Travellers complete NT’s first 14-day mandatory quarantine

TEARS of relief were shed as Australia’s first group of international arrivals to be forced into mandatory quarantine were released

TEARS of relief were shed as Australia’s first group of international arrivals to be forced into mandatory quarantine were released.

Today the 16 passengers who were aboard TL513 from Dili completed their 14-day quarantine and were freed to walk in the fresh air, sunshine and go back to semi-normal lives.

On March 27 Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced all passengers who arrive in Australia after midnight the next day would go into mandatory quarantine in hotels for a fortnight, however the Northern Territory government implemented the regulation a day early.

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At President Nicolau Lobato International Airport in Dili, educators Cheryl Stephens and Leo Baker were dumbfounded to hear they would need to go into forced isolation in Darwin.

“We were coming from a country where there was one case that had been isolated and we arrive here and we were having our food delivered, we were having our linen delivered,” Ms Stephens said.

“We are fully supportive of isolation but I just question the fact that we were put in isolation well before … I wonder, was it lawful.”

Leo Baker and Cheryl Stephens have completed their fourteen days in quarantine in Darwin. Picture: Che Chorley

Ms Stephens is the secondary school principal of the Dili International School, and Mr Baker the deputy principal.

They spent their two weeks preparing online lessons and teaching their students in Dili.

Ms Stephens cried at the thought of being so far from her students.

“It was a very difficult decision to make (to leave),” she said. “We feel like internally displaced people.”

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The couple will spend the next three weeks in Darwin before attempting to make their way home to Adelaide.

Michael Cutajar had been in Dili for two months doing volunteer work, building dormitories for a boy’s school when the national quarantine regulations were announced.

He took the last scheduled flight out of Dili and was shocked to be put in quarantine.

“My heart dropped like a stone at first but I soon got used to it,” he said.

Michael Cutajar completed his 14-day mandatory quarantine on Saturday. He was one of the first Australians to be put in mandatory hotel quarantine. Picture: RAPHAELLA SAROUKOS

“When it got halfway it was a big relief. It was all downhill after that. time went pretty quickly.”

Mr Cutajar planned to return to his hometown of Sydney, and when the coronavirus pandemic eased, hoped to continue his volunteer work in Dili.