It's just 28 kilometres west of the busy Albury-Wodonga crossing, but life in the NSW border town of Howlong couldn't be more different.
There is no massive queue of cars lining up at the police checkpoint.
Just a line of locals here to welcome out-of-town officers overseeing the border crossing since the closure came into effect early Wednesday morning.
Lurlene Hanna and her friends were on their weekly walk when they stopped to chat with one officer patrolling the bridge over the Murray River.
"[He told us] they had a little fire but they didn't have enough wood, so the people of Howlong took down wood so that they'd be warm and comfy down there," she said.
"The bakery's taken them down food and coffee — they've been very well looked after.
Ms Hanna, 70, isn't surprised by the officer's reaction to local hospitality.
"Everybody that comes to Howlong says, 'I didn't know what a lovely place it is.'"
Ms Hanna said traffic was moving freely into Howlong and the border closure had had little effect on most people in town.
The Howlong crossing had been so quiet, she said, people were starting to use it as alternative to Albury-Wodonga, where the queues could take up to an hour.
Another Howlong local, Rex Forrester, said while he wasn't personally affected, he felt very sorry for young people with mortgages and for businesses who would bear the brunt of the border closure.
"Little regional businesses — they've already had a whack with the fires, they've already had one lockdown. They'll never recover from this," he said.
Mr Forrester, 68, who restores vintage cars and steam engines as a hobby, said the NSW Government should increase border permits from 14 days to a minimum of 30 days to reduce red tape.
"Businesses are going to have to go through all that paperwork for their employees and that's just another inconvenience that we don't need at the moment."
Mr Forrester said he felt people in regional NSW and Victoria were being punished for an outbreak that began in Melbourne.
Almost an hour's drive west, Paul Bramich and his family soaked up the last couple of days of their holiday at Mulwala, a town known for its eponymous lake which was formed by the damming of the Murray.
They left their Hillsdale home in Melbourne's north-western suburbs before Greater Melbourne was returned to Stage 3 restrictions.
"It's actually nice being in NSW, where it's not like that," Mr Bramich said.
"We're all symptom-free and healthy and now we're going back to Victoria where everyone's in lockdown again.
"A one-way ticket across the border is all we've got now — we can't come back."
The family, who are regulars at the local caravan park, had been spending lots of time outdoors — fishing on the Murray backwaters, walking and riding bikes — before heading into lockdown.
"We want to do the right thing but we are going to be stuck inside as soon as we get home."
Mr Bramich said the family had been unsure whether to go ahead with their holiday, given the coronavirus outbreak in nearby suburbs, but wanted to support the local tourism industry.
"We got the boat serviced down here and it wasn't due for a few months, just to put money back into the economy."
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTA3LTExL2hvd2xvbmctbnN3LXZpY3RvcmlhLWJvcmRlci10b3ducy1jb3Bpbmctd2l0aC1jbG9zdXJlLzEyNDM5OTA40gEnaHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAuYWJjLm5ldC5hdS9hcnRpY2xlLzEyNDM5OTA4?oc=5
2020-07-10 21:21:00Z
CBMiZWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTA3LTExL2hvd2xvbmctbnN3LXZpY3RvcmlhLWJvcmRlci10b3ducy1jb3Bpbmctd2l0aC1jbG9zdXJlLzEyNDM5OTA40gEnaHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAuYWJjLm5ldC5hdS9hcnRpY2xlLzEyNDM5OTA4
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