Regional Victorian family placed in quarantine in Cairns because of airport parking shuttle transfer

A regional Victorian family was looking forward to their holiday in Queensland. Now they’re languishing in quarantine because of one tiny decision.

A regional Victorian family who flew into Cairns on Wednesday expecting to begin their family holiday has instead been plunged into hotel quarantine – and they are not happy.

In a post on social media, mum Meghan Sleswick said her family had been placed into hotel quarantine because they used an off-site airport parking service and caught a shuttle bus with five other people in it to the airport.

Under current Covid-19 restrictions, Greater Melbourne is a declared hotspot however travellers from regional Victoria can transit through Melbourne’s airports to Queensland.

“Apparently (the airport parking business) is included in the ‘hotspot’ and anyone that stops there is no longer allowed into Queensland,” Ms Sleswick wrote.

“Obviously we would have made other arrangements had we known this would impact our holiday.”

Ms Sleswick said the “worst part” about the whole situation was that the other five people that were on the shuttle bus “were allowed in”.

Meghan Sleswick with her four-month-old Ivy while in quarantine in Cairns. PICTURE: Facebook

“They all spoke to different police officers at border security. Unfortunately the woman that checked our border passes worked for Queensland Health and said we could not come in and the other people shouldn’t have been let in either,” Ms Sleswick wrote.

The family was then escorted to a car by police and driven to hotel quarantine in Cairns.

Ms Sleswick said it was “very upsetting” when they were from regional Victoria where there had been no cases for months and they believed they had followed the guidelines.

“We drove two-and-a-half hours to the airport (with no stops) and spent three-and-a-half hours on a Jetstar flight (packed in like sardines with hundreds of people – how ironic) to be told that catching an airport shuttle bus with five other people is where we’ve gone wrong,” she wrote.

“Hotel quarantine is for two weeks – unless they can get us on a flight home sooner, but at the rate they are cancelling flights each day I’m worried how that will go.

“Locked in a tiny room with a four-month-old baby is not how we expected to spend our holiday. In the meantime we will enjoy this view from our balcony.”

Ms Sleswick’s partner Aaron Rutter said they had come up to Cairns to celebrate his father’s 60th birthday, with a bunch of other family and friends either having already arrived, or set to fly in on Friday.

“The rest of them are going to be up here staying in a hotel just a kilometre down the road enjoying their trip while we’re looking at a short trip home,” he said.

“It’s just frustrating- we’ve had our Covid tests done and now we’re just waiting for someone to give us our result and tell us our options.

“We were hoping with the easement of restrictions in Melbourne we might have been taken off the list, but it doesn’t look like it.”

Queensland Health has been contacted for comment.

Originally published as Regional Victorian family placed in quarantine in Cairns because of airport parking shuttle transfer