After three months of kite surfing and beach living, last Sunday they left Western Australia's Karijini National Park and regained phone reception to discover the state would be closing its borders in three days.

"We were like, 'All right, we need to go home, we don't want to be stuck in forced quarantine,' " Mr Ries said.

"We did some calculations and realised we'd have to drive 3000 kilometres in three days. We literally drove 12 hours a day to get to the border."

The couple originally planned to "take it a bit slower on the way back" and return to Melbourne in late April.

"My brother just had a baby two weeks ago in Adelaide, so we were going spend a couple of weeks with family," Mr Ries said.

Instead they travelled a total of 5500 kilometres in seven days – from Exmouth, in Australia's north-west corner, to Melbourne, where they arrived on Thursday.

"It's frustrating, for sure ... just wild," Mr Ries said.

Colin Mitchell and his family's plans have also been curtailed. They have lived in their caravan since selling their home in Doncaster three years ago, moving between caravan parks at least monthly.

Those without a fixed address, plus workers or those unable to get home, are exempt from the caravan park closures, meaning Mr Mitchell will stay at Marlo Caravan Park, in East Gippsland, potentially for months.

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"Our day-to-day life hasn't been significantly impacted, except for the fact we can't keep travelling," he said.

"We did have a discussion, we anticipated the restrictions might come in. But Marlo was as good as any place to go, so we decided we'll stay here and weather it out."

In Leongatha Caravan Park, in East Gippsland, resident of 32 years Lance Waller said he had never seen it so quiet, while Les Hayne, owner of Ocean Views Caravan Park in Marlo, said his 750-capacity park was empty aside from a handful of emergency workers.

Mr Hayne said many "grey nomads" generally migrated to Queensland for winter and would now be stuck there, reducing his business even further.

"We normally do 40 per cent of our business in January, but that was almost nothing because of the fires," he said.

"Easter is normally 20 per cent, that will be zero. This week has just been refunds, refunds, refunds."

Stuart Lamont, chief executive of the Caravan Industry Association of Australia, said the efect of the coronavirus pandemic on caravan parks was devastating.

"There's a lot of desperation. A lot are very small businesses, mums and dads that have put their life savings into it," Mr Lamont said.