ultratravelYOUR GUIDE TO HEAVEN ON EARTH SEPTEMBER 2013

The Daily Telegraph

CLASSIC&CONTEMPORARYAUSTRALIA

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CONTENTS

Features8 Island escapes With 8,222 to choose from, where should visitors to Australia head?

10 Double take We pick four classic Australian experiences, from Uluru to the Great

Barrier Reef, and pair each with a lesser-known alternative. How do they compare?

14 An Antipodean feast On a gourmet tour of Australia, Graham Boynton meets

the producers, winemakers and chefs who are beating the Old World at its own game

27 Mr&Mrs Smith Down Under James Lohan and Tamara Heber-Percy, founders

of the acclaimed boutique-hotel guide, pick their top 10 stays in New South Wales

30 Not so wild From retro hotels and swish outback camps to a luxury catamaran

cruise, Western Australia has much to offer the well-heeled traveller, says Lydia Bell

33 Home from home Mark Chipperfield, who recently moved to live in Adelaide,

celebrates the city’s charms and the relaxed, outdoor lifestyle of South Australia

36 Let’s go walkabout Yolanda Carslaw hikes up Mount Gower on

Lord Howe Island; plus four great walks elsewhere on the continent

Regulars7 Ultra gems The world’s top fine-jewellery houses can’t get

enough of the opal, Australia’s mysterious national gemstone

38 Ultra intelligence Australia’s best design and furniture; great

places to stay on the Mornington Peninsula; a bar in a barber shop;

and a season of inspirational outdoor music, from Uluru to Sydney

42 Travelling life The fashion designer Collette Dinnigan picks her

favourite hotels, restaurants and destinations in Australia and beyond

33

Eco chamber Sangoma Retreat

in the Blue Mountains, New

South Wales (page 27)

14

38

33

42

COVER PHOTOGRAPH NICK LEARY @ A&R

Model: Donna McPhail at Union Models

Shot on location at Sydney Harbour

To glide. To stride. To breeze through Heathrow Terminal 5.

To Fly. To Serve.Thanks to our team at Heathrow,

customers pass effortlessly through

Terminal 5 on their way to Australia.

Every day.

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ULTRA jewels TBOGH ART

Butterfly brooch in yellow

diamonds, briolette-shaped

emerald and Australian

opals. Price on request

from Bogh-Art (020

7495 0885, bogh-art.com).

Brilliant Victoire de Castellane, left, Dior’s fine-jewellery designer, loves opals for their “special fiery lights, their

changing reflections and their wicked reputation”. Right: Coober Pedy in South Australia, land of the white opal

YOU LITTLE BEAUTY WHERE TO FIND OPALS IN THE OUTBACK

BLACK OPALS NEW SOUTH WALES: LIGHTNING RIDGE Dark body tones mean colours stand out even more brilliantly in these, the rarest and most highly prized opals.

WHITE OPALS SOUTH AUSTRALIA: ANDAMOOKA, MINTABIE, COOBER PEDY, LAMBINA Ranging from milky white to cloudy pink and blue, these are plentiful but less highly prized.

BOULDER OPALS QUEENSLAND: QUILPIE, OPALTON, WINTON Mined from boulders, these can be any colour of the spectrum with a natural layer of brown ironstone on the underside.

CRYSTAL OPALS SOUTH AUSTRALIA: WHITE CLIFFS If you can see through the stone, even if it is black, it is a “crystal” opal. The transparency results in dazzling colours.

WVAN CLEEF&ARPELS

Zodiac Scorpio clip in white gold, diamonds,

sapphires and spinels and Australian black

opal. Price on request from Van Cleef&Arpels

(020 7493 0400, vancleef-arpels.com).

ALA

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When bestowing the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth with a gift on her first

visit to Australia in 1954, a magnificent opal was the obvious choice. It was,

after all, the country’s national gemstone (95 per cent of the world’s opals

come from Australia) and there was no better example than the

Andamooka Opal, or the “Queen’s Opal” as it is known. This fiery, 203-carat beauty is one

of the largest ever mined and is now part of the Royal Collection. Throughout history, the

mysterious appearance of opals, which come alive with colour as light dances through

them, has attracted superstition as well as admiration. Gem buyers from fine-jewellery

maisons including Dior, Van Cleef &Arpels and Chaumet have now fallen under their spell.

Fine-jewellery houses are increasingly beguiled by the myriad, shimmering

colours of opals, Australia’s national gemstone, says Caragh McKay

TCHAUMET

Parure No5 ring in platinum,

diamonds and Australian

opal weighing 5.95 carats.

Price on request from

Chaumet (020 7495 6303,

chaumet.com).

WDIOR

Méduse brooch in white

gold, sapphires, black opal,

tourmalines and doublet

opal. Price on request,

from Dior Joaillerie (020

7172 0172, dior.com).

WFARAONE MENNELLA

Butterfly earrings in white

gold and diamonds and

Australian opal. Price on

request from Faraone

Mennella (020 7235 1183,

faraonemennella.com).

TLOUIS VUITTON

Voyage dans le Temps ring in white

gold, diamonds and Australian opal.

Price on request from Louis Vuitton

(020 7399 4050, louisvuitton.co.uk).

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3 KANGAROO ISLAND

Just 30 minutes by air from Adelaide, Kangaroo

Island (or “KI”) is jaw-droppingly beautiful – a mix

of farmland, forest and pristine coastline. There

are sea lions, possums, koalas, wallabies and, of

course, kangaroos by the score. Feast on seafood,

artisan cheese and cool-climate wine. For a dash

of glamour, book into Southern Ocean Lodge

(0061 2 9918 4355, southernoceanlodge.com.au).

1 ROTTNEST ISLAND

Famous for its quokkas – small, wallaby-like

marsupials – this is where Perth comes to chill;

there is a regular ferry service from Fremantle.

Outside school holidays in particular, Rottnest

is idyllic, offering sparkling blue ocean, coves

for swimming and miles of safe cycling. With

its spa, Italian restaurant and upmarket

suites, Rottnest Lodge (0061 8 9292 5161,

rottnestlodge.com.au) is the perfect getaway.

For flights to Australia, book at ba.com.

For more information, see australia.com.

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ETTY

4 PHILLIP ISLAND

Cute little penguins are the lifeblood of Phillip Island. The daily penguin parade

is world-famous, but the island (an easy drive from Melbourne, and connected

to the mainland by a bridge) is also home to seals, koalas and migratory

birds. Long popular with families, Phillip Island is going upmarket with fine

dining, great wineries and smart accommodation, such as the 170-room

Silverwater Resort (0061 3 5671 9300, silverwaterresort.com.au) in San Remo.

AUSTRALIA’SSEVENDROPS INTHE OCEANThis vast continent has no fewer than 8,222 islands. Where should the cash-rich

but time-poor head? To make the choice easier, we select seven of the best

1

2 TIWI ISLANDS

Once off-limits to non-Aborigines,

the Tiwi Islands now make

a popular day trip from Darwin.

The two islands, Bathurst and

Melville, are famous for their arts

and crafts, pristine beaches, sport

fishing and love of Aussie Rules

football. Most visitors come on

an organised tour from Darwin,

but various fishing lodges offer

basic overnight accommodation.

2

4

5

7

2

3

6

MAP ILLUSTRATION

RUSSELL COBB

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6 MONTAGUE ISLAND

Whales, seals, dolphins and

penguins are just some of the

attractions on Montague Island.

Located less than six miles from

the south coast of New South

Wales, the island is teeming with

wildlife. There are half-day tours

from Narooma. But if you have

time, book the two-night eco

tour which includes a night in

the old lighthouse keeper’s

quarters (montagueisland.

com.au/accommodation.htm).

5 BEDARRA ISLAND

There are plenty of islands on the

Great Barrier Reef, but glamorous,

secluded Bedarra has always been

a cut above the rest. A short boat

trip from Mission Beach, on the

mainland, Bedarra fulfils every

tropical-island fantasy. Swim,

snorkel, kayak or just kick

back. For maximum indulgence,

book a private villa at the

refurbished Bedarra resort (0061

7 4068 8233, bedarra.com.au).

7 FLINDERS ISLAND

First charted in 1798, this rugged island

off the north-east tip of Tasmania has

a dark and treacherous past, but is

today a paradise for birdwatchers,

hikers and beachcombers. Sawyer

Bay Shacks (0061 4 1125 5179,

sawyersbayshacks.com.au) comprises

two well-equipped beachfront eco

cabins, with easy access to both the

town of Whitemark and the airport.

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1 COAST TO COAST ON A HARLEY

Tropical or temperate? That is one of the questions facing

anyone who wants to see wildlife in Australia, a continent which

contains a dazzling range of landscapes, from the torpid swamps

of Kakadu to the temperate rainforest of the Otway Ranges. For

most visitors, a trip to Kakadu National Park seems almost

mandatory. Where else will you see rock art dating back 20,000

years, 280 species of bird, eight kinds of kangaroo, bandicoots

and saltwater crocodiles all in one place? So popular is it, Kakadu

has a well-developed tourist infrastructure, with safari-style

camps such as Bamurru Plains (bamurruplains.com), billabong

cruises, helicopter flights and a plethora of wildlife tours.

By comparison, a three- or four-day journey along the Great

Ocean Road, which runs along the southern coast of Victoria,

may seem a little tame. But, while you are not going to see

large animals, the sea-ravaged coast and lush hinterland has

much to offer – including forests inhabited by such endemic

creatures as tiger quolls, echidnas, wallabies and koalas, and

quaint fishing settlements in which to enjoy cool-climate

wines and ocean-fresh seafood. Leave the car behind and tackle

the Great Ocean Walk, alone or with a local hiker from the

respected Bothfeet guiding operation (bothfeet.com.au). With

a little bit of luck, you might even spot an elusive platypus.

WILDLIFE

Kakadu vs Great Ocean Road

Take your pick Johanna Beach (main picture), part of

the Great Ocean Walk in Victoria. Below: a red-collared

lorikeet feeding on swamp bloodwood in Kakadu

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For every iconic destination, there’s a lesser-known part of the country

offering experiences every bit as rich. Here we select four of the best

CLASSIC versusALTERNATIVE

AUSTRALIA

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Few places on Earth can hope to

match the sheer pulling power of the

Great Barrier Reef. Comprising some

2,800 individual coral reefs, islands and

sand cays over 160 miles, it is an

aquatic playground without peer.

Or is it? Leap to the other side of the

Australian continent and you will

discover Ningaloo Marine Park (see

page 30), a vast area of fringing coral

with everything you will find on the

Barrier Reef. Ningaloo may lack the

luxury resorts of Queensland, the

superyachts and the tropical

ambience, but it has one unassailable

drawcard: the annual arrival of its

whale sharks (March to July). This is

one of the few places where you can

swim with these placid monsters.

Recently included on Unesco’s World

Heritage List, Ningaloo is an area of

astonishing biodiversity, supporting

turtles, whales, reef sharks, manta

rays, dugongs and more than 500

species of fish, plus hundreds of

varieties of coral. And, unlike the Great

Barrier Reef, many of Ningaloo’s best

dive sites are less than 300ft from the

shore; all you need is a mask, fins and

snorkel. On the downside, Ningaloo

lacks the established infrastructure

of its Queensland rival: flights are

more expensive and there are fewer

accommodation options (hotels in

Exmouth and Coral Bay, stopping-off

points for Ningaloo, can’t match those

of Port Douglas or Hamilton Island). If

you value solitude and the harsh

desert beauty of Western Australia,

you will fall in love with Ningaloo’s

raffish lifestyle. But anyone looking for

epic dive sites, the glamour of the

Whitsundays and pampering in a

resort should opt for the Barrier Reef.

