PENDLETON — A Pendleton woman is experiencing the specter of COVID-19 from the land down under.

Lisa-Marie Patterson, a native Aussie, recently traveled to Western Australia for an extended family visit. Like all new arrivals to the country now, she went into quarantine.

She had come from a holiday in the Canary Islands with her mother, sister and brother-in-law that had morphed into a lockdown situation. The journey to Australia, which included two postponed flights and a fair amount of uncertainty and panic, resembled an episode of “The Amazing Race.” The four spent an extra $20,000 on flights to replace the canceled ones. They left Spain just before that country prohibited all but rescue flights.

Once safely in Australia, they retrieved their car from the airport lot and headed to her mother’s house in Perth, stocked with supplies by Patterson’s niece and nephew.

“We are very grateful to be in a safe place, with food, a bed and a three-quarter-acre garden to quarantine in. We are in complete isolation and cannot leave the property or have contact with anyone for 14 days,” Patterson said via email. “Upon entering the country we had to sign a form saying we would obey the quarantine or be fined $50,000 Australian each and receive jail time. We are only allowed out to seek emergency medical assistance.”

Patterson spends time socializing, gardening and browsing on the internet to learn about coronavirus in Australia. As of Monday, the country had 4,245 confirmed cases and 18 deaths.

“No one is allowed to leave or enter Australia and my state has closed its borders,” Patterson wrote. “There is a long line of trucks and travelers out on the Nullabor Plain trying to get back to Western Australian or to the Eastern states. Anyone crossing the border now must go into a 14-day quarantine. Perth is the most geographically isolated city in the world, but we have virus cases increasing across the state. It was brought in by passengers from cruise ships and holiday makers returning from overseas.”

She said cruise ships continue to attempt to offload infected passengers in Fremantle. One ship of Italian passengers was refueled and sent on to Dubai, but returned after it got word it wouldn’t be allowed to dock. Foreign passengers requiring hospitalization are allowed off the ships, Patterson said, and Australians who disembark must go into quarantine for two weeks on Rottnest Island, a holiday hotspot about 8 miles off the Perth coast.

Patterson said Australia was slow to react to the pandemic.

“Australia’s younger population has basically ignored suggestions on social distancing and continued to go to the beach, have house parties and gather at pubs,” she wrote. “Only on Monday (March 23) did the government finally shut down pubs, cafes, restaurants, public events and non-grocery retail businesses. The slow introduction of restrictions has led to uncontrollable levels of panic buying. People have bought freezers and filled them, leaving grocery stores with desolate shelves. Stores have tried to limit what people can buy and checkers are being threatened by customers.”

Patterson said Australia hasn’t had an emergency situation where its citizens worried about food since World War II.

“We actually have plenty of food available because we are primarily an agricultural country, with huge production of fruits, vegetables, meat and cereal crops,” she wrote. “People are panicking for nothing and are causing needy people to go without. I am quite embarrassed to be an Australian. The contrast to the way Spain handled the situation is stark and I think that it will show in how the pandemic progresses here.”

On the plus side, she said, the Australian government passed fiscal support measures and “stories of kindness, generosity, grace and the better side of human nature” abound, including those of younger people helping the elderly by shopping for them and delivering meals.

Patterson doesn’t expect to be able to return to the U.S. until early summer at the earliest. She keeps in contact with husband Bob, son Rowen, and daughter Jessie via FaceTime and WhatsApp. She watches services from Pendleton’s First Presbyterian Church posted on Facebook.

She said she loses sleep because of the pandemic, but also sees silver linings.

“It is my hope that once the situation is resolved, our society as a whole will change for the better,” she wrote. “People are having to learn what is really important in life and what is just fluff. Those of us who have never known hardship will learn some valuable lessons in the coming months. I hope we will come out the other side a more altruistic, compassionate and generous society. I think this is a defining moment for humanity and we can rise to the challenge or devolve into anarchy. I hope it is the former.”