Wigan man tells of anguish at being trapped in New Zealand as the Covid-19 pandemic worsens

Ryan Cant, 29, and wife Camilla, 27, are in the middle of a mini-career break, having got married last year.

After making their way through Asia and Australia, New Zealand was meant to be a stepping stone before moving on to South America and then the USA, and returning to the United Kingdom in the summer.

Having arrived in New Zealand last week - before traveller restrictions were announced - all was well at first with a low number of cases reported, which were being well contained.

The couple were road-tripping in New Zealand and on their way to Christchurch on Saturday when the New Zealand prime minister made the decision to try to contain the virus - banning all but essential domestic travel.

Road trip therefore over, Ryan and Camilla made for Queenstown airport to return the rental car, before jumping on the internet to book flights home.

Which is where panic set in.

"The experience can only be likened to trying to get tickets to Glastonbury," said Ryan, who now lives with Camilla in Cheshire, but whose parents still live in Standish.

"All of a sudden, flights that were being advertised and priced were disappearing when you clicked through to buy them.

"The prices of the ones that remained were going up minute by minute, it was a total nightmare.

"Australia, who have closed their borders to all - including those needing to transfer/transit through their airports onto other flights - then announced a transit window to get Europeans out of New Zealand.

"We managed to secure, via Opodo, flights the following day from Queenstown to Melbourne on Virgin Australia, and then on from there via Kuala Lumpar to London on Malaysian Air.

"However, at the airport the following day - because Opodo hadn’t linked the flights - Virgin were unwilling to let us board the Australian flight, even though we had physical proof of onward travel.

"A lot of others were in the same situation - we all ended up probably losing £1500 each.

"We then made the decision to get up to Auckland, jumping on an internal Air NZ flight, on the basis that was the major international hub, and we’d stand the best chance.

"We found some more flights with Etihad, this time directly on the airline website - not to make the same mistake twice - this time from Auckland to Sydney, then to Abu Dhabi and then onto Manchester.

"Etihad debited our credit card but didn’t issue tickets. A phone call later - and another hour on hold - and we were told actually the flights didn’t really exist, and they wouldn’t actually debit the money.

"By now the Australia transit window was closing - they had only authorised 72 hours - so we switched to trying to get via Singapore.

"We booked flights with Singapore Airlines to London - the earliest date we could get - and were almost starting to relax, when they called us to say that Singapore too has now closed to all transit.

"The airline refunded us most of the cost of the ticket , but said it will take 12-16 weeks for it to come back to our card!"

And the agony didn't end there.

"A few hours later, the New Zealand prime minister announced the country was moving up to its ‘Level 3’ response, and would be moving to Level 4, which would be a total Italy-style lockdown within 48 hours," continued Ryan, a massive Wigan Athletic supporter.

"Don't get me wrong, I totally agree it’s the right thing to do, and they are doing it early enough for it to make a big difference, so good on them.

"But we are unsure what this means, and the biggest worry is that hotels will start to close.

"We rushed to get into one that had a microwave and hob, but we don’t really know if they will start to ask us to leave.

"There now appears to be no commercial route available to get to the UK - with Australia, Singapore, Dubai and now Hong Kong closed even to transitting passengers.

"We are relatively fortunate - assuming our hotel doesn’t try to kick us out - in that we’ve been able to use credit cards to attempt multiple flight bookings and secure accommodation.

"But there are over 250 people now in our ‘Brits trapped in NZ’ WhatsApp group, many of them without the ability to keep throwing credit card limits at the problem.

"There's also some who literally have no accommodation - many are 18-25 backpacker-style travelers - but also people with young kids, pregnant ladies, and people running low on medication.

"The British embassy here don’t appear to have a handle on the situation. They have tweeted they are working on it, but then closed the actual building in Auckland and aren’t taking calls.

"While we are definitely in a better situation than many others, I can honestly say the past 72 hours have been probably the most stressful we have experienced in a long time.

"We are anxious to get home to be closer to - albeit not before quarantine! - our families.

"And the prospect of being stuck in New Zealand - as great as the country and its people are - throughout this pandemic, is worrying, given we don’t know how long it will last.

"We are also classed as ‘key workers’ in the U. - Camilla is an area manager for a supermarket and I work in financial services - so we're also keen to get home and support the effort."