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The Melbourne Cup, Australia’s wealthiest and most prestigious

horserace, is still the iconic sporting event Down Under: a national

celebration that has grown into a global phenomenon. Known as

“the race that stops the nation”, it attracts dedicated punters,

fashionistas, party-goers and celebrities to Flemington Racecourse to

watch the world’s best horses and trainers in the richest two-mile

handicap on the planet. Celebrations are not confined to the

racetrack, however; with its fashion parades, street parties

and gala dinners, the spring event (this year taking place on

Tuesday November 5) is when Melbourne really shines.

But it is not the only event on which sports-lovers are placing

their bets. According to its adherents, Australian Rules Football (afl.

com.au), a fast-paced aerial contest played by huge men in tight

shorts, is destined to conquer the world. Given that AFL ambassadors

have been dispatched to China to plant the seed there, who knows?

Although played in most parts of Australia (and even New

Zealand), the game’s spiritual home is Melbourne, which is why the

AFL Grand Final is such an important sporting event – a gathering of

the clans, no less. The annual match (this year taking place today,

September 28, but sometimes in early October) dates back to 1897

and is staged at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in front of 100,000

raucous fans. Whether the sartorial elegance of the spectators will

match the standard at the Melbourne Cup is debatable, but the roar

of the crowds will be on a par – particularly if a local team is playing.

SPORT

Melbourne Cup vs Aussie Rules

REEF Great Barrier vs Ningaloo

CLASSIC versusALTERNATIVEAUSTRALIA

High jinks Aerial

contest at the 2012

AFL Grand Final; a track

gallop between races at

the Melbourne Cup; and

racecourse millinery

Reefish charm A turtle encounter

on Ningaloo Reef; and a sandbank in

the Whitsunday Islands, Queensland

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Australia rocks Climbers

in Karijini National Park

(above); and a camel

ride near Uluru

It is no accident that Uluru (Ayers Rock) and the Sydney Opera

House are Australia’s most frequently used tourism images.

The Rock evokes the ancient Dreamtime spirit of the land, while

the opera house projects a message of urban sophistication

and modernity. While both exude a certain rock-star appeal,

Uluru seems to tap into something deep in the human psyche.

Its combination of sheer size, an extreme desert location and

its place in Aboriginal myth make Uluru irresistible. The Rock is

also blessed with direct flights from Sydney and Melbourne,

some pretty swish digs, such as Longitude 131 (longitude131.

com.au) and excursions ranging from camel rides to helicopter

flights, bush-tucker trails and formal dinners under the stars.

Located in the remote north-west of Western Australia,

Karijini National Park offers a similar taste of the outback – but

without the constant presence of tour buses and campervans.

This is the ideal place if you crave wilderness and solitude.

Carved from the harsh, arid landscape, the park has plenty of

rugged gorges, waterfalls and swimming holes, and is perfect if

you like hiking, photography and seeing some of the continent’s

shyest creatures, from rock wallabies to bats. The national park

(870 miles north of Perth) is also rich in native flowers. While

most visitors still camp out, the African-style Karijini Eco

Retreat (karijiniecoretreat.com.au) offers safari tents with

creature comforts, as well as such activities as rock climbing,

hiking, abseiling and rafting. For flights to Australia, book

at ba.com. For more information, see australia.com.

OUTBACK Uluru vs Karijini

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On a month-long gourmet tour of Australia,

from Melbourne and the Mornington

Peninsula to Mudgee and Margaret River,

Graham Boynton samples food and wine

as elegant, mature and sophisticated as

any in the Old World. Here, he charts

the progress of a country that is

beating the French at their own game e

Coast to coast

Turning theTABLES

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Top marques Mark Best (left) of Marque in

Sydney, Gourmet Traveller’s Restaurant of the

Year in 2012. Above: his Coffin Bay oyster.

Below: a vine in the Barossa Valley. Far left:

al fresco dining at Cullen Estate, Margaret River

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orget all the clichés about Australia’s

cuisine being centered around tossing

a couple of shrimps on the barbie, and its

wines best for laying down and avoiding.

These days, Australia is a land of organic

cultivation, elegantly balanced wines

and award-winning international haute

cuisine. Thus, in the 21st century, a tour

of Australia’s food and wine regions – the

Mornington Peninsula, the Barossa Valley,

the Adelaide Hills and Margaret River,

to name a few – is a journey through

a country that has long emerged from

beneath the petticoats of Empire and is expressing itself

as a stand-out, global gastronomic centre.

As the celebrated Sydney chef Mark Best told me as we

sat in the cool confines of his award-winning restaurant,

Marque: “Finally, Australia is sure of itself and of its place

in the world. It’s a combination of no longer measuring

ourselves against the Old World and also recognising

that, geographically, Australia is part of Asia.”

For a month I travelled through the country from New

South Wales to Victoria and South Australia and finally

across to Western Australia, a 4,200-mile odyssey that

took in all manner of vineyards, farmers’ markets, country

restaurants, “three hat” haute-cuisine establishments,

gourmet food vans, urban gastropubs and rural organic

pubs. In the end I realised that, as vast as Australia is

geographically, so it is gastronomically and viticulturally.

NEW SOUTH WALES

I began this Antipodean blow-out by meeting Mark Best and

having dinner at his much-praised Surry Hills restaurant

Marque (marquerestaurant.com.au), Gourmet Traveller’s

Restaurant of the Year in 2012. Best has been named

Australia’s Chef of the Year many times, and for the past two

years Marque has been listed among the world’s top 100

restaurants. Unlike so many places in the El Bulli mould,

Marque serves real food rather than presenting a culinary

pantomime. So, although you get an 11-course degustation

menu, it is very much in the tradition of new French cuisine.

“I worked at L’Arpège under Alain Passard, my

inspiration is the French nouvelle school and my heroes are

people like Passard, Pierre Gagnaire and Frédy Girardet,”

Best explained – and his food reflects those influences. It

was worth crossing half the planet just to taste his smoked

eel with parmesan gnocchi and pumpkin, followed by the

striped trumpeter with green tomato, verjus, potato paper,

fish milk and roe. The degustation menu costs A$160/£90.

Sydney, not surprisingly, is replete with fine-dining

establishments including Neil Perry’s Rockpool Bar&Grill

and Peter Gilmore’s Quay, this year named among

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. However, Mark Best

recommends Golden Century (goldencentury.com.au) in

Sussex Street, a 600-seat Cantonese restaurant popular with

Sydney’s top chefs and costing only A$25-A$30 a head.

A rural alternative to bustling Sydney is Mudgee, a small

town a few hours’ drive, or a 45-minute hop by plane, across

the Blue Mountains. In the Wiradjuri Aboriginal dialect,

Mudgee means “nest in the hills”, appropriate because the

town is in the fertile Cudgegong Valley. In the 19th century,

it was sustained by the region’s gold-mining boom and

more latterly by coal mining. In recent years, the growth of

low-key rural tourism has given it a new lease of life.

Soporific and gently amiable, Mudgee is much like

the Hunter Valley was 25 years ago. Locals talk about its

“humble brilliance” as a wine-producing region in the

throes of a serious renaissance. There are 23 cellar doors

within four miles of the town centre, and some excellent

restaurants. I’d particularly recommend the Butcher

Shop Cafe at 49 Church Street for a huge, unhealthy full

Australian breakfast and a close-up of the locals gossiping,

and Sajo’s (sajos.com.au), formerly the town’s pharmacy,

for modern healthy Aussie cuisine in a stylish setting.

The Mudgee wine revolution is being led by Black

Tongue, a group of young winemakers who have thrown off

the area’s reputation for jammy, old-fashioned reds and are

making modern, balanced wines which, if my tastings are

anything to go by, are about to start winning awards.

Already Jacob Stein, the 28-year-old winemaker at the

‘Mark Best worked at L’Arpège under Alain Passard, his inspiration is the French nouvelle

school and one of his heroes is Pierre Gagnaire. His food

reflects that’

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WhitesROBERT STEIN RIESLING 2012

(A$30/£17.50) Prices quoted are cellar-door.

Region Mudgee, New South Wales.

The flagship wine of Jacob Stein,

named young winemaker of the year.

PIERRO CHARDONNAY 2011 (A$78)

Region Margaret River.

Mike Peterkin and his son Nick

produce one of the region’s, and the

country’s, most stylish chardonnays.

KOOYONG FAULTLINE

CHARDONNAY 2010 (A$60)

Region Mornington Peninsula.

Clean, fruit-driven wine from

Mornington’s largest producer.

LEEUWIN ART SERIES

CHARDONNAY 2010 (A$85)

Region Margaret River.

No apologies for offering a second

Margaret River chardonnay. It is

a regional speciality and one of the

highest scorers in the Australian

Wine Companion.

HAHNDORF HILL GRU GRUNER

VELTLINER 2012 (A$28)

Region Adelaide Hills.

Textbook Austrian varietal grown

under Australian sunshine.

RedsBEN GLAETZER

ANAPERENNA 2010 (A$155)

Region Barossa Valley.

The shiraz-cabernet blend is the

winemaker’s own favourite.

Big and beautiful.

LOWE ZINFANDEL 2009 (A$75)

Region Mudgee, New South Wales.

Big, balanced, high-alcohol (15 per

cent) red from one of Mudgee’s

family vineyards

MAIN RIDGE ESTATE HALF ACRE

PINOT NOIR 2010 (A$70)

Region Mornington Peninsula.

Probably the great find of this trip,

a perfect balance of New and Old

World winemaking.

CULLEN DIANA MADELINE

2011 (A$112)

Region Margaret River.

Biodynamic brilliance. Bordeaux-style

blend that will keep and improve for

years. The 2009 vintage was Australian

Wine Annual’s wine of the year

SONS OF EDEN ZEPHYRUS

SHIRAZ 2011 (A$32)

Region Barossa Valley.

Lively and perfectly balanced. One of

the Artisans of Barossa’s stylish

interpretations of a regional classic.

.THE LANE BLOCK 14 BASKET

PRESS SHIRAZ 2012 (A$40)

Region Adelaide Hills.

John Edwards’s big prize-winner and

an example of his “European-style

wines with sunshine in them”.

CHARLES MELTON GRAINS OF

PARADISE SHIRAZ 2010

Region Barossa Valley.

Traditional Barossa shiraz, perfectly

balanced. Will improve with cellaring.

family-owned Robert Stein Winery&Vineyard

(robertstein.com.au) has been named Young Australian

Winemaker of the Year 2012, and fellow Black Tongue

members including Liam Heslop at Lowe (lowewine.com.

au), Josh Clementson at Skimstone Wines (skimstone.

com.au) and Peter Logan at Logan Estate (loganwines.

com.au) are surely on the verge of similar accolades.

VICTORIA

Melbourne’s long tradition of European cuisine was

broken only relatively recently by the opening of Shannon

Bennett’s Vue de Monde (vuedemonde.com.au), offering

a wild Australian degustation menu. Relocated from

Normanby Chambers to the 55th floor of the Rialto

building in 2011, it provides panoramic views of the city

and surrounding ocean. Gastronomic flourishes include

scrambled emu eggs and truffles, wallaby steak, and

poached Pemberton marron (langoustine) with tarragon-

spiked emulsion and salt dust. On departure you are

handed a goodie bag of brioche and tea for the next day’s

breakfast. Bennett’s head chef, Cory Campbell, says

the menu is representative of contemporary Australian

cuisine, with marron and wagyu beef as “core courses”.

