A Mosgiel couple are heading home after spending the past seven months in Australia.
Changes to the New Zealand border restrictions were announced last week, allowing fully vaccinated New Zealand citizens, residents and other eligible travellers in Australia to enter the country from 11.59pm on February 27 and self-isolate upon arrival.
Brian and Marjorie Peat were relieved and had booked flights for early March.
They left New Zealand for Brisbane on June 28 when the travel bubble was open, expecting quarantine-free travel would remain for "quite some time", Mr Peat, a Mosgiel-Taieri Community Board member, said.
The bubble popped about a month later.
"There was an opportunity to fly back within seven days of the border closing but we just couldn’t do that because we had commitments in Australia," he said.
The couple split their time between staying with their son in Brisbane and their daughter in Sarina, Queensland.
While they were lucky compared with other people in the same circumstance, they were keen to get home, Mr Peat said.
Things were almost made worse when they were told their New Zealand pension could potentially stop, since they were overseas for more than 26 weeks.
However, after many phone calls, the issues were eventually resolved.
Mr Peat was happy to talk to other New Zealanders overseas having trouble with their pensions, he said.
They were looking forward to getting home.
"Overall it is great news but there is much work to do with many pensioners in very stressful situations.’
