Curfew kicks in, leaving the city’s streets deserted

The great Melbourne shutdown began at 8pm on Sunday, rapidly draining the life out of a city forced into another spirit-breaking hibernation.

Tysn Dearley heads to a St Kilda refuge before curfew on Sunday. Picture: Paul Jeffers

The great Melbourne shutdown began at 8pm on Sunday, rapidly draining the life out of a city forced into another spirit-breaking hibernation.

As Flinders Street Station’s digital clock clicked over to 20.00 there were just a few passengers left to fight the emptiness.

The first of the 24-hour shops on Elizabeth Street posted new closing times of 7.30pm and the young and the restless scurried off into the night as word spread of the $1652 fines for breaching the 8pm-to-5am curfew.

Tysn Dearley, 19, of Mt Druitt in western Sydney, had more than a few problems getting out of the way of police.

“It’s a bit hard because I’m homeless,” he said. “I’m on my way to St Kilda. Everything was good until the virus started happening.”

Melbourne’s CBD, once the southern capital’s great strength, has been transformed by the virus, its coffee, restaurant and university culture broken by the threat of disease.

With pedestrians numbers smashed, businesses were desperately hoping that the end of Lockdown 2.0, due later this month, would bring the people back. Not so. Aynur Cagran is one of tens of thousands of overseas students who have travelled to Melbourne to study; she has been in Victoria for three years and is worried not just about being infected by the virus but the impact on her mind.

“Biologically, I am very healthy but psychologically I feel very tired, it is a big challenge,’’ she said just before the 8pm deadline. “This virus is not just affecting your immune system.”

As the deadline passed, cars moved quietly through the suburbs of Melbourne but there was no sign of an increased police presence.

The CBD was so quiet, perhaps even in an historical context, that it’s hard to imagine the Victorian government having many problems with the soft opening of the great shutdown.

Restaurants and hotels shut largely on time and by 8.30pm the few vehicles on the streets were mainly food delivery motorbikes, ending the night’s deliveries.

While the city’s trains continued to operate until late into the night, station staff were unsure whether there would be a new timetable or the shutters would simply go up at 8pm.

Where once Melbourne’s CBD was dominated by workers and tourists, it is increasingly becoming home to foreign backpackers and construction workers.