Expect to pay A$250 a head without wine and around

A$400 if you include something from the extensive cellar.

If you’re after more traditional Melbourne-Italian fare,

try Grossi Florentino (grossiflorentino.com) at 80 Bourke

Street or the marvellous Ombra (ombrabar.com.au),

next door, run by Guy Grossi’s son, Carlo, and modelled

on a northern Italian salumi (cured meat) bar. Food is

served on rustic wooden boards and the home-made

mortadella and the various salamis are outstanding.

The wine list, featuring a good selection from Italy, also

offers some excellent examples from Victoria.

But it is out on the Mornington Peninsula that the great

viticultural treats lie. There, a band of clever eccentrics

have shelved their main careers, thrown themselves

into single-vineyard, small-production winemaking and

turned out some of Australia’s most delicious pinot noirs

and chardonnays. One of these Peninsula pioneers is

Richard McIntyre, a surgeon-turned-winemaker who

prefers to discuss the joys of whole-bunch fermentation

to the internal organs of human beings. With the help of

his daughter Kate, a Master of Wine, he makes not only

the Moorooduc range (moorooducestate.com.au) but

also the highly regarded Ten Minutes by Tractor wines

with grapes from a neighbouring estate. As we taste the

2011 Moorooduc Robinson Vineyard pinot, Dr McIntyre

declares it the best wine he has made at the estate.

Not far down the road is another career convert, Nat

White, a civil engineer who first tasted pinot and

chardonnay in Burgundy in the 1960s and liked them so

much he thought he’d try to make some. He bought

Main Ridge Estate (mre.com.au) in the 1970s, took a wine

science course by correspondence and now makes about

1,000 cases a year. Their rarity, and the quiet charm of Nat

White himself, are reason enough to visit the place, but

the clincher is that it serves wonderful Sunday lunches

accompanied by some of the estate’s rarer, older wines.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

The state’s principal food and wine areas outside Adelaide

are the Barossa Valley (an hour’s drive away) and the

Adelaide Hills (half an hour’s drive). Both are awash with

big Australian characters. Maggie Beer, the former host of

the long-running television series The Cook and the Chef,

is one of them, whirling like a dervish among the diners,

drinkers and shoppers at her eponymous Farm Shop

(maggiebeer.com.au) in the Barossa. A pioneer of fresh,

authentic regional produce, she opened the shop in

the late 1990s and now serves picnic fare all day from

10.30am, so you can sit at the wooden tables on the deck,

drink some local wine and contemplate the rural idyll.

As I looked out on 50 acres of olive groves, vineyards

and orchards, Maggie pulled out a copy of Barossa Living,

the local glossy lifestyle magazine. The cover featured

a moody monochrome portrait of Peter Lehmann, the

“Baron of Barossa”, who had died the previous week.

“What a great loss,” she said. “Without Peter, none of us

would be here.” The original larger-than-life, swearing,

A CASE OF THE BEST

On his coast-to-coast tour, Graham Boynton

selects 12 bottles from Australia’s top cellars

Degustation (left to right) Maggie Beer’s

Farm Shop, on a lakeside in the Barossa;

sampling wine at Cullen Estate; the tasting

bar at The Lane. Bottom: prawn, nettle,

young garlic, smoked barramundi and

lettuce at Vue de Monde, Melbourne

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drinking, chain-smoking Barossan, Lehmann not only

saved the grape-growing industry but also transformed

this region from a mass-producer of table wine into one

of the New World’s most successful wine regions.

The Barossa’s wine trails are sophisticated, varied

and well organised, with cellar-door tasting rooms and

excellent farm restaurants. At Charles Melton Estate

(charlesmeltonwines.com.au), I had lunch on the small

terrace overlooking the vines (the gourmet lamb pie with

shiraz sauce is outstanding) and stayed overnight at the

estate’s 19th-century Lutheran church, transformed into

a rather charming two-bedroom guesthouse.

On the outskirts of nearby Tanunda, the Artisans of

Barossa (artisansofbarossa.com) – a collective similar to

Mudgee’s Black Tongue group – have also set up a cellar

door and restaurant with a view of the Barossa vineyards.

The chef-in-residence is Mark McNamara, formerly

of the Louise, a smart country retreat in the Barossa,

which means the food is excellent. His Sunday long-table

lunch – five courses and a selection of the Artisans’ wines

for A$95 per person – comes highly recommended.

But wine is the real draw of the Barossa, a region on

the way up. Several of its small-production, multi-varietal

wineries have achieved five-star status in the 2013 edition

of James Halliday Australian Wine Companion. Among

them are Peter Schell’s Spinifex label (spinifexwines.

com.au), Jaysen Collins’s Massena (massena.com.au),

and Sons of Eden (sonsofeden.com), whose principal

winemaker, Corey Ryan, has worked at Henschke and

Penfolds and is a veteran of 20 vintages.

My next stop in the Barossa was Glaetzer (glaetzer.

com), run by Ben Glaetzer, whom I had last visited six

years ago. Back then, he had just been declared Australia’s

Young Winemaker of the Year, so I was curious to know

what he made of the current generation of young bucks,

Black Tongue and the Artisans of Barossa. “I’m only 35

myself,” he said, “and some of these ‘young tyros’ are the

same age as me and quite a few are older.” That settled,

we proceeded to taste Ben’s signature wines – Amon-Ra

shiraz and Anaperenna cabernet-shiraz blends – and his

impressive entry-level Heartland wines. These are the big,

bold Barossa reds of yore, but perfectly balanced and with

a less heavy-handed use of oak. There is no attempt to

recreate the wines of France in the southern hemisphere,

an indication of Australia’s impressive self-confidence.

On my final day in South Australia, I had lunch in the

Adelaide Hills with John Edwards, creator of The Lane

Vineyard (thelane.com.au) and its excellent bistro. A bear

of a man, he said he was making “European-style wines

with sunshine in them” – and although he claimed not

to be interested in wine competitions, he was clearly

delighted that his 2012 Block 14 shiraz had just won The

Lane its first major prize. The restaurant and tasting bar

look down on the vineyards and the food is as fresh,

local and delicious as I had come to expect of Australia’s

winelands. After an Antipodean feast of cured ocean trout,

nashi pear (what we call Asian pear) and sea parsley,

followed by masterstock braised pork belly, I left South

Australia with a heavy heart and a burgeoning waistline.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

The final leg of my month-long odyssey took me to

Margaret River, three-and-a-half hours south of Perth,

which produces more than 15 per cent of the country’s

fine wines. Over the past decade, it has grown as a tourist

destination, thanks mainly to the refurbishment of the

Perth-Bunbury Highway, which has shortened the drive

by 40 minutes and made the journey so much easier.

Bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west and ancient

forests to the east, Margaret River is a laid-back gourmet

enclave with more than 60 cellar doors. Several wineries

have restaurants serving lunch, while fine-dining options

include Cape Lodge (capelodge.com.au), where chef Tony

Howell offers an impressive tasting menu (Esperance

scallops, Exmouth prawns, Gracetown dhufish, quail) with

wine pairings for A$220, dinner, bed and breakfast.

The first vine planting in Margaret River was in the

1960s, when three doctors – Tom Cullity of Vasse Felix,

Bill Pannell of Moss Wood and Kevin Cullen of Cullen

Wines – decided to test the theory that the region could

produce high-quality wines. As they subsequently proved,

the climate and soil are ideal for growing cabernet

sauvignon and chardonnay. In fact, compared with

Bordeaux, Margaret River has 25 per cent fewer days when

temperatures rise above 30C but enjoys more sunshine

hours during the growing season – viticulture perfection.

My first stop is the Cullen Estate (cullenwines.com.

au) where Vanya Cullen, the daughter of one of the

founding doctors, is making some of the best wines

in the region. She was the first woman to be named

Australian Winemaker of the Year in 2000 and was

“Green Personality of the Year” in 2011 for her work in

sustainability. Cullen is a certified biodynamic estate

which Vanya describes as “a winery with a biodynamic

garden”. This rather understates the case, for the food and

wines served in the restaurant are memorably good and

the jam, the pickle and the honey are exquisite. I have

never been a great consumer of honey, but this was so

good it was addictive. And the barramundi I had at lunch

at Cullen’s was the freshest and sweetest I have tasted.

Fifteen minutes south is another of the founding

wineries, Leeuwin Estate (leeuwinestate.com.au), but this

one was created not by a doctor but by a surfer. In the late

1960s, Denis Horgan came across the 120-acre property

while surfing the famous Margaret River waves and was

quietly raising his young family on his new farm when the

California winemaker Robert Mondavi offered to buy it.

Horgan thus became aware of its viticultural possibilities

and, with input from Mondavi, one of the region’s great

estates was born. Today, it produces classic cabernets and

chardonnays, the latter described by Wine Spectator as the

greatest white wine Australia has produced.

Today, Leeuwin is much more than a wine estate and

has become something of a cultural gathering place.

Since 1985 it has staged summer concerts in which

the performers have ranged from major European

philharmonic orchestras to Dame Kiri Te Kanawa,

Shirley Bassey, Roxy Music and Sting. It also now boasts

a substantial art gallery, born out of the Art Series labels

on its premium wines and now comprising more than 100

works created by significant Australian artists.

Leeuwin’s large, award-winning restaurant really is

a treat, overlooking the rolling lawns and karri trees and

serving up excellent contemporary Australian cuisine

(try the freshwater Blue Ridge marron in a bisque with

crème fraiche). I’d particularly recommend the “Wine and

Food Flights” tastings, where a selection of the estate’s

premium wines are matched with various dishes.

By now I was ready to leave Australia. After one month

on the road, 4,200 miles travelled, 30 wine estates visited

and 40 restaurant and vineyard tables sampled, a serious

fast lay ahead. However, there was one temptation

remaining. As I was about to leave Margaret River, I was

persuaded that there was one more food hero I had to

meet – a young chocolate-maker by the name of Josh

Bahen. For a decade, he had been a winemaker at Moss

Wood but, on a trip to France, bit into a piece of chocolate

“that tasted like fresh fruit” and decided, with his wife

Jacq, to set up a small chocolate factory on the family

farm. Bahen&Co (bahenchocolate.com) was born.

Just as the wines I had been drinking and the fresh,

well-prepared food I had been eating represented the

new, confident, independent Australia, so on this

small Margaret River farm I discovered a dessert to

beat all desserts. Nothing I have tried from Marc

Demarquette, La Maison du Chocolat, Rococo or even

Pierre Hermé matches Josh Bahen’s post-prandial

delights. Vive the new Australia. Now for the gym.

Fly in to Sydney with British Airways and back from Perth

with its codeshare partners, with return fares from £899.

Book at ba.com. For more information, see australia.com.

‘After a feast of cured ocean trout, nashi pear and sea parsley, I left South Australia with

a heavy heart and a burgeoning waistline’

Modern Australian (clockwise, from

top) The restaurant at Cape Lodge;

Charles Melton at his winery in the

Barossa; a trout dish at The Lane

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AUTHENTICAUSTRALIAYour eight-page guide to holidays that combine the best of Melbourne, Victoria and the Northern Territory

In association withDistributed with

The Daily Telegraph

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In association with Victoria and the Northern Territory

Over the past 15 years, Melbourne has enjoyed

a phenomenal transformation from a businesslike

state capital into a city with a global reputation for great

shopping, food and entertainment. It is the national

powerhouse for the arts, fashion, sport, design and

gastronomy and is now widely regarded as a natural

stepping-off point for exploring other parts of Australia

– a direct flight to Alice Springs will land you in the

very heart of Australia in just two-and-a-half hours.

