Wellness is a new way to holiday

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Your wellness is our concern. Increasingly, that’s the refrain coming from Australian tourism operators – and not just the ones you might imagine. Wellness can cover anything from spa treatments to art workshops to didgeridoo-led meditations, sleep therapy and yoga.

Wellness might also mean a week at a health retreat, an intensive detoxification or a 3 day abseiling challenge. Whatever else it is, wellness is a new way to holiday.

Time-poor people are seeking more from their down time. Not just time off, but time spent in active pursuit of rejuvenation. Emerging from a holiday more relaxed, balanced, lighter, energised and happier is the objective. Wellness experiences can fast track this transformation.

At Peninsula Hot Springs in Victoria, it’s as gentle as bathing in hot, mineral-rich water piped from natural underground springs.

“I wanted to do something low impact and simple,” says owner Charles Davidson. “What could be better than bringing hot water up from underground and having people sit in it?”

Inspired by onsens in Japan, Davidson added a “being at one with nature” component to the venture he, his brother Richard and Norm Clealand, started on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula in 2005. Landscaped pools – both communal and private – are set amidst eucalypts teatree and birdsong for optimal relaxation. An adjoining day spa offers extra pampering.

Davidson’s empathy for multicultural influences has had an impact at Peninsula Hot Springs. By the end of 2010, the ever-evolving establishment will include an Arabic style steam room, a pebble-embedded reflexology walk, foot and hand baths, a dedicated wellness centre, a nursery for organic herbs and vegetables, and on-site accommodation from which one might hear the clucking of happy chooks. Getting out of bed never looked so appealing.

Wellness is a subtle but all-encompassing philosophy at Lifetime Private Retreats on South Australia’s Kangaroo Island.  A Solstice package at any of its three boutique properties is all about tailored relaxation. Nourishing food and fine wine, beautiful surroundings, yoga, creativity and freedom are on the agenda. It’s like having an invisible concierge. Whatever you want from your hard earned break – activity, solitude, exercise, board games, vintage car magazines – you get.

“We’re all about balance,” says Nick Hannaford, who runs the business with sister Rachel. “We ask people before they arrive what they want from their stay, and we try to deliver a personally tailored experience each time.”

A pre-visit questionnaire seeks details of favourite aromas, foods, music and pastimes. Responses are interpreted either literally or playfully for an individual touch. If you find a guitar in your room, an easel by the window, fresh baked biscuits in the oven and your favourite tunes on the stereo, don’t be surprised. 

And if you opt for a private yoga session in the morning, expect to find it altering. Like other touches here – a rustic beach taverna or ancient sprawling fig tree in which to eat lunch, an old shearing shed transformed by candlelight and exotic fabrics, a hot tub in which to view the astonishing night sky – it’s a gentle, honest encounter with a surprisingly profound kick.

Balance is the key at Gwinganna Lifestyle Retreat in Queensland. It’s a spa with a difference; a place that invites a longer stay with its picturesque hinterland location and heritage accommodation. Retreats here include organic food and tailored activities, including Qi Gong, pilates, yoga and walking. Regular seminars are an opportunity to glean wisdom from experts in the fields of nutrition, emotional wellbeing, fitness and organics. A dedicated sleep retreat has been held here to the relief of insomniacs.

Even conventional day spas are embracing wider influences, and none more than those on the Li’tya path. Li’tya is based on the ancient rituals and wisdom of Indigenous Australians. Products are made from native medicinal plants like quandong, macadamia nut and kelp. A smoking or smudging ceremony – to redirect energy – begins all treatments, which are designed to purify, nourish and bring harmony to the body. Some of Australia’s most prestigious spas are using Li’tya, including the new Pinctada resort in Broome, Floressence Day Spa in Canberra, Peninsula Hot Springs on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula and South Australia’s Southern Ocean Lodge.

St Kilda Spa Dreamtime in Victoria goes deeper, so to speak. As well as offering earthy indigenous techniques, its key focus is on the water.

An absolute waterfront locale on Melbourne’s St Kilda Beach helps. The sea water that forms part of the epic and deluxe Sea Voyage treatment doesn’t have far to come. Bathing in a tub of warmed salty water laced with a milk balm (also glinting with trace elements and precious stones) is all part of the journey. A salt exfoliation, massage with sea algae and a Chinese-style ocean wrap are stops along the way.

