Tori Luck is unable to travel home to Berlin and is now holed up at her family's permanent caravan site in Pāpāmoa. Photo
Tori Luck is unable to travel home to Berlin and is now holed up at her family's permanent caravan site in Pāpāmoa. Photo
When Tori Lock came back to New Zealand from Germany on her semester break it was always only going to be a four-week holiday.
With travel restrictions and the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, the Berlin-living Kiwi is stuck here, unsure when she can return home to continue her education sciences degree,and life as she knows it.
But she's okay with it. She's finding solace at her "favourite place in the world" - her family's caravan at their permanent site at the Pāpāmoa Beach Resort.
"This has almost been a blessing in disguise," Lock said.
The 23-year-old moved to Berlin in January 2016 and spent a year learning German. By October 2017, she had started her studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In that time she said she had made a life there and had no intentions of moving back to New Zealand.
Now that she's forced to spend more time in New Zealand, Lock said she gets to test the waters of potentially returning home before making a final decision about being in Europe forever.
Her flight back to Berlin was scheduled for March 28. The start of new her semester has been pushed back to April 20 but is expected to be moved again. Her friends are all self-isolating.
Originally from Waikato, she arrived in New Zealand on March 1 and after a bit of travelling around, set up at Pāpāmoa on March 8 where she plans to spend most of her time until she is able to travel again.
Tori Luck is unable to travel home to Berlin and is now holed up at her family's permanent caravan site in Pāpāmoa. Photo
While she feels lucky the Covid-19 situation is not as bad as it is in Europe, she thinks it's only a matter of time before New Zealand is in lockdown, believing the height of the pandemic was yet to come.
About a week before Italy went into nationwide lockdown earlier this month Lock said she had friends who wouldn't have predicted how bad it had got, and as fast as it did.
"When Europe began shutting its borders it was really shocking for me.
"Coming from Berlin and seeing how all my friends are so affected by it ... I'm expecting it [lockdown] to hit here in New Zealand."
Te Puke Times editor Stuart Whitaker wasn't taking any risks of not getting back into New Zealand when he left for England last Friday, via Dubai, to visit his mum.
He landed in Manchester on Saturday morning (UKT) and by the afternoon booked a return flight to New Zealand to leave on Monday, cutting his trip - due to end on April 5 - early.
Those short hours of being in the UK provided plenty of uncertainly for the New Zealand permanent resident, worried New Zealand would close its borders.
"It was stressful not knowing if I'd be able to get back in the country," Whitaker said.
He left the UK on Monday (UKT) and arrived back in the country on Wednesday, feeling in good health. He's now self-isolating for 14 days.
"Being over there gave me that appreciation of how quickly it was moving and how quickly it was spreading," Whitaker said.
A Rotorua couple now living in London, Tayne Edelsten and Lindie de Klerk, are preparing for lockdown away from their hometown and family.
They're without work and uncertain when they'll be able to return. Edelsten said his last shift was Thursday last week and have spent recent days scouring empty aisles of supermarkets for remnants of food essentials.
"I haven't had work, most people are out of work for a minimum of two weeks," Edelsten said.
"Everything over here is gone."
The pair say the London today is in complete contrast to the one they met when they moved there, now with empty streets and seats on public transport.
While they're worried about the impact the coronavirus pandemic will have on work opportunities, travel restrictions made it hard for them to get home even if they wanted. However, for the meantime, they said they would stick it out.
"A lot of people we know are going home," de Klerk said.
"It's scary because we're not in New Zealand ... knowing that we can't just go home.
"We don't know if it's going to be two weeks or two months."
