IT’S two very different stories for a pair of Gold Coasters impacted by Melbourne’s lockdown – one stuck in a landmark high-rise, while the other lives it up on the Gold Coast.

Surfers Paradise’s Sean Buckley, owner of car repair and roadside assist giant Ultra Tune, has more recently been based in a Crown Casino apartment where he will see out Victoria’s six-week lockdown starting midnight Wednesday.

The entrepreneur shares custody of his two-year-old daughter but after lockdown ends, it will be six months since he’s seen two other teenage daughters on the Gold Coast.
“It’s half a year wasted without seeing them,” he said. “If they were to come down, it’ll be two weeks in quarantine then maybe a week with myself and their mum, then another two weeks of quarantine when they return home.

“That’s 28 days stuck in a hotel room and I’m not going to put them through that. We were hoping to see them soon, because their mother – who I’m no longer with but lives around the corner – is unwell.”

Gold Coast girl turned Melburnian Cheryl Sheppeard made it back to the Gold Coast to visit family just one week before the virus surge in Melbourne.

Cheryl Sheppeard said she was lucky to have travelled back to the Gold Coast before the outbreak spread in Victoria.

“I was able to return to Queensland on compassionate grounds last month,” she said.

“I see my family every month, but because of the borders it had been at least six months. I had actually moved my flight forward by a week and lucky I did, I may have been stuck.”

While her home in St Kilda isn’t a declared hot spot, surrounding suburbs are.

“I am considering moving back to the Gold Coast for good, it is a beautiful sunny and safe place to be at the moment.”

Read this feature about Sean Buckley in the Gold Coast Bulletin here