While stylish high-rise buildings such as the

Eureka Tower, Freshwater Place and Crown Towers

have transformed the city’s skyline, its bustling, creative

laneways more accurately reflect its quirky character.

Restaurants such as Attica, Vue de Monde, Jacques

Reymond, Flower Drum and MoVida are now attracting

international recognition, while the city’s distinctive

laneway bar and café scene is being mimicked by every

other Australian city.

Melbourne’s range of museums, art galleries,

contrasting architecture and grand 19th-century parks

is truly astonishing. With its eight separate galleries,

Melbourne Museum provides a stimulating overview of

Victoria’s natural history, Aboriginal culture, colonial past

and great moments in popular culture (including the

remains of champion racehorse Phar Lap). The Bunjilaka

Aboriginal Cultural Centre offers a brilliant introduction

to indigenous art and expression – and will prove

fascinating for anyone planning to visit the desert

communities of Central Australia.

With its wide, tree-lined boulevards, neoclassical

architecture and European-style trams, Melbourne has

always exuded a certain Victorian grandeur, but today

that sense of heritage is coupled with a new spirit of style,

enterprise, irreverence and fun.

Some of Australia’s most ravishing countryside is a

short drive away – and no Melbourne sojourn is complete

without a trip to Daylesford, Mornington Peninsula,

Phillip Island or along the Great Ocean Road, an epic

road trip that includes the famous 12 Apostles.

Victoria balances self-indulgent experiences such

as wine tasting in the Yarra Valley and chilling out in

Spa Country with a good portion of outdoor adventure.

Walking, riding, swimming with dolphins and seals and

kayaking are all popular. Hikers will enjoy the Great

Ocean Walk – a guided adventure through cool temperate

rainforest and along spectacular coastlines, providing

an opportunity to see native fauna such as koalas, seals

and wallabies in their natural habitat. Independent

walkers should base themselves at the award-winning

Great Ocean Ecolodge, a very special place where wild

kangaroos graze outside your bedroom window and

you can observe incredible birdlife and endangered

tiger quolls in the company of ecologists.

The Red Centre may seem like a long way from the

Great Ocean Road, but you could be swimming at

Torquay one day and riding a camel in the Outback

a few hours later after taking a direct flight from

Melbourne to Alice Springs.

Once a vital link for the overland telegraph that

connected Australia’s southern cities to the outside world,

A trip of incredible contrasts

For more information on holidays that combine Melbourne, Victoria and the Northern Territory,

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Alice Springs has always held a certain rugged glamour –

a taste of frontier life when huge camel trains crossed the

desert driven by Afghan handlers.

Alice Springs remains a crossroads settlement where

visitors rub shoulders with desert Aborigines. There are

old landmarks such as the colonial Telegraph Station,

but also funky cafés, souvenir shops and upmarket

galleries that sell Aboriginal paintings and handicrafts.

For a township of just 25,000 people, Alice offers

a surprisingly wide menu of attractions, including the

Alice Springs Reptile Centre, School of the Air, the

Royal Flying Doctor Service, the Olive Pink Botanic

Gardens and one of the world’s best desert golf courses.

Signature experiences such as hot-air ballooning

and champagne sunset flights by helicopter ensure

unforgettable memories.

If you prefer travelling on two feet, consider walking

one or more sections of the Larapinta Trail. Self-guided

walks and camping grounds are available but, given the

terrain and desert heat, only experienced walkers should

tackle this 139-mile trail without an expert guide.

For a more relaxed taste of the stunning West

MacDonnell Ranges, book a Mbantua campfire dinner

with local indigenous chef Bob Taylor, who owns

and operates RT Tours (rttoursaustralia.com/au).

This three-course meal is cooked in a bush oven or

barbecue and features Outback flavours.

Despite its isolation, Alice has always enjoyed a lively

dining, pub and hotel scene. One of the most established

restaurants is Hanuman at the DoubleTree by Hilton

Hotel Alice Springs, which specialises in Thai, Indian

and Nonya cuisine from Malaysia. The hotel itself is

a luxury eco-friendly resort with superb views of the

West MacDonnell Ranges.

Alice is the ideal hub from which to explore the nearby

ranges and surrounding desert. Those who want to

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go to visitmelbourne.com and australiasoutback.co.uk

begins in the dazzling city

venture further can follow the Red Centre Way, a four-

to five-day driving adventure from Alice Springs to Uluru

and Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) via Ormiston Gorge and

Kings Canyon. There is plenty of good resort and eco-

lodge-style accommodation en route and the roads are

well maintained – driving time between Alice and Uluru

is four-and-a-half hours and the entire journey can be

completed on the “black top”. Experienced off-roaders

may wish to hire a 4WD and explore the back roads but

you’ll need to be fully provisioned for the desert.

With their ancient, chiselled features, seductive

waterholes and mysterious gorges, the West MacDonnell

Ranges are growing in fame. But even their beauty cannot

hope to eclipse the sheer grandeur of Uluru (Ayers Rock),

which continues to be the major attraction in the

Red Centre in tandem with Kata Tjuta (The Olgas).

Whether your first glimpse of the Rock is from the air or

from the desert floor, no written description can hope to

come close to the visceral impact of seeing such a large

and yet beguiling natural formation, which is taller than

London’s Shard. Uluru and the surrounding land belong

to the Anangu people and strict protocols have been

introduced. While traditional owners discourage visitors

from climbing the Rock, it is still possible to do so.

Dating back 550 million years, Uluru and Kata Tjuta

are visible tips of a massive rock slab extending for more

than three miles below the Earth’s surface. The harsh

terrain supports a unique range of animals including

wallabies, kangaroos, bats, moles, reptiles and 178 bird

species and a rich array of trees, grasses and shrubs.

The first explorers who passed through here naturally

slept under canvas. Today, you can choose from a wide

range of accommodation options at the Ayers Rock

Resort, which comprises a number of distinct properties

from the exclusive Sails in the Desert to the family-

oriented Ayers Rock Campground. Discerning travellers

may choose Longitude 131, an eco-sensitive luxury lodge

where guests stay in tented suites with uninterrupted

views of the Rock and enjoy the finest service, a private

touring programme and gourmet food and wine.

Make sure that you spend at least one evening dining

out under the stars. Not only is this a magical time to be

in the desert but the resort has also perfected the art of

sophisticated Outback dining. Choose between the

popular Sounds of Silence dinner or the more intimate

Tali Wiru experience, which features a four-course dinner

with Louis Roederer champagne and canapes plus

Australian premium wines. In fact, these are just two of

13 dining experiences available at the Rock.

Sipping a chilled glass of white wine under the shadow

of the world’s most famous monolith might be a fitting

way to end your odyssey from Melbourne’s bustling

laneway to the glorious emptiness of Central Australia.

Savour the moment.

Perfectly matched: left, Melbourne; 12 Apostles, Great Ocean Road; right,a Kings Canyon waterfall;

Tali Wiru is an intimate dining experience overlooking Uluru

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Experiencing “authentic Australia” can often involve

more time than most of us can afford. But an itinerary

that takes in the unique cultural experiences of

Melbourne, driving the world-renowned Great Ocean

Road and a vineyard lunch in the Yarra Valley or on the

Mornington Peninsula comes pretty close.

Combine this with a hike through Kings Canyon,

dinner under the stars at Uluru, seeing some of the

planet’s oldest land formations, taking a journey into

the world of Aboriginal culture, exploring the

cosmopolitan city of Darwin and the unspoiled Top End

of the Northern Territory and you truly have the complete

Australia experience covered.

Early European visitors were astonished by a land

where trees shed their bark, animals carried their young

in pouches and the desert seemed to have no end.

The explorers Burke and Wills famously took a small

boat with them to central Australia, convinced they

would find an inland sea. It never sailed. Today, every

journey in Australia still seems like an adventure, an epic

worthy of Burke and Wills, Ludwig Leichhardt or the other

great 19th-century adventurers who braved the Outback.

In contrast to the sheer scale of the wilderness,

Melbourne’s once quiet style has given rise to a

modern metropolis — smart, chic, full of surprises

and thoroughly liveable.

The state of Victoria is also the most compact. Less

than an hour’s drive from the centre of Melbourne you

will find vineyards (Yarra Valley), parading penguins

(Phillip Island), gastronomic and coastal delights

(Mornington Peninsula) and one of the top 10 drives

in the world (the Great Ocean Road).

Travel to Victoria’s Spa Country around Daylesford

and you seem to enter a rural arcadia with lavender farms,

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In association with Victoria and the Northern Territory

great experiences orchards and eclectic towns. Venture further inland and

the country changes beyond recognition, culminating in

the Grampians, a rugged mountain range which attracts

mountain bikers, hikers and those wanting peace and

solitude surrounded by nature and Australian wildlife.

The Victorian coastline is equally dramatic. Names such

as Torquay, Apollo Bay and Lorne may sound familiar

and comforting but the Great Ocean Road contains

some jaw-dropping scenery, where the big rollers from

Bass Strait crash against wild beaches and high cliffs.

Victoria covers about the same area as the British Isles

and contains every imaginable type of landscape – from

snow-capped mountains to temperate rainforest, broad

acre farms, windswept beaches and rolling vineyards.

While Victoria does not offer anything approaching

the immense emptiness of central Australia, even

this relatively populous state still has huge tracts of

wilderness that have changed little since European

settlement. A new generation of traveller is beginning to

rediscover some of Victoria’s hidden gems, such as the

Great Otway National Park, which offers a rare chance

to see creatures such as koalas, wallabies, platypus and

kangaroos in their native habitat and is home to tall

forests, magnificent waterfalls and tranquil lakes.

Melburnians, Australia’s most urbanised people, have

an infectious taste for outdoor adventure. Places such as

the Mornington Peninsula, the Dandenongs and the

Otway Ranges are now popular weekend destinations.

For those who enjoy the water, Port Phillip Bay offers

scuba diving, swimming and yachting.

Victoria’s diverse coastline plays host to both blue and

southern right whales, fur seals, little penguins, dolphins

and other marine creatures; an example of how the

wilderness continues to assert its presence over the city.

Flying to Uluru will certainly add to the excitement level.

Hiking in the West MacDonnell Ranges, dining under the

stars at Uluru or driving across the Red Centre are not

everyday experiences.

Not even the most hardened traveller would downplay

the antiquity, scale and terrifying beauty of this place,

where visitors can marvel at the sheer cliff walls of

Kings Canyon which date back 440 million years, explore

the rock domes of Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) inhabited by

a snake king called Wanambi, or gaze in wonder at

a massive rock (Uluru) which is sacred to Aboriginal

people, including its traditional custodians the Anangu.

A trip to the Red Centre of Australia is more than just

a chance to see some of the oldest land formations on the

planet (and its clearest night skies). It’s also a journey

into the complex world of Aboriginal culture, with its

Songlines, creation stories and beautiful rock art.

Bridging the gulf between Melbourne and the vast

interior was the dream of the early European explorers.

Modern air travel now makes such a journey almost

routine – except that nothing quite prepares you for

that very first glimpse of the Rock, a giant pink monolith

rising 2,831ft from the desert floor.

Here, visitors can join a number of organised tours and

walks led by Anangu guides who will share some of their

Dreamtime stories and explain how traditional peoples

learned to harvest the flora and fauna and develop their

own complex system of bush medicine.

At Uluru there is a wide range of dining options

and high-end accommodation choices, including the

revitalised Sails in the Desert Hotel or the more secluded

Longitude 131, a collection of “tented” suites with

uninterrupted views of Uluru.

