Simon Calder’s Travel Week

Written by Simon Calder | May 22, 2025

“Australia: does it still exist?” That is the question posed by Tony Wheeler, the co-founder of Lonely Planet while flying from London via Singapore to Melbourne. Holding joint British and Australian nationality, the guidebook guru is taking advantage of the opening-up of the vast nation that took effect this month. Since March 2020, even Australian citizens have been subject to a “2Q” policy: a strict quota on departures to the homeland and hotel quarantine on arrival. Those rules ended on 1 November – at least for travellers returning home to the states of New South Wales and Victoria. British visitors remain excluded, as we have been for 20 months, but this week an Australian minister floated the possibility that we might be able to visit before the end of 2021.

“We’ll look very carefully at that,” said Karen Andrews, Australia’s home affairs minister. I hope a reply I gave earlier this month to a reader who asked about the chance of Australia opening up to British tourists before Christmas proves 100 per cent wrong. I said: “Zero”.

Yet while Victoria and New South Wales may welcome us, don't expect other states to roll out the red carpet. Tony Wheeler says the country is disintegrating “into the descendants of the English colonies”. As Australia opens up, it is simultaneously falling apart.

Twelve decades ago, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania got together to form a Commonwealth. But today they are behaving like independent nations.

Out of bounds: Perth in Western Australia

From his home in Melbourne, Tony could freely visit Perth – but the cities in Scotland or North Dakota, not the more convenient one in Western Australia. “Exemptions are restricted to Commonwealth, State and specialist functions only,” the government in the WA capital says.

Neighbouring South Australia is even less welcoming: “All travellers who have been in Victoria within the past 14 days are prohibited.”

Back aboard his plane, Tony says: “I’ve been away for four months so it will be interesting which country my flight from Singapore arrives in later today. I’m prepared, I’ve got an Australia Travel Declaration in case my flight arrives in Australia, but if it isn’t Australia but Victoria where we turn up, well I’ve got a Victoria International Border Permit as well.”

Where does that tangle of rules leave the British traveller – whether seeking some winter sun or, more pressingly, desperate to see loved ones? Of these increasingly disunited states, Victoria and New South Wales seem certain to welcome you, with hints from Brisbane this morning that Queensland may open up early in 2023. But Australia’s Covid curtain is likely to stop you exploring further.

Next stop Ongar: the Christmas special preparing to steam away from North Weald

The far eastern section of the Central Line, from Epping to Ongar, was removed from the London Underground in 1994. But the six-mile stretch of track has been taken over by enthusiasts, and until 9 January the heritage railway offers the "Epping Ongar Light Fantastic" – a one-hour Christmas special from North Weald station to the end of the line and back, enlivened with music and a light show, price £20.

Deals of the week: two for one on Scottish trains, Christmas Day flights to the US

You have three days to take advantage of a November special from ScotRail: two for the price of one. Get a voucher online: click on the link on this page and fill in the online form. “Either print the voucher or save it on your phone to show when you travel,” ScotRail says. No time or class restrictions: the paying passenger simply needs a valid ticket for the chosen train (season tickets acceptable). Expires Thursday 25 November.
Delta’s cheapest Heathrow-New York JFK return on Sunday 19 December, returning two weeks later, is £1,743. Passengers travelling out on Christmas Day, returning on New Year’s Eve, can get a fare of just £592 – saving almost two-thirds.

Question: On arrival by ferry at Santander from Portsmouth, my van was checked over by customs officer and I was charged over €400 in duty for three used electric bikes that I planned to bring back after a two-week visit. The staff muttered something about “carnets”. Was I correctly fined?

Answer: That wasn't a fine – it was precisely the customs arrangement that UK ministers negotiated in the Brexit deal. Anyone taking goods in excess of €430 (£363) or more from Great Britain (but not from Northern Ireland) to the EU is required to declare them and, if necessary, pay the required tariffs. For the avoidance of doubt this is not a new European Union rule; it is simply imposing the customs regulations that the UK helped to draft while a member of the EU. As the border officials indicated, you could have avoided the duty by paying for a customs carnet – a document listing temporary imports (including serial numbers) that is checked against the contents of your van on the way in and on the way out of the EU. Unfortunately it is an expensive and cumbersome solution.

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