South East QLD residents flee lockdown for Gympie restaurant visits

Restaurant owners immediately north of the South East Queensland lockdown are pleading for people to obey travel restrictions after being forced to turn away groups and individuals leaving lockdown seeking respite and a chance to dine out.

Restaurant owners immediately north of the South East Queensland lockdown are pleading for people to obey travel restrictions after being forced to turn away groups and individuals leaving lockdown seeking respite and a chance to dine out.

A number of Gympie clubs and restaurants confirmed they had been visited by patrons from some of the 11 locked down council areas in the state’s South East since Saturday afternoon.

Residents from Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Ipswich, the Lockyer Valley, Logan, Moreton Bay, Noosa, Redland, the Scenic Rim, Somerset and the Sunshine Coast are under stay at home orders because of the highly infectious Delta strain outbreak.

A Gympie Sports Club spokesman said staff there had turned away a number of people from the Sunshine Coast since the lockdown started. He was unsure exactly how many.

Gunabul Homestead Restaurant manager Hugh McCallum says some people are still not getting the mask and lockdown message.

He said the club was doing nothing more than following Queensland health rules.

“There have been people trying to come to the club,” he said.

“We‘re simply doing what everyone in town is doing.”

A handful of people have reportedly been turned away from the RSL in the Gympie CBD in the past week, too.

Gunabul Homestead restaurant manager Hugh McCallum said some people from the lockdown areas had displayed “a cavalier attitude” to the lockdown rules.

Gympie police have not handed out any fines to people breaching lockdown rules in the region. Picture: iStock

Mr McCallum said when the lockdown was first announced his venue already had a function booked which was to be attended by people as far away as the Gold Coast.

They still planned to drive up even after the lockdown was introduced, he said.

“It took us cancelling the event to get them to get it through their heads it wasn’t safe,” Mr McCallum said.

He said no other guests from the southeast had turned up at Gunabul.

He did have concerns how some people who had been in locked down areas but were still allowed in the region were ignoring mask requirements.

“They’re really putting their elderly parents at risk,” he said.

Organisers of events including the iconic Muster have been forced to cancel as a result of the South East stay at home orders.

“If you’re from south of Gympie, as much as we want to see you, please stay home.”

The owners of a Mary Valley business, who declined to be identified, said they had turned down about a dozen people from the South East corner.

That didn’t mean even more had slipped through, though.

“They can tell you whatever they want (about where they’re from),” they said.

Then there are the people who “denied knowing there was a lockdown in place”.

Gympie police have not yet issued any fines to people from locked down South East Queensland who had travelled into the region.

Despite not being in lockdown itself, the Gympie region has felt the impact of the lockdown, with multiple upcoming events cancelled, including the Muster and Rainbow Beach Fishing Classic.

Originally published as South East QLD residents flee lockdown for Gympie restaurant visits