Australians stranded in Canada by coronavirus couch-surfing to get by

It’s –33 degrees Celsius in rural British Columbia, Canada, and Ben Richard’s nose hairs, eyelashes and beard have frozen solid.

The 36-year-old is on his way to work at the town’s only shop — The Big Lake Store, in BC’s vast Central Interior. It’s a post office, petrol station, pub and library in one.

He had hoped to be seeing the last of the place five weeks ago, when he registered for a rare Australian Government repatriation flight out of Vancouver.

He’d given his boss notice, packed his bags and was preparing to drive seven hours along icy roads to make a flight home at short notice. But the ticket never materialised.

“I never heard back from them, not even a ‘sorry you missed out’,” Ben says.

It’s the second failed flight attempt…