Sydney CBD and East, NSW: ‘No one seems clear on the rules’
In a city where Covid-confusion rules, the CBD feels grim and hunkered down but Bondi Beach is full of movement.
Across the nation we’re leading vastly different lives as states impose a patchwork of Covid-19 restrictions. On Monday July 19, our writers in every state ventured out to capture a snapshot of their cities and towns – a Covid-eye view of the way we live today.
You can judge a city and its people many ways, but in this part of Sydney today numbers tell the story. There are five passengers travelling from Circular Quay to Manly on the 9am ferry, which has a capacity of 1150. There are just six flights between here and Melbourne on what is usually one of the world’s busiest routes. And at Bondi Beach you’ll find one ice cream truck, two police vehicles, three cars at the Covid testing clinic, dozens of mostly maskless people on the promenade and many more enjoying the water.
It’s July 19, day one of the latest iteration of lockdown. Depending on where you live, today is either day 24 or 25 of stay-at-home orders, which in turn means you can only work at home / you have no work / you can work outside your local government area only if it’s a specified essential role, among multiple possibilities.
No one seems completely clear on the latest rules, which have been tinkered with and tightened multiple times, and which until recently relied mostly on common sense to determine if your business should stay open. There are, however, two things that everyone seems to understand: from today construction has been halted temporarily, and you can no longer walk into a luxury goods store and buy a designer handbag.
If the past three and a bit weeks of lockdown were lunchtime detention, July 19 feels like the first day of being suspended from school. Around the CBD and its affluent eastern suburbs, ground zero for the outbreak that has thrust greater Sydney into its ongoing predicament, life seems familiar and yet not. School zone lights flash at 8am even though most students are homebound. Buses cross the city but to a Sunday timetable and invariably carrying only a passenger or two.
At Circular Quay, pedestrian lights turn green at a usually bustling intersection but there is no one crossing. At the almost empty ferry terminal and adjoining train station, automatic announcements sound for a few masked commuters, all of whom alight with their eyes down, looking grim. “If you’ve got social anxiety this is the perfect time to come out,” a ferry worker says drolly as he surveys the vacant boardwalk, free of buskers and day trippers. Even the 24-hour cafe that never closes is closed. Devoid of people, the surrounding buildings seem to have lost their purpose.
There is more life a few kilometres away in Double Bay, but it’s comparative. Traditionally a place of upmarket shopping and alfresco dining, at the local five-star hotel a sign beside the concierge-less entrance prohibits entry to all but in-house guests. Across the road a static construction site, its solitary bulldozer idle, is even quieter than the rest of the neighbourhood. While most businesses here are shuttered and dark, a florist is open, providing an unexpected shot of life and colour. So are banks, which seems odd until you realise it’s not Sunday, and so are multiple cafes with loose clusters of people chatting in pairs, mostly masked and invariably in leisure gear, all waiting for the coffees that have become one of the city’s most reliable commodities. Double Bay’s footpaths are so uncharacteristically still that two teens manage to cycle the entire length of Cross Street, joyously, rapidly, and without a single indignant shopper impeding their happy passage.
And then there is Bondi, a few more kilometres away. To ensure everyone keeps to their place, a pair of officers are out in a motorised buggy, joining the throngs of walkers lapping the boardwalk, where masks are not specifically required unless social distancing is not possible. No one seems to be deliberately avoiding anyone, partly because the pathway is only so wide, but mostly because walkers tend to naturally keep apart anyway.
Unlimited outdoor exercise (only in family groups or with one other person, and only within 10km of home) is permitted and so beneath an inviting winter sun, Bondi’s tally includes joggers and strollers, the odd mask-wearer, pampered pets, cyclists, swimmers and surfers, lots of men working out on the limited exercise equipment, pedestrians in puffer jackets and too many people talking too loudly into their handsets. A mother drives her van into the car park, windows down, and with her children admires the view. A loved-up couple walks hand-in-hand, each with a blue mask draped uselessly across their chin.
This is not what everyone expects to see in a pandemic lockdown. Compared to the grim, hunkered-down feel that has pervaded so many other parts of the city, this place is full of movement and people. And for those lucky enough to be here, with the beautiful backdrop of sand and sea and a cornucopia of cavorting dolphins, it is also an unexpected and comforting affirmation. Life goes on.