You could feel them pulling at the leash as they imagined wide beaches to romp across after two months of lock-down.

"Hugo is going into the surf," Aaron Elix said as he and his partner Antika Luscombe stopped in Braidwood for a pair of pies (pepper steak for him and potato for her).

He is a public servant and she has just finished at the University of Canberra. "The restrictions are lifted so we are taking the little dog down to the coast," Mr Elix said.

He had been working from home for the past nine weeks, so the prospect of a big beach on which to let the little dog loose was exciting.

"We've had it pretty rough in the last six months with the bushfires and the smoke and the COVID, so it's refreshing to go down and have a sense of normality - and to give something back to the South Coast," he said.

Bear, a seriously big dog, was also heading south. His owners Ryan Zickefoose (sausage roll and an extra tart because it was his birthday) and Kayla Steele (potato pie) hadn't seen their family in Surfside for two months.

"It's been tough," she said. "I've missed them." Bear was silent (and pie-less).

Braidwood mid-morning on Thursday was like a transit station for refugees from lock-down in Canberra.

The King's Highway was a stream of Canberra number plates, with big boats, little boats, bikes and caravans all in tow.

Peter Murray was looking forward to "seeing the ocean and watching the surf break".

"There's not that icy chill that we have in Canberra," his partner, Christine, added.

It has been 15 weeks since they've seen their grandchildren in the flesh. "It's been very hard," she said.

The Milne-Freyne family hadn't been down since September because of the bushfires.

"We just need a bit of warmth and a bit of sunshine," mother, Hannah, said.

"I've been seeing just the four walls for 10 weeks," her husband Peter said.

Their two children, Maisy, 7, and George, 10, were just back in school in Canberra but were looking forward to seeing their friends on the South Coast.

"We would have done the big Easter camping trip but that was off because of the fires," Mr Milne-Freyne said.

He said he was going to swim but his children weren't so sure.

Braidwood was buzzing with trade as Canberrans took the usual pit-stop.

"It started last weekend," James Gunderson said as he handed out coffees through the window from his Coffee 134 business.

He said he hadn't been hit as badly as some by the lock-down because he had stayed open and a steady trade of tradies and other workers had continued to stop during the week for their morning dose of caffeine.

"The weekends have been quiet but now they are picking up. A lot of Canberrans have houses on the coast," he said.

He thought the winter would be busier than usual because the snow resorts were opening later and might be more restricted than the beaches.

"Wednesday felt like the first normal day for a couple of months," he said.