I didn’t expect to be in London in March, 2020, let alone it going into lockdown! In fact I had a full schedule of work in Austria, Germany and elsewhere coming up, so when COVID-19 virus was declared a pandemic on 11th March, and everything started to close down, I had to leave at the drop of a hat. As a British passport holder, the place for me to go was London. 

Austria going into Lockdown

I had been in a small town in Upper Austria call Sarleinsbach.  There was not much there to start with, but after at the announce of the virus being a pandemic, everything just stopped. At first I thought I could wile away the time in Slovakia, thinking at the time that this was something that would blow over quickly, but Slovakia’s border with Austria had already closed!  It was one of the first!  Things were starting to look real as panic took hold. It was time to leave so – as a British Passport holder – London would be the best place for me to go to ride out the storm. 

I was part of a great migration of humanity trying to get somewhere else to take cover.  I had a sense of it being like great herds of wilderbeest and zebras stampeding across the plains at the sense of danger.  It seemed almost instinctual.

Borders Closing going and into Lockdown

I boarded the bus back to Linz on the Saturday, to see my first taste of social distancing. The driver was cordoned off with tape from the passengers. I had to board the bus from the back door without having to pay a fare.  In Linz the main train station was deserted, as was the train to Salzburg, which is where I would catch my flight to London the following day.   The hostel I stayed in in Salzburg – Wolfang’s – was to close the following day.  The tourists had already left before I got there. Salzburg was a ghost town.  The airport would close a couple of days later.  Everything was closing down behind me.

Who could have known that the world would grind to a halt within a week! 

London Going into Lockdown

But it had been a long time since I had spent any quality time in London, so this was my chance to make the most of it.  I stayed in Swiss Cottage, half way between Regents Park and Hampstead Heath. I headed to both on alternate days, where I wiled away the hours as the daily government announcements brought about a bleaker and bleaker outlook, and more and more restaurants, café and other shops started to progressively close.  The shelves were emptying  as the epidemic of panic buying took hold, as it had done in many other parts of the world – the craze for buying up on toilet paper is still a mystery to me…

On my walk one morning to Hampstead Heath, I saw that Hampstead tube station was closed.  The streets were emptying.  The over 70’s were being told to stay indoors. Even so, there were still people who must have been in their 70’s out jogging on the Heath.

The place I was staying closed down after a week, with the exodus of tourists and ex-pats, many of whom during that first week in London, would go out to the airport only to return with the increasing flight cancellations.

It was time to move elsewhere, as the increasing herding of people here and there continued.

Daily Walks

I was now near Hyde Park – a good place to be with the instructions to only go out for work, shopping or exercise. The lockdown had begun in full force.   Bayswater Road was empty – a sight I have never seen before!  There was only the occasional sparsely populated double-decker bus, which carried on running regardless. Bayswater tube station was also closed.

People seemed to be taking the chaos in their stride, even as millions lost their jobs.  I was lucky to be near Hyde Park, which was populated with joggers, cyclists and people who looked like they’d never exercised in their lives out for daily walks.  But still the grim economics of it all meant it could not stay in London for ever, and as an Australian it was time for me to bite the bullet and go back to Australia while I could, even though it would mean a 14 day stay in enforced quarantine…. But that is another story!