While The Rock naturally remains the centrepiece

of every journey to the Red Centre, travellers should

not ignore the claims of Alice Springs – a small, feisty

Outback town with oodles of personality. Once regarded

as little more than a refuelling station in the desert,

Alice is now becoming a springboard for all kinds of

adventure activities, including hiking on the Larapinta

Trail, collecting Aboriginal art or hot-air ballooning in

the nearby desert.

The Red Centre Way from Alice to Uluru offers an

exciting and yet perfectly safe driving route, taking in

other important landmarks such as Kings Canyon and

Kata Tjuta. Taking between three and five days to

complete, the loop trail is the perfect opportunity to

experience the desert first hand – along the way you’ll

find resort and eco-lodge-style accommodation, rock

pools for swimming and remote Aboriginal communities.

From Alice, you can add to the adventure by taking

an overnight journey on The Ghan, the train that follows

the old Afghan cameleers’ route all the way from

Adelaide in the south to Darwin at the Top End of the

Northern Territory. Relaxing in the historic train’s

premium platinum service suites makes the journey

even more compelling.

By now you should have no doubt that Victoria and

the Northern Territory are perfect complements for those

seeking a holiday that showcases exhilaratingly different

aspects of Australia. Where else could you absorb such

spirituality — in the ancient cultures and landscapes —

and such exuberance, in the colours of nature’s palette

and the diversity of flora and fauna? And still appreciate

all those magical holiday moments involving delectable

food, wine and luxurious retreats?

In Australia, you’ll discover, every great travel moment

is only the prelude to the next.

} For more information, go to visitmelbourne.com and

australiasoutback.co.uk

Diversify: begin your holiday in Melbourne, explore

Victoria’s vineyards and Great Ocean Road, then head

to the Outback and Darwin in the Northern Territory

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In association with Victoria and the Northern Territory

Lavishly endowed with wineries, wildlife, golf courses,

dazzling views, fine dining and accommodation, the

Yarra Valley and the Mornington Peninsula encompass

many of the highlights of any visit to Australia, both

within a one-hour drive of Melbourne.

In contrast, Darwin is the gateway to the Top End,

which stretches in a broad band across Australia’s

Northern Territory. This is a rich landscape ripe with

opportunity for anyone who travels in search of the

exotic. While some of its adventures come from the

Bear Grylls playbook, there are also plenty that come

with crisp linen, massages and a well-chilled chardonnay.

For British visitors, an itinerary that begins in

Melbourne and ends in Darwin not only provides

extraordinarily diverse and authentic Australian

experiences but also makes good sense, since

Darwin is the closest of any Australian gateway

city to Europe.

Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula

The flowing hills of the Yarra Valley produce some of

Australia’s finest cool-climate wines. This is also the

oldest wine-growing region in the state of Victoria and

the diversity of its terroir enables it to produce a range

of classic wine styles. About 40 of the valley’s wineries

are open for cellar-door tastings, guided wine tours and

many offer wonderful restaurants and places to stay.

Steeped in the precise green geometry of the vineyards,

Chateau Yering (chateauyering.com.au) is an exceptional

country-house hotel with spectacular views across the

Yarra Valley to the Great Dividing Range. Built in 1854,

its 32 suites preserve the opulent character of the original

homestead while offering a high level of contemporary

style. Surrounding the house are 240 acres of mature,

heritage-listed gardens bordering the Yarra River.

The hotel’s two restaurants serve fine local produce

and outstanding Yarra Valley wines.

One of the novel ways to see the Yarra Valley is from

the basket of a hot-air balloon. An hour before dawn,

fliers lift off from the lawns of Chateau Yering for a

one-hour flight, ending with a champagne breakfast

and sublime memories of sunrise over the vineyards.

Meanwhile, on the banks of the Yarra River, Yering

Gorge Cottages (yeringcottages.com.au) offer premium

self-contained accommodation ideally placed for

exploring the nature reserve and 120 acres of riverside

bushland, with frequent sightings of eastern grey

kangaroos, wombats, echidnas and even platypus.

Dangling down from Melbourne like a boot, the

Mornington Peninsula brackets the city’s Port Phillip Bay

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The stylish way to have a wild time

to the east. Its pleasures include outstanding golf

courses, a huge choice of wineries and cellar doors,

spas and mineral baths, water sports, coastal and

bush walks, wildlife encounters and a coastline

scalloped with sandy crescents. Its leisurely ways

have made it a favourite with Melburnians and the tip

of the peninsula boot is shod with stylish weekenders

and chic restaurants.

Only an hour’s drive from Melbourne, the Big Blue

Backyard (bigbluebackyard.com.au) is an award-winning

beach-and-bush hideaway designed to blend into the

natural environment. This secluded retreat is perfectly

positioned to access estates such as Port Phillip

(portphillipestate.com.au), an architectural landmark

offering exceptional food and wine, and Montalto

Vineyard and Olive Grove (montalto.com.au) which

boasts the Peninsula’s best restaurant.

Golf comes naturally in these pristine surroundings,

with some of the most prestigious courses in the

whole of Australasia. The Melbourne Sandbelt is

an association of eight elite clubs, including such

distinguished names as The Royal Melbourne Golf Club,

the Yarra Yarra, Kingston Heath and The Victoria Golf

Club. The Peninsula Country Golf Club and The Victoria

Golf Club offer accommodation as well as superlative

play (thesandbelt.com).

Fine outlook: above, early-morning view across the

Yarra Valley by hot-air balloon; top right, alfresco dining

by the Katherine River; crocodile in Kakadu National Park;

below, ancient rock art in Arnhem Land

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While Darwin is a staging post

for the Top End’s adventures,

plan a couple of days in town

to absorb the atmosphere of

this quirky, charismatic capital.

Every Thursday and Sunday

evening from late April to end-

October, Mindil Beach Sunset

Market dishes up a feast of

Asian flavours (mindil.com.au).

George Brown Darwin

Botanic Gardens offers100

acres of cycads, orchids, ferns,

bromeliads, boabs, bamboos,

rainforest species and

Aboriginal medicinal plants,

(parksandwildlife.nt.gov.au).

Skycity Darwin is the pick of

luxury accommodation,

combining a casino, several

restaurants and bars and

a day spa, in a beachside

location (skycitydarwin.com.au).

Adina Apartment Hotel

Darwin Waterfront offers plush

accommodation with shops,

restaurants, a boating lagoon

and rolling parklands on the

doorstep (adinahotels.com.au).

In the shopping department,

the city’s art galleries showcase

works from the Central Desert

and Arnhem Land regions.

Paspaley (paspaley.com)

harvests pearls from its

own farms off the Western

Australia coast, and its

Darwin showroom offers

pearls of the highest quality

in imaginative settings.

Another intriguing option is

di Croco (dicroco.com), which

sells a range of handbags,

wallets and other business and

travel accessories, all made

from farmed crocodile leather.

Darwin, Kakadu and Katherine

At Katherine, 187 miles south-east of Darwin, the

Katherine River has chiselled a succession of

13 chambers, each a mirror of blue sky hemmed in by

rearing sandstone walls. This eight-mile rock gorge is the

centrepiece of Nitmiluk National Park. Katherine-based

Gecko Canoeing & Trekking (geckocanoeing.com.au)

operates various guided tours of the national park, with

add-ons such as rock climbing, mountain biking and

four-wheel-drive tours.

A leap up the luxury ladder, Cicada Lodge is a window

on the wonders of Nitmiluk National Park, offering stylish

accommodation in the 18-room complex owned and

operated by local Jawoyn people, the traditional owners

of the national park (cicadalodge.com.au).

To the east of Darwin, Kakadu National Park is the

catchment area, floodplains and coastal wetlands of the

South Alligator River system. Water brings life to this

ancient land, carving palm-fringed creeks and deep

gorges from the rainforest, gurgling into mangrove

swamps and billabongs where crocodiles sprawl on

muddy banks. This was also one of the earliest parts

of the continent to be settled by Australia’s Aboriginal

people. Scattered throughout the park are habitation

sites and galleries of rock art dating back 50,000 years.

An outstanding example of the concept of “Wild Bush

Luxury”, Bamurru Plains sits on the wetlands of the

Mary River, a humidicrib environment for a complete

food chain, from insects to fish, frogs and birds.

The Mary River floodplains are said to have the

highest concentration of saltwater crocodiles in the

world and Bamurru Plains (bamurruplains.com) delivers

the Top End wildlife experience with style and serenity.

The camp consists of nine “safari suites” raised on

platforms, with verandahs from which to watch the birds

and grazing wildlife. Special touches include airboat

breakfasts, a 24-hour open bar, a chef who turns out

gourmet meals and guides who will remind you not

to trail your fingers over the side as your airboat skims

through this croc kingdom.

Another accommodation option on the Mary River

floodplains, Wildman Wilderness Lodge offers 10 guest

mini lodges inspired by the vernacular forms of

Australian bush architecture. Roofs are corrugated iron,

the timber cladding is rough and raw but the comfort

level is set to “maximum” with a chocolate, grey and

taupe colour scheme and a mostly white bathroom with

a floor-to-ceiling window that gives the fauna something

to ponder (wildmanwildernesslodge.com.au).

Sab Lord has been operating tours in Kakadu and

Arnhem Land for more than 20 years and his small-

group, personalised trips are ideal for anyone who wants

to make the most of this extraordinary region. The Top

End is an open-air bush food larder but it takes an expert

to tell the difference between a ripe bush passionfruit

and one that will give you a stomach ache, and to unravel

the mysteries of Aboriginal rock art. Sab also enjoys an

intimacy with the region’s Aboriginal people that few

others can match, with privileged access to some of their

best-kept secrets (lords-safaris.com).

Darwin is also the western base for expeditionary-style

cruising along the Kimberley coastline, an astonishing

wilderness of wild rivers, waterfalls and crystalline

beaches, often with a crocodile somewhere in the picture.

National Geographic Orion is a sturdy, spacious and

modern cruiser that brings a fair degree of style to the

business of expeditionary cruising with a health spa, gym,

Jacuzzi, theatre for informative presentations, outdoor

dining and marble-plated bathrooms throughout her

53 suites (expeditions.com).

Taking the adventure factor to the red line, True North

is the only vessel cruising the Kimberley coast that

piggybacks a helicopter on its top deck, whisking guests

away to rock art sites, fishing spots, swimming holes and

picnics at plunging waterfalls that would otherwise be

inaccessible (northstarcruises.com.au).

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The SMITHS DOWN UNDERJames Lohan and Tamara Heber-Percy, co-founders of Mr&Mrs Smith, have spent the past decade

visiting the world’s best boutique hotels. In Australia, they pick their top 10 within easy range of Sydney

New South Wales

1 Quirky and coolQT SYDNEY, Sydney

As soon as we walked into this 200-suite

hotel in the centre of town, we knew it wasn’t

a place for shrinking violets. For a start, the door

staff greet you in stockings, high heels, red wigs

and berets (not your average doorman’s outfit).

The building once housed the State Theatre and

Gowings department store, and the designers

have kept the Gothic and art deco spirits alive.

The food and drink are as inventive as the retro

interiors, from the coffee parlour (serving the

best banana and honey smoothies and freshly

roasted coffee) and the European brasserie to the

seriously sexy cocktail bar. Men will appreciate

the traditional barber. We appreciated the QT

Sydney Concierge app, giving an inside track on

the city that guidebooks can’t.

James’s tip: “Work your way up from negronis

at Parlour Lane Roasters, on the ground floor, to

vintage cocktails at Gilt Lounge. I’d recommend

the Smoked Applewood Bacon Old Fashioned,

an unlikely but delicious mix of bourbon,

creole bitters and chocolate-covered bacon.”

