Regional
towns are being swamped by bus loads of panicked "Coles
tourists" who are driving from the city to strip supermarket
shelves of basic supplies.
The
Age has heard reports of city-dwellers rushing supermarkets in
Gisborne, Kyneton, Romsey, Seymour, Woodend, Daylesford and even in
towns as far away as Kerang and Deniliquin.
Woodend,
about 70 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, is now pleading for
outsiders to give them a few days' break so its own elderly residents
and families can buy necessities.
"We
have one supermarket in town, a Coles, and we love our tourists, but
we've got bus loads of people coming through and doing multiple runs
through the store," Reverend Mel Clarke said.
"Coles
have put limits on, but they're still able to clear us out."
Reverend
Clarke, from St Mary's Anglican Church, said people had been coming
to her door asking if she had supplies, but she too had now run out
of many essentials.
She
was in Kyneton when she spoke to The Age on Tuesday and said two
buses had just arrived at the town's Woolworths.
"I
don't know what they think they're going to get," she said.
"(In
Woodend) we're trying our hardest amongst the community to make sure
everyone has enough. We've got a neighbourhood house where if you've
got a spare roll of toilet paper you can drop it off. We've got
community groups popping up.
"But
we just need a few days without the Coles tourists to get us back on
our feet."
At
the Romsey IGA, about 20 kilometres east of Woodend, it's been "like
Christmas Eve" every day since mass cancellations began on
Friday.
Kristi
Gilbert, who co-runs a community Facebook page with more than 2000
members, said she had never seen anything like it in 10 years of
Romsey life.
She
said reports from shop staff was that many people were arriving from
Melbourne, but some were also coming from larger regional centres
like Bendigo.
Kate
Bossence, from Kerang in northern Victoria, said supermarket shelves
there started emptying during a rush of Melbourne tourists on the
long weekend last week.
The
47-year-old said she had noticed mini-buses full of people stopping
off at the local supermarkets that had "cleaned out absolutely
everything".
"Since
the long weekend, I just noticed that people behind the cash
registers are struggling with the amount of produce that people are
buying," Ms Bossence, an ex-nurse, said.
"It's
kind of really reached a critical stage now.
"That
leaves us locals, and aged pensioners, disability pensioners, with no
food to really survive on for the next couple of weeks if we do go
into lockdown which is looking more and more likely."
Woolworths
opened at 7am on Tuesday and admitted only those with pension or
disability cards for the next hour. Results were mixed across the
city.
In
Prahran, more than 100 elderly people lined up before dawn and almost
all went straight for the empty toilet paper aisle.
They
get us out of bed so early in the morning and the shelves are bare,"
Leah, 71, said.
"The
three most important things - tissues, toilet paper and meat - and
they are not there. I had to buy gyoza. We're not used to eating
gyoza, but now we have to eat anything.
"I
woke up at 3am and I didn't want to go back to sleep in case I slept
and missed the toilet paper. But I missed it anyway. It's hard for us
because we're old. I can't even walk. I had to take tablets just to
be able to get here."
