He said two weeks stuck inside isn't anyone's idea of fun, but is manageable if that's what it takes to stop coronavirus transmission.

When he flies back into London this weekend, he'll have to do nothing of the sort - Australia is on a list of "low risk" countries whose arrivals are not required to quarantine there.

With son Jake, 17, he interrupted a two-year stint in the Old Blighty to fly home for a month, and were welcomed on June 19 by police and ADF members directing them to their new home - the Meriton suites on Pitt St in Sydney.

"We all queued up, had our temperature checked, spoke to a doctor ... before we got to immigration," Mr Adams said. "We were taken outside and allocated our accommodation. The bus had a police escort, I think it was AFP, into the suites.

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"Once you're in, you can't leave. We were pretty much told you can open the door when they knock on it to drop off food, but otherwise you just couldn't go out. There was a security guard stationed on every floor near the lift."

It would be two weeks before the duo - both volunteer surf lifesavers - could taste the waters of Scarborough Beach. Instead, exercise consisted of walking around in circles.

"I'd put some music in my headphones and walk around the loungeroom. It wasn't very big, about 5m. I'd walk for half and hour, and hour, just moving around. I had some good music, it was alright."

Luckily, as Jake was under 18, they had "family accommodation" - a two-bedroom apartment.

"We had a balcony so we could get some fresh air, which was alright, and you could just see Hyde Park in the distance."

Mr Adams, a civil servant, kept busy by working remotely - to UK time, through the night. He was mostly pleased Australia was handling the COVID challenge so much better than in the UK, where deaths are pushing 50,000.

"The service was great. We had a call from a nurse every day, to ask if we had any symptoms, how we were feeling. I imagine it would be quite hard being in there on your own, but we were lucky we were together.

"We had time to sit and talk, and watch the news. We had the telly, and I brought a lot of books to read. Because we had the headspace that we knew we were going to be doing it, it allowed us to prepare."

He described the food as "slightly better than plane food", but quarantiners were also able to order food or groceries in.

And once out? To Mrs Macquarie's Chair for some harbour photos, then straight to Scarborough Beach to dice into the ocean.

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