Tamara’s tip: “Book yourself into the quirkily

elegant SpaQ, and unwind in the steam and

ice room, inspired by a hammam, before

indulging in a Kerstin Florian facial.”

The details 49 Market Street, Sydney

(qtsydney.com.au; doubles from A$280/£160).

2 Urban glamour ESTABLISHMENT HOTEL, Sydney

We felt immediately at home at this super-luxe

hangout for Sydney’s movers and shakers,

kicking off at the Establishment Bar (pictured

above), with its 138ft-long pale marble counter,

then moving upstairs to Hemmesphere for

a cocktail. You can’t help but love the food

here, from breakfast in the verdant Gin Garden

courtyard and authentic Japanese dishes at

Sushi E, to modern Australian cuisine at the

fine diner, Est, and glam Cantonese at Mr

Wong. The hotel is incredibly comfortable, with

31 modern and spacious rooms, some dark

and vibrant, others lighter and more sedate.

The bathrooms suited us perfectly: I loved the

drenching rain shower; Tamara was wowed

New South Wales is the state that keeps on giving. We first went to Sydney

four years ago and were bowled over by its beauty, and the optimism and

innovative spirit of the people who live there. This year, when we returned

with our children, we were wowed all over again.

The city has always had plenty for visitors to enjoy and it had only got better

since our last visit. Bill Granger’s cafe in Darlinghurst, called Bills, and Neil Perry’s

contemporary Chinese restaurant, Spice Temple, were as good as we remembered

them. But there were lots of new discoveries, too: the garden-fresh food at Chiswick

in Woollahra; the southern French menu at Café Nice in Circular Quay; and Alpha

Restaurant in Castlereagh Street, a fantastic new Greek restaurant where the

moussaka comes with an Australian twist – scallops.

There were as many treats for our children as there were for us, both in the city –

Taronga Zoo, the Manly Ferry and the sandy beaches – and in the areas around it.

Nearby are the Blue Mountains, rich in myth, the vineyards of the Hunter Valley and

a coastline famous for its sun-bleached beaches. At Mr&Mrs Smith, we look for

hotels that balance style, service and personality without neglecting comfort, and on

our trip, every place we stayed was of a high standard, whether it was a romantic

retreat, a shoes-off beach hideaway or a decadent modern haven.

What did we do? At QT Sydney, one of the city’s hippest boutique hotels, we took

full advantage of the facilities, chilling out at the spa by day and drinking negronis in

the bar by night. When we felt like kicking off our shoes, we went glamping by the sea

in Jervis Bay or surfing in Byron Bay. We spied kangaroos in the Blue Mountains and

sipped wine (perhaps a little too much) among the vines of Mudgee.

Where will we stay when we go back? At these, our favourite boutique retreats.

Crazy mix The Gilt Lounge at the

QT Sydney, where one cocktail

features bourbon, creole bitters

and chocolate-covered bacon

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by the sleek freestanding tub and Bulgari products.

James: “Try the roasted duck, faux-shark’s fin soup,

abalone, and the best dim sum in Sydney at Mr Wong,

headed by chefs Dan Hong (from the Sydney hotspot

Ms G’s) and Eric Koh (from Hakkasan).”

Tamara: “Dress up, not down; this is a place for

sociable party people, such as Robbie Williams

and the Scissor Sisters.”

The details 5 Bridge Lane, Sydney

(merivale.com.au/accommodation/; doubles

from A$249/£143).

3 Rural relaxationSANGOMA RETREAT, Blue Mountains

The fun began the moment we met our South

African hosts, Michael (a former art consultant)

and Zenga (a make-up artist), together with their dog,

Pundah. They built this modern eco-retreat just

70 minutes’ drive from the city so Sydneysiders could

go walking and relax. Relaxing isn’t too hard in the

five safari-style contemporary rooms, all with bush

views; the split-level Chief’s Suite even has its own

plunge pool. The bush walks made us feel like

we were a million miles from the city, although

Zenga’s Ottolenghi-influenced seasonal food

was a world away from Australian country fare

(one of the highlights was the paella-esque dish

of prawns, chicken and meatballs in Moroccan

spices, accompanied by a salad of sprouts,

peas and bocconcini).

James: “Spend afternoons wallowing in the

infinity pool or spotting kingfishers from your deck.

Come nightfall, head to the cinema room to settle

down with some DVDs.”

Tamara: “Sangoma’s therapist is an expert in flowing

Hawaiian Ka Huna massages, which are incredibly

therapeutic. Chill out afterwards in your two-person

Philippe Starck bath.”

The details 70 Grandview Lane, Bowen Mountain

(sangomaretreat.com.au; doubles from A$483/£277).

4 Design amid the vinesDE RUSSIE SUITES MUDGEE, Mudgee

We loved this delightfully urban, dark and seductive

hideaway: an unexpected find in the up-and-coming

Mudgee wine region, about three-and-a-half hours’

drive from Sydney. More a b&b than a hotel, it is

housed in an 1862 Mechanics Institute building, with

13 apartments painted in sedate monochrome and

decorated with contemporary art and sophisticated

furnishings. Although a wonderful breakfast bag is

included in the rates (crunchy Whisk&Pin muesli,

fresh breads, Hank’s Jam and Bills Beans coffee), we

enjoyed exploring the local delis, farmers’ markets

and cafés before we hit the wine routes. There are

more than 40 cellars nearby; we recommend Logan,

Optimiste and Robert Oatley Vineyards. Leave time to

check out the historic gold-rush towns and national

parks further afield.

James: “We liked Junior Spa Suite 201 for its

seductive spa bath and balcony: a perfect spot to

sit with a morning coffee. For extra space, bag the

impressive Blue Room.”

Tamara: “The hotel was salvaged from an old

building; take a good look at photographs of its

restoration on the staircase leading to the rooms.”

The details Corner of Perry and Gladstone Streets,

Mudgee (derussiehotels.com.au; doubles from

A$151/£87, b&b).

5 Glamping escapePAPERBARK CAMP, Jervis Bay

This place is just a skip from one of the most beautiful

white-sand beaches we’ve ever seen: Jervis Bay

on the southern coast of New South Wales. It’s only

two-and-a-half hours from Sydney, but the 100-acre

retreat overlooking the Jervis Bay National Marine

Park feels really remote. Accommodation is more

glamp-site than campsite. The bush camp was built

by former Sydneysiders who escaped the city, and

they’ve fitted out 12 tree-fringed tents with comfy

beds, organic toiletries and ensuite showers (and

even baths in the deluxe rooms). They all have

wrap-around verandas. We spent our days bush-

walking, kangaroo-spotting, kayaking, snorkelling,

diving and whale-watching, and by night retired to

the treetop restaurant, Gunyah, for some modern

Australian-meets-Central American food. They call

this “a place for possums and foodies”; both were

very much in evidence during our stay.

James: “Of all the tents, Kookaburra was our

favourite, for its prime location beside the creek:

ideal for our dawn kayaking adventures.”

Tamara: “Take up the Paperbark Challenge and

canoe to nearby Huskisson and back, then chalk up

your time on the communal blackboard.”

The details 571 Woollamia Road, Woollamia

(paperbarkcamp.com.au; doubles from

A$295/£170, b&b).

6 Gourmet getawayBELLS AT KILLCARE, Central Coast

We knew we would have to book well in advance

to eat here. Sydneysiders love Bells as much for its

restaurant as for its Hamptons-style hotel. It took us

only 90 minutes to drive there (although we could

have taken a 20-minute ferry from Palm Beach),

a pilgrimage justified by the high standard of Italian

food prepared by chef Stefano Manfredi. The dining

room has a crisp, coastal feel (all blues, sands and

whites) in keeping with its location near Bouddi

National Park, and the bar is lined with chesterfield

sofas, ideal for sinking into with a signature bellini.

Even nicer, after lunch we slunk off into our

cottage suite, with its elegant nautical interiors

and Ralph Lauren furnishings.

James: “Pick up one of the hotel’s bushwalking

maps and explore the local area, with its nine

pretty beaches. Backpacks, delicious Manfredi-

orchestrated picnic hampers and even guides to

the area can be provided.”

Tamara: “Time your visit to coincide with Bells’

bi-monthly cookery classes or its monthly

wine dinners, or just join a daily tour of the

fantastic kitchen garden.”

The details 107 The Scenic Road, Killcare

Heights (bellsatkillcare.com.au; doubles

from A$250/£144, b&b).

7 Spa-side wining and diningSPICERS VINEYARDS ESTATE, Hunter Valley

There are two kinds of visitors to this estate: those

who enjoy working off their meals playing bocce

or tennis, and people like us, who prefer a spa. The

Spa Anise here is particularly good, with poolside

treatment rooms, aromatherapy massages using

local Waterlily products and detoxifying body

wraps (handy if you have hit the wine cellar a little

too hard). In this area, wine features prominently

on itineraries: the Hunter Valley is just two hours

north of Sydney, and there are more than 150

wineries nearby. Its Restaurant Botanica, headed

by chef Mark Stapleton, serves up contemporary

Australian food, using home-grown vegetables

and home-reared meat. Sleep it off in one of the eight

neutral-hued suites overlooking fields of vines.

James: “At Botanica, make sure you get a table

at the window or out on the airy veranda, to take

advantage of the views, and try the caramelised pork

belly with soy, ginger, shallots and garden greens.”

Tamara: “Get the concierge to arrange a tasting tour

to sample the finest wines, as well as cheese, olives

and chocolate.”

The details 555 Hermitage Road, Pokolbin

(spicersgroup.com.au; doubles from A$299/£172,

b&b and minibar).

Best of the bunch (clockwise from

above) Nautical chic at Bells at Killcare;

Sangoma Retreat at dusk; the white sands

of Byron Bay; soothing interiors at

Victoria’s at Ewingsdale; outdoors at

Spicers Vineyard Estate; the 138ft-long

marble bar at the Establishment Hotel and,

centre, glamping at Paperbark Camp

6

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8 Romantic retreatTOWER LODGE, Hunter Valley

If we weren’t already married, one of us would have

popped the question here. It’s wonderfully romantic:

a multicultural modern manor house littered with

antiques and curios collected over decades of

globetrotting. There are 300-year-old Rajasthani beds

and marble-topped tables, an Italian-style courtyard,

a chic pool and a spa fit for an emperor. We dined at

the lodge’s Roberts Restaurant, where chef George

Francisco blends Australian and global flavours.

Tamara was impressed by the vegetarian menu (and

she’s no veggie), and we both still remember the

vanilla pannacotta with pomegranate and lavender.

We didn’t have time to try the 18-hole putting green,

but it’s always good to have an excuse to go back.

James: “Stay in the seductive Oriental Room, with

a wooden bath on its deck.”

Tamara: “For heavenly vineyard views, take to the

skies in a hot-air balloon (balloonaloft.com).”

The details 6 Halls Road, Pokolbin (towerestate

wines.com/tower-lodge; doubles from A$450/£259).

9 Beachside sanctuaryVICTORIA’S AT WATEGOS, Byron Bay

Our first impression of this feminine, 10-room

guesthouse was that it felt like a slice of Tuscany,

with its fairytale four-posters, antique dressing tables

and sumptuous marble baths. But the setting is very

Australian: a short hop from pretty Little Wategos,

where, for the first time, we saw dolphins surfing the

breakers. The beautiful beaches of New South Wales

don’t come more mind-blowing than those at Byron

Bay. Just a 75-minute flight from Sydney (or a longish

nine-hour drive), the little town has also become

the place in Australia for alternative living, with

travellers drawn to its thriving surf scene, nature-

based spas, spiritual leanings and superior coffee.

