What a Howard Springs homecoming is really like
It’s a place burnt into the memory of returning travellers for a lifetime. And now it has become part of the Olympic story for our returning athletes.
Howard Springs, a place burnt into the memory of returning travellers for a lifetime. And now it has become part of the Olympic story for our returning athletes who stepped off the plane – not to crowds of adoring fans but to a remote quarantine facility 30km outside of Darwin.
For many Australians, trying to return home from overseas during the time of Covid-19 has been a logistical nightmare, culminating in a 14-day spell in hotel quarantine or at the former Northern Territory mining camp, which recently has been renamed the Centre for National Resilience.
Photographer Danielle Chloe, Lynar travelling from London with her young daughter, Luella, after living overseas for five years, spent two weeks living in a cabin fitted out with a single bed, bathroom, fridge, desk and balcony. Lynar documented her time there earlier this year as a way to pass the hours and preserve this moment in our history and her family’s story.
“I wouldn’t wish the quarantine experience on any parent or child. Doing it with a toddler was a blessing and a curse,” she says. “I didn’t get bored like many others. But it was also non-stop hard work keeping her entertained and stimulated in such small quarters.
“My sweet 2½-year-old daughter was unable to understand why we were stuck in the cabin. She just wanted to see her daddy and friends and run around with the other children there.
“The poor poppet also had to undergo three Covid tests. She would see the medical staff and start crying, saying: ‘No tests. No tests.’ I did catch her trying to stick a pencil up her nose, muttering to herself: ‘Very brave girl.’
Lynar’s husband left London earlier to visit his ailing father, enduring the two-week quarantine alone. Lynar says she was fortunate enough to score a seat on a repatriation flight. Quarantine meals, delivered once a day to minimise contact often they went straight in the bin in favour of fresh produce ordered from the local supermarket. “Avocados, cucumbers and hummus is basically what we lived on.”
But Lynar says the option of being at Howard Springs – a facility that can hold 850 returning travellers at a time – trumped playing roulette with the lottery of Sydney’s hotel quarantine scheme.
“I really liked the fact that we knew this was the room we were getting and that we were guaranteed a balcony,” she says. “The ability to leave our room, even if it was just for doing laundry at a specific time on a specific day, outweighed the cons of being in a hotel.”
And ultimately, she says, despite the “stress and loneliness”, the dominant emotion was one of relief to be back in Australia – something the Olympic team, arriving in the coming days, no doubt will share after 16 days of intense Covid restrictions in Tokyo.
Although the 115 team members who have arrived this week – including rowers, the women’s rugby team, BMX riders and the champion swimmers who have delighted the nation with their feats on the world stage – have been warned not to mingle with others at the facility, including their own teammates, for them life in quarantine looks a little different.
An activity program has been set up to keep athletes occupied, including virtual live music performances, online trivia nights and programs offering financial advice and how to improve social media skills – which the likes of Emily Seebohm appear to have started putting into practice.
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