Families are set to meet new members for the first time and business owners whose shops became checkpoints will wave goodbye to police and soldiers as the New South Wales-Victorian border reopens.
Wagga Wagga resident Sofia Dominguez gave birth during COVID-19, which has prevented her Melbourne-based parents from being able to greet the new arrival.
"It's been really hard not having my family be able to meet him," she said.
"When I got the message from my parents that the border would reopen I had a big grin on my face and maybe a tiny little tear."
On the road from Melbourne to Wagga Wagga lies Courtney Azzi's spa and wellness business.
Ms Azzi said all the things that made the location of her business on the Lincoln Causeway so ideal had worked against it during the shutdown, when 54 checkpoints were established along that stretch of road.
"As soon as I heard there was going to be a checkpoint I knew it would be somewhere close, because we are in a great spot right here between Albury and Wodonga," Ms Azzi said.
"But obviously for a situation like this, we were also in the perfect spot for a checkpoint."
No switching off
The doorstep to her business soon became unrecognisable with the arrival of New South Wales Police, the Australian Defence Force and tents lining the road.
"Physically for us, we've lost all of our carparking," Ms Azzi said.
"We've had absolutely no walk-ins whatsoever, where usually we'd sell a lot of vouchers and have people dropping in on their way to and from work."
She said it had been hard to "switch off" from the reality of the pandemic while being faced with the checkpoint every day.
"It'll just be nice to get back to some sort of normality — you can't escape it when you work here, so it will be nice not to have this confronting checkpoint here," she said.
"Holy moly, I've got mixed emotions.
"I am very excited — I just don't want to get my hopes up.
"I know [NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian] has locked in a date, but I just hope everything goes well."
Back together again
In Victoria's north-west, Murray Downs Golf Club, Spoons Cafe and Swan Hill Club chief executive Greg Roberts hoped the economies of cross-border cities would start to recover.
"Opening the border will make it so much better for our businesses and local community," he said.
"We've had people from regional Victoria wanting to come up and play golf, but they have been unable to because they are not in the border bubble."
Mr Roberts said while the easing of NSW restrictions with cross-border Victorian residents did help communities, things had been tough for the twin river communities of Murray Downs in NSW and Swan Hill in Victoria.
"It has been a significant barrier to the business at Murray Downs, and also people in Swan Hill who might be elderly in age," he said.
"Some have found getting the permit to be a troublesome and tiresome exercise, so that has been a barrier."
Delight and risk
On the NSW Far South Coast, towns like Eden, Merimbula and Tathra are eager to welcome their loyal Victorian clientele back this summer.
The devastating bushfire season and ongoing economic fallout of the pandemic put a major dent in the local economy, which was largely dependent on tourism during the peak Christmas and Easter periods.
"More than 50 per cent of our guests would be Victorian … most of which are regular guests that come every year," Beach Cabins Merimbula owner Pete Piccione said.
"It would have been a real shame if they couldn't have come up, so we're delighted."
The fear of a coronavirus outbreak, however, remains very real.
"There's an ever-present risk that it might flare up again," Mr Piccione said.
"We've just got to go forward with the confidence that everyone's still going to remain responsible with managing the risks.
"We just hope the borders stay open for the summer … it's a calculated risk."