James: “Walk to Cape Byron Lighthouse, Australia’s

most easterly point, with its sweeping views. Whales

often pass by in winter.”

Tamara: “Look like Elizabeth Taylor in the 1970s

by packing a vibrant kaftan, metallic flip-flops and

oversized sunglasses for the poolside terrace.”

The details 1 Marine Parade, Wategos Beach,

Byron Bay (victorias.net.au/wategos; doubles

from A$399/£230).

10 Coastal manorVICTORIA’S AT EWINGSDALE, Byron Bay

We couldn’t help but fall in love with this area, with its

organic markets, yoga sessions and glorious beaches

(there are seven, our favourites being Clarkes and

Wategos, for swimming and surfing). Not that you

would want to leave Victoria’s for long. Like its sister

hotel (above), it is a little tropical hideaway, with

nine rooms overlooking gardens, a saltwater pool

and a cabana for lounging. There is no restaurant,

but breakfast and tea are served, and you can order

gourmet picnic hampers and casual platters. Byron

has lots of restaurants, too; our favourites are Byron

Beach Café, the Bayleaf Café and Rae’s Fish Café.

James: “Book into one of the spacious Executive Spa

Suites, with their spa baths and Juliet balconies.”

Tamara: “Take advantage of the in-house therapist,

and have your treatment in the garden.”

The details Top of McGettigans Lane, Byron

Bay (victorias.net.au/ewingsdale; doubles

from A$299/£172).

All the hotels above can be booked through

Mr&Mrs Smith (0845 034 0700, mrandmrssmith.com),

with a price-match guarantee. Fly to Sydney daily with

British Airways from London Heathrow Terminal 5,

with return economy fares from £899. Book at

ba.com. For more information, see australia.com.GE

TTY

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THE BIG FISH It’s vast, it’s beautiful and it’s the richest state in Australia, with more self-made millionaires per capita than anywhere in

The big blue Ningaloo Reef,

where visitors can swim

with whale sharks, right, has

recently joined Unesco’s World

Heritage List. On the Shore

Thing catamaran, far right,

guests might spot humpback

whales on their migration

LCKI8KI8M<C���

HEAD WEST the world. Now it is luring well-heeled visitors, too, says Lydia Bell

Western Australia

n the centre of Kings Park, in Perth, there is a large

boab tree which is 750 years old. It wasn’t always there,

but was transplanted in 2008 from the Kimberley, almost

2,000 miles away, accompanied by a police escort. Local

communities applauded the rare tree as it travelled along

the highway. Moving it was an ambitious project that

carried a considerable risk of failure, but five years later it is

growing healthily in its privileged position in the park.

The arrival of the legendary boab is part of the wider

reinvention of Perth. Back in the Seventies, it was viewed

as a remote, conservative backwater, even though town

planners had already begun to rip down heritage buildings

that smacked of country towns, and throw up skyscrapers

instead. Besides, it seemed too far from anywhere to be taken

seriously as a notable world city.

Almost four decades later, all that has changed. Perth

is where it’s at: closer than either Sydney or Melbourne to

the UK and resource-hungry China, and the place where

Australia’s riches can be found. Last year, the state of Western

Australia exported £112billion’s-worth of goods, mainly

minerals, from its ports. It also has the highest number, per

capita, of self-made millionaires in the world, hence the

glamorous buzz of its centre, where new inner-city residents

spill out of the hip bars and restaurants.

Food aficionados are picking up on the city’s culinary

credentials. Co-op Dining, a hot “dego” (the Australian term

for degustation) restaurant, joins Amusé as one of the go-to

places in east Perth, while El Publico is among a handful of

new-wave Mexican restaurants that have opened in the past

six months. In the city centre, The Trustee, serving European

food, has opened in the former WA Trustees Building, and

there is now a branch of the Rockpool Bar&Grill, plus the

acclaimed eco-friendly restaurant the Greenhouse.

I visited the Print Hall: a four-storey bar and restaurant

complex, serving everything from Asian street food to

modern Australian cuisine, carved out of an old printworks.

The highlight is Bob’s Bar, which pays homage to Bob Hawke,

Australia’s straight-talking former prime minister who comes

from Perth. Under the sign “Bob’s Bar” is his quote: “You

don’t know what you’re talking about, you silly old bugger.”

The refurbishment of inner-city areas such as Mount

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THE REAL LUXURY HERE IS NOT THESUITES BUT THE TRANQUILLITY OFTHE SURROUNDINGS

Lawley and the cultural hub of Northbridge has been

accompanied by a wave of hip openings, including

speakeasies helped by a relaxation of the licensing laws

five years ago. There are ambitious infrastructure projects,

too, including a waterfront district, the redevelopment of

the Crown casino to include a six-star tower hotel with

500 rooms, a transport link from the city centre to trendy

Northbridge and a A$750-million airport upgrade.

Given the number of tourists now coming to Western

Australia, these upgrades are welcome. Last year, 3 per

cent more visitors arrived (about 800,000 in total), thanks

partly to the launch of new daily flights to Perth from the

UK. Historically, there has been a dearth of luxury hotels,

but a handful of purveyors of boutique comfort are

working on that. For instance, developers have turned

St George’s House, an 1890s heritage-listed former

bishop’s residence, into the Terrace Hotel, a contemporary

bolthole with a restaurant and bar full to bursting.

All these developments signal that Perth has become

much more than a gateway to the wilderness.

However, that wilderness is quite something – and not

all of it is deserts and gorges. At Ningaloo Reef, the silence

of a starlit Indian Ocean and the treasures that lie beneath

it are the draw for visitors, some of whom arrive there

courtesy of Sail Ningaloo. The company, now in its fourth

season, can spirit passengers to unvisited sections of the

reef on board the 51ft catamaran Shore Thing. From the

boat, at what is called the Green Mile site, guests can dive

with turtles and, from May to December, see humpback

whales pass by. From other specially licensed vessels,

visitors can swim or snorkel with whale sharks – creatures

weighing up to 21 tons, which in spite of their size are

more interested in plankton than they are in people.

Although Ningaloo Marine Park has just been added

to Unesco’s World Heritage List (see page 12), boosting its

profile, the area has so far escaped mass tourism. Other

than the Shore Thing catamaran, Sal Salis, a luxury bush

camp, is the canny choice for enjoying this beautiful place

in solitude. Its nine tents blend with their surroundings

and the low-tech camp espouses a relaxed, barefoot

lifestyle: it is all about immersing oneself in the silent,

pristine wilderness of the Cape Range. At night, the chef

cooks locally harvested seafood flavoured with indigenous

herbs, for feasts on a deck overlooking the Indian Ocean.

The place that draws most visitors to the area, though,

is the Bungle Bungles Range, with its orange and black

domes, sculpted by nature. The place to stay is the Bungle

Bungles Safari Camp – the first to open under Western

Australia’s government-run Naturebank programme,

designed to develop eco-friendly camps in protected

beauty spots. Run by Kimberley Wild Expeditions, it is the

only private camp in the park with views of the Bungles

massif itself, so sundowners are the main event of the day,

when the mountains glow red. Currently, guests can only

stay as part of an expedition from Broome (the shortest

lasts five days); next season, though, a new overland tour

from Broome to Darwin will be launched, for those who

prefer not to drive the Australia Way in a 4x4 themselves.

This year is the 30th anniversary of the “discovery”

of the Bungle Bungles, when a film crew stumbled

upon their beehive domes, towering arches and natural

amphitheatres, including Cathedral Gorge. Seeing it is

akin to a spiritual experience. A “flightseeing” tour is de

rigueur; heli-tours are the best way to get close.

True luxury can be found at Berkeley River Lodge,

flanked by escarpments and waterfalls and accessed on

a floatplane from Kununurra, an hour away. Twenty smart

metallic “shacks” with ocean views sit on top of a coastal

dune, with views over the Timor Sea and the Berkeley

River; the luxury is not so much in the relaxed simplicity

of the suites (louvred windows, floors of pressed bamboo,

whitewashed clapboard walls and outside bathrooms)

but in the tranquillity and other-worldliness of the

surroundings. Staying in this ancient landscape, glimpsed

by most people only from a scenic flight above, feels

like a privilege. Days can be spent taking boat cruises,

helicopter flights, bush and beach walks, and going

fishing; nights are for feasting on the modern Australian

food prepared by James Ward, who trained under Rick

Stein. Before dinner, it is worth turning up for the star-

gazing session: feeling like an insignificant speck in the

universe is by far the best way to get life in perspective.

The mere existence of this lodge speaks of the

Kimberley “can-do” spirit. Everything came by barge from

Wyndham, 30 hours away. To create this remote Eden,

owners Martin and Kim Peirson-Jones left their home in

Broome and spent two years sleeping in rough conditions

while the project went up. The costs and complexities of

maintaining such a place are phenomenal.

While Berkeley River Lodge is certainly comfortable,

the best example of real outback luxury is El Questro,

the original stylish oasis in the harsh landscape of the

Kimberley. Set on the sandstone banks of a river bend,

the Homestead (just one element of the million-acre

estate, which also has a tented resort, bungalows and

a campsite) has been delivering a particularly Australian

brand of luxury since 1991.

Last year, the owners added three Cliff Side Retreats –

glass-fronted cubby holes with outside tubs – that blend

in seamlessly with the rugged terrain surrounding them.

Staying in one of them is a meditative experience, though

guests can always drift over to the Homestead for drinks

and conversation if they wish.

My outback thrills, like most people’s, ended with

a dose of tropical luxury in Broome, which clings

to the perimeter of the Great Sandy Desert. Here,

a new resort, The Billi, provides tented luxury for

fly-and-floppers (or villas for those who don’t like

canvas). The intimate little resort is characterised by

a solipsistic tranquillity. Although the famous white

sands and camels of Cable Beach are just down the road,

most guests choose to spend time in the calm oasis

of the gardens. With its private decks under towering

trees echoing with birdsong, and its outside bathrooms

with rainforest showers that bring new meaning to the

phrase, The Billi is a reminder that Western Australia

can provide not just beautiful bush, but creature

comforts, too – and do both with consummate ease.

Fly to Perth with British Airways and its codeshare partners,

with return fares from £899. Book at ba.com. For more

information, see australia.com.

The Terrace Hotel Perth (0061 8

9214 4444, terracehotelperth.com.

au) has rooms from A$450/£264.

Kimberley Wild Expeditions

(0061 8 9193 7778, kimberleywild.

com.au) offers a five-day tour through

the Kimberley, with two nights at the

Bungle Bungles Safari Camp,

from A$1,595, including guides,

transport and most meals. Berkeley

River Lodge (0061 8 9169 1330,

berkeleyriver.com.au) costs A$825

per person, including activities, meals

and drinks. Rooms at El Questro

Homestead’s Cliff Side Retreats

(0061 3 9426 7550, elquestro.com.au)

cost A$2,649, including tours, food

and drink. A three-day, three-night tour

of Ningaloo Reef with Sail Ningaloo

(0061 4 0211 0427, sailningaloo.com.

au) starts at A$1,700 per person,

including meals, soft drinks, activities

and guides. Sal Salis (0061 2 9571

6399, salsalis.com.au) costs A$725 per

person including activities, tours, food

and wine. A tent at The Billi (0061

8 9192 1711, thebilli.com.au) starts

at A$265, villas at about A$325.

