As Albury-Wodonga officials sought clarity on the NSW-Victoria border closures, workers set up checkpoints in thick fog in the night.
A small number of cars from Wodonga continued into Albury early on Wednesday morning after the midnight border closure.
Victoria and NSW agreed to shut the borders between the two states on as the number of coronavirus cases grows in the south.
Police said they turned back one car before midnight after the driver admitted they had come from a coronavirus hotspot in Melbourne.
The people of the border town are grappling with the ramifications of the coronavirus-induced closures.
It has brought an end to community sport in the town, with the local hockey league finally forced to cancel its season after persevering throughout the pandemic where other sporting codes had dropped out.
Hockey Albury-Wodonga president Bert Eastoe said players had been happy to get on the pitch during the wider shutdown.
"It's part of the village, this tribal thing about getting people together," he said on Tuesday.
But now the closures have seen scheduled games called off, with just under half of the players living on the Victorian side of the Murray.
Operations manager Cayte Campbell, who lives in Albury, said the closures had more serious implications: she was potentially cut off from her parents in Wodonga.
"Sport is not a reason to cross the border," she said.
Wassim Saliba, owner of the restaurant La Maison which sits just on the Victorian side of the Murray, said information was in short supply.
Mr Saliba would be closing on Wednesday as he figured out how to keep operating.
The restaurant couldn't purely rely on Wodonga customers to keep afloat, with two-thirds of his trade coming from Albury, Mr Saliba said.
"We didn't anticipate this again so that was a bit of a kick in the guts," he said.
He only reopened a month ago after shutting shop in March due to COVID health restrictions.
Travel exemptions will apply for locals but the permit system managed by the NSW government only went online late Tuesday night.
The web page reportedly stopped working for a period of time on Tuesday night.
A Service NSW spokesperson said the permit application system was experiencing high levels of demand.
People carrying documents to prove to police they had a legitimate reason to cross the border would still be allowed through.
Albury mayor Kevin Mack wants special colour-coded permits for locals to speed up border crossings.
"We have been bereft of information," he told reporters in Wodonga on Tuesday.
Australian Associated Press
