting Rufus into Scotch and Arabella into St Cath’s. If you really want to make it authentic, slip on some stairs and take three months off work after getting on the beers.

GREAT OCEAN ROAD

Drive around a local roundabout for two hours while the kids moan about being out of Wi-Fi range. Then drive home and put seven rocks in your kids’ paddling pool and tell them there are 12. Get your neighbours to stand in front of you, blocking your view as you battle to take photos.

A paddling pool with a few rock piles will fool the kids into thinking they’re at the Great Ocean Road. Picture: Belinda VanZanen

SOVEREIGN HILL

Pop on your nana’s dressing down or raid the dress-up box for some “olden day clothes”. Run the hose in the sandpit so the kids can pan for gold using saucepans filled with gravel. Make sure they stick at it for at least three hours before scattering a few grains of fake gold for them to “find”.

PUFFING BILLY

Make a train in the backyard with outdoor furniture. Let the kids sit with their legs poking out sideways as you play a tape of train sounds and yell “all aboard”. Have someone smoking a cigarette blowing smoke at you from the front and eat overpriced scones with jam and cream for afternoon tea.

PHILLIP ISLAND

Get up at 4am. If it’s mild, go back to bed and try again on a morning when it’s freezing cold and drizzling with an icy wind blowing. Rug up and sit in your backyard while watching Happy Feet on the living room TV through the windows. Afterwards eat a family block of Cadbury’s and walk around in circles in the garden to re-create the island’s other features.

YARRA VALLEY

Park your friend’s mini-van in the driveway. Fill an Esky with pretentious wine you had to mortgage your house to pay for. Spend the afternoon sitting in the van getting sloshed while your mates dribble on about the unctuous taste of the grand cru thanks to the exquisite combination of terroir and tannins.

Those more than 25km from the city will be prohibited from enjoying some of the CBD’s most popular attractions, so here’s how to make sure you don’t feel like you’re missing out.

OBSERVATION WHEEL

Climb on to your roof with a handful of friends standing very close together. Spend five minutes looking at each of the dirty rooftops and railyards in your neighbourhood. Stay out there for at least an hour, trying not to look in other people’s windows while wishing you’d gone to the toilet before you started.

THE MCG

Stand in your living room with a plastic cup of warm light beer and a pie that’s cold in the middle while people taller than you block your view of the TV. Try to impress others by talking about the number of stoppages inside 50 and the passage of the ball through the central corridor while marvelling at the players’ mullets and body tatts.

CITY LANEWAYS

Sit on milk crates in the hallway while watching your toddler go crazy with textas on the wall. Turn your ensuite into a hole-in-the-wall cafe with a try-hard French name spelt incorrectly that only serves items that are single-origin, foraged, deconstructed and sitting on a bed of foam.

THE TAN

Walk around the block carrying an almond latte with oat milk in a takeaway cup while dressed head to toe in overpriced designer athletic wear. Talk loudly to your friend Karen about the parking issues in Trak (Toorak), Braaayton (Brighton) and Praaahn (Prahran) at school pick-up time.

CBD DINING

Pour a few drops of wine in very large glass and sell it to your partner for $25. Serve them a large white plate with a few artfully placed dehydrated basil leaves and sustainably sourced sea urchins. Make sure they don’t have the guts to tell you it tastes like snot and they’re still hungry after paying $47 for main course.

EUREKA SKYDECK

Pile your whole family into the smallest toilet and count to 88. Then walk out and stand with your face against a window while pointing out landmarks you can’t really see. Make sure it’s a grey day with limited visibility to make it more authentic.

Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist

[e-mail]; @susieob