Town and country Tented luxury,

below and right, at Sal Salis camp

at Ningaloo Reef; and the new Billi

Resort, bottom right, in Broome

THE DETAILS

LCKI8KI8M<C���

Mark Chipperfield, who recently moved to live in Adelaide, explains the appeal of a city where you can kayak with

dolphins in the morning, enjoy fresh seafood and fine wine for lunch and spend weekends hiking in a vast landscape

South AustraliaWhite out Lake Gairdner, the fourth-largest

salt lake in Australia, is one feature of the Eyre

Peninsula, to which city-dwellers decamp in

summer. Below: Rundle Street, Adelaide

HOME &AWAY

���LCKI8KI8M<C�

A couple of

weeks ago, I gave my normal Monday morning routine

a miss and went kayaking. In the less-than-picturesque

waters of Port River, just 20 minutes from the centre of

Adelaide, lives a much-loved colony of dolphins. I arrived

to find them cavorting under a flawless powder-blue sky.

For the next three hours, these resilient urban dolphins

followed our every move, playing tag beneath the kayaks

or flashing their dorsal fins mischievously – delighting

us with their inventive aqua aerobics. On the far bank

of the river lies a 10,000-year-old mangrove forest, part

of an enormous wildlife sanctuary which has brought

back this 30-strong pod of bottlenose dolphins from the

edge of extinction. This precious remnant of mangrove,

saltmarsh, seagrass and silence is all that separates us

from Adelaide’s modern container port and, beyond that,

the open waters of Gulf St Vincent.

Surrounded by industrial smokestacks, warehouses

and giant electricity pylons, the Adelaide Dolphin

Sanctuary is one of the city’s oddest tourist attractions

but a fine example of its wayward, individualistic

spirit. “We’re pretty well hidden down here,” said Phil

Doddridge, who has been guiding on the river for

a decade, “but most of our tours are fully booked – even

on winter days when you have to be pretty brave to climb

into a kayak. Dolphins have that effect on people.”

Phil, who sports a salt-and-pepper moustache worthy

of the tennis great John Newcombe, is a passionate

conservationist. He knows most of the dolphins by name

and works closely with Dr Mike Bossley, the marine

biologist who has been studying this unique community

of river dolphins for 25 years. “Before Mike arrived, the

future was looking pretty bleak for these dolphins,” said

Phil as we kayaked into the mangroves. “What this guy

has achieved is phenomenal. He’s a real hero.”

With its wide boulevards, trams, neoclassical buildings

and municipal parks, Adelaide may look at first like

a mid-sized European city transplanted to the southern

hemisphere: a cross between Edinburgh and Vienna,

perhaps, with a dash of Eastbourne when you reach the

seaside. Having moved here 18 months ago after two

decades in Sydney, I’m beginning to realise that this city

of church-goers, wine drinkers and cricket fanatics is the

most authentically “Australian” city around – easy-going,

generous, sentimental and pleasantly out of step with the

modern world. “You blokes in Sydney are always knocking

things down and putting up something worse,” a work

colleague told me. “We like to keep things the way they

are. Adelaide’s city centre looks pretty much how it did in

the 1960s – low-rise and leafy.”

Apart from the lack of urban crush (parking, even at the

beach, is plentiful), Adelaide is a place where old-school

manners are observed: strangers still say “Good morning”

on the street, neighbours share home-grown lemons,

figs and tomatoes, post office staff are courteous and the

evening news ends with a guide to the best fishing spots.

In South Australia, the gulf between urban and rural

life is paper-thin. Sheep still graze within the city limits,

horses roam the banks of the River Torrens and the hard,

unblemished outline of the Adelaide Hills dominates the

skyline. Anyone who hankers for innocent, unhurried,

post-war Australia (“The Land of the Long Weekend”)

should visit Adelaide in the summer. The whole city

snoozes under a dry blanket of heat and families drive

south to Aldinga Beach, park on the sand and plunge into

the ocean, leaving their towels on the tailgate.

Summer kicks off with the Santos Tour Down Under

bicycling race and culminates in “Mad March” when the

city plays host to the Adelaide Festival, Womadelaide,

the Fringe and the Clipsal500 supercar event. For a few

days at least, performance artists rub shoulders with

petrolheads on the carnival streets.

For all of Adelaide’s supposed cultural, sporting and

gastronomic aspirations, it often seems to me that most

people here would rather “go bush” than sip lattes in

a sidewalk café, wander through the city’s art gallery or

explore the latest degustation menu. Like New Zealand,

this is a place where people still like to fish, hunt and

camp out under the stars – provided there’s a chilled beer

or crisp white wine waiting for them, alongside a fresh

catch of blue swimmer crab, abalone or King George

whiting. Not that there’s a shortage of sophisticated

places for them to go. The city has a handful of

five-star hotels, and boutique camps and guesthouses on

its outskirts, as well as fine places to eat and drink,

including Windy Point in Belair, recently crowned the

best restaurant in South Australia.

During the long summer holidays, though, it is

to nearby resorts that city dwellers decamp – to their

holiday houses on nearby Kangaroo Island, to the

Fleurieu Peninsula, or further afield on the untamed

expanse of the Eyre Peninsula, where this dry, unforgiving

and largely uninhabited continent tumbles into the

Southern Ocean.

Port Lincoln, to the south of the Eyre Peninsula,

is rapidly becoming the adventure capital of South

Australia – a place where visitors can swim with ocean

inhabitants ranging from the cuddliest (Australian sea

lions) and most innocuous (tuna) to the most terrifying

(great white sharks). It’s a spot at which you linger if you

can, exploring the magnificent Lincoln National Park or

tootling over to Coffin Bay for the afternoon to gorge

on Australia’s most celebrated oysters.

Although it may lack the cultural range (if not depth)

of Sydney and Melbourne, Adelaide is the only capital

city which can claim to be a true gateway to the outback –

the Flinders Ranges are a manageable five-hour drive

from Adelaide Airport.

While Uluru (Ayers Rock) remains the iconic outback

destination, it does not have the same majesty and

unsullied beauty of the Flinders, a place where both

European and Aboriginal stories are dwarfed by the

broad sweep of geological time. Dating back 800 million

years, these dramatic landforms contain some of the

oldest animal fossils ever found. Names like Arkaroola,

Wilpena, Lake Eyre and Innamincka resonate with

stories of colonial derring-do when intrepid (or just

insane) Victorian explorers ventured north into the Red

Centre on camel trains; descendants of their Afghan

cameleers live here still.

For a decidedly luxurious taste of frontier life, head

to one of the glamorous new safari tents which have just

opened at Wilpena Pound. This natural amphitheatre of

ancient rock covers 52 miles and is a magnet for hikers,

off-road drivers, mountain bikers and ornithologists.

Given the number of places like this about, visitors

don’t need the survival skills of a Crocodile Dundee to see

them through a journey into the outback. With their taste

for good wine, hand-made cheese, fresh seafood and other

great produce, South Australians have an uncanny ability

to civilise the harshest landscape.

En route to the Flinders, the traveller can stop at two of

the country’s most celebrated wine districts – the Barossa

and Clare Valley – and enjoy world-class hospitality at

North Bundaleer, a magnificent colonial mansion, or

Thorn Park by the Vines, a tasteful property in the heart of

the Clare Valley.

Once known entirely for its robust shiraz and grenache,

the Barossa is now producing a wide range of lighter,

food-friendly wines such as tempranillo, mataro, semillon,

frontignac and pinot gris. Led by celebrity cook Maggie

THIS IS A PLACE WHERE PEOPLE LIKE TO CAMP,

LCKI8KI8M<C���

Beer, the region’s chefs are busily reclaiming its Silesian

(Central European) food heritage, while embracing

cuisines from Southeast Asia and the Mediterranean.

There’s a similar gastronomic revolution sweeping

across the Fleurieu Peninsula which, apart from

containing some of the state’s finest coastal scenery and

the lovely old port city of Goolwa, also includes McLaren

Vale, the rising star of the Australian wine scene (see

page 14). The visitor can wile away many happy hours

visiting some of the region’s best cellar doors, including

d’Arenberg, Primo Estate, Oliver’s Taranga and Wirra

Wirra, or linger over lunch at Fino, a multi-award winning

restaurant in the sleepy township of Willunga.

Despite their emotional connection to the land,

Australians live in one of the most urbanised societies

on the planet. Young Australians are more likely to visit

Barcelona than Broken Hill and the outback remains

as remote as Mars. But in Adelaide, the bush and the

bistro live cheek by jowl. The great outdoors begins at

the end of every suburban street. Look up at night and

you’ll see a magnificent display of stars, each newly

minted in the desert sky.

Fly to Adelaide with British Airways and its codeshare

partners, with return fares from £922. Book at ba.com.

For more information, see australia.com.

PROVIDED THERE’S CRISP WHITE WINE AND CRAB WAITING FOR THEM

Gone walkabout (clockwise, from above):

exploring the dunes of the Flinders Ranges;

dolphins in the Port River sanctuary;

kayaking from Kangaroo Island; swimming

with tuna at Port Lincoln; the Womadelaide

festival; and North Bundaleer estate,

en route to the Flinders Ranges

HOW TO DO SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN STYLE

Where to stay

The InterContinental

Adelaide (0061 8 8238 2400,

icadelaide.com.au; suites

from A$340/£200), a five-star

hotel on the banks of the

Torrens, offers easy access

to attractions including the

Adelaide Oval. The Adina

Apartment Hotel (0061 8

8112 0000, adinahotels.com.

au; doubles from A$229)

oozes old-world charm, and

has a pretty courtyard and lap

pool, while the hipper Clarion

Hotel Soho (0061 8 8412

5600, clarionhotelsoho.com.

au; doubles from A$131) offers

a rooftop jet-pool and fine city

views. For visitors who prefer

to stay in a private residence,

the one-bedroom Thorn Park

In The City townhouse (0061

8 8843 4304; thornpark.com.

au; doubles from A$650) is

located near to Adelaide’s

best pubs and restaurants.

Where to eat

After a 24-month refit,

Magill Estate (0061 8 8301

5551, magillestate.com) has

reopened under the direction

of Melbourne chef Scott

Huggins – hot competition to

Windy Point in Belair (0061

8 8278 8255, windypoint.

com.au), recently crowned

best restaurant in South

Australia. For authentic

regional Italian fare, it’s worth

trying the family-run Chianti

Classico (0061 8 8232 7955,

chianticlassico.com.au) and

for something edgier, Press

Food & Wine (0061 8 8211

8048, pressfoodandwine.com.

au) is set in a noisy industrial

space, and serving tapas-style

sharing platters and interesting

wines by the glass.

What to do

Thanks to the proximity of the

countryside, there is always

plenty to do around Adelaide.

The top activity is a three-hour

trip through the mangroves

with Adventure Kayaking

SA (0061 8 8295 8812,

adventurekayak.com.au; from

A$70). The wide, flat streets

make cycling a pleasure; take

advantage of the Free Bike

Hire Scheme (0061 8 8168

9999, bikesa.asn.au) and

explore the River Torrens path

to Henley Beach. Alternatively,

stroll in the Botanic Gardens,

or take a self-guided walk

around Port Adelaide

(maps from portenf.sa.gov.

au). Further afield, Kangaroo

Island is a perennial favourite,

with its windswept beaches

and abundant wildlife; book

into Southern Ocean

Lodge (0061 2 9918 4355,

southernoceanlodge.com.

au; suites from A$990). In the

Flinders Ranges, Wilpena

Pound Resort (0061 8 8648

0004, wilpenapound.com.

au; doubles from A$340)

has just unveiled a luxurious

tented camp. Or take a short

flight to Port Lincoln

(visitportlincoln.net) and

sample oysters at Coffin Bay,

then relish the stunning ocean

views at the contemporary

Port Lincoln