The final destination? The Day Dreaming room, where the glass doors open to the sea breeze and all that’s left to do is reflect on a mission accomplished: relaxed, revitalised, re-energised, glowing. All is well.

If the seaside has innate healing properties, Southern Ocean Lodge is in particularly good shape. Australia’s smartest lodge accommodation is propped cliff-side on the beach-fringed bottom edge of Kangaroo Island off South Australia. It oversees the passing parade of whales and dolphins in the cleanest imaginable water. There’s nothing between here and Antarctica. Just pure air.

Put the Southern Ocean Spa in the picture, and you have wellness nirvana. A round building whose deluxe treatment rooms divide it like wedges of glassy-edged pie, it works its magic before a finger is lifted in the name of rejuvenation. Magnificent views beyond the cliff edge beckon from every soft day lounge and foot-bathing station – even from the shower with its tinted glass wall. Double treatment rooms cater to couples who want to unwind in sync.

Treatments here are from the Li’tya school of thinking, encompassing both spiritual and physical ideals. Eucalyptus leaves and other scented native herbs are lit at the start of a treatment in a smudging ceremony. It’s said that the smoke works to direct energy in the appropriate way, right down to cellular level.

One of the four main tenets of Li’tya, based on the holistic Aboriginal tradition of spiritual, physical and social wellbeing, is at work here. Linj’ta – which translates as “now is the moment of your being” – is a call to be in the moment. It’s a good place to be. You want to be present for every second of the salt exfoliation (using salt harvested on the island), the honey and almond body paste, the dreamy massage, the hydro treatment or whichever delectation you’ve chosen from the menu.

As with many wellness pursuits – like stretching after exercise, or meditation in yoga – the end is worth savouring. Loafing about in a robe and slippers that feel like moon shoes is never better than when in a languid recovery room overlooking the ocean. Later, when the beanbags get dragged out from the lodge in the name of stargazing, it will be yet another moment to notch up to the power of now. 

The luxury boutique accommodation at Moondance Lodge comes with extra nourishment. There’s grape healing therapy, heart-centred meditation, the profound resonance of didgeridoo in a cave, a walking meditation labyrinth, and all the indulgent edibles.

“The experience here is integrated wellness,” says owner Geraldine Reilly, who prefers to think of the property near Western Australia’s Margaret River wine region as an energy-rich place for people to come and heal in whatever way they need.

“We’re not a health retreat and we’re not a spa,” says Reilly, who insists that wholesome nourishment need not be at the expense of beautiful food and premium wine.

Nevertheless, the wellness experiences on offer traverse both health retreat and spa terrain. You can get a Merlot massage or a Shiraz salt scrub, or a hot stone treatment on your private day bed. More spiritual concerns are catered for with guided meditation, yoga, walks through the fruit orchard or simply a great night’s sleep – many guests profess to have their best ever at Moondance.

Several indigenous experiences have been pioneered at the property, in conjunction with local custodians of the land. Reilly says they’re designed to help people connect to the ancestral wisdom of the earth. “They’re very grounding. They help people experience a sense of deep peace and balance.”

Among them is the didgeridoo meditation, conducted variously in the lodge or in a nearby cave before it’s open to the public. In conjunction with Dreamtime oral storytelling – also a profound part of the ‘Moodancing the Feminine’ retreat for women – it’s designed as a way of helping disconnected people to connect again.

Retreats (and their shorter version, called Zingers) are staged regularly for corporate and other groups. They each have a particular flavour, which may quite literally include gourmet bush tucker. Contrary to some suspicions about this being “bowls of things you don’t really want to eat,” says Reilly, the Moondance version is sublime.

“It’s all caught and prepared by Josh Whiteland, the local custodian. Fresh abalone, marron from our dam, kangaroo and fish. It’s fresh and delicious.” Add some wild bush ginger jam and a glass of Margaret River red, and the nourishment really kicks in.

Author: Megan Anderson on behalf of Tourism Australia. This article is copyright free and may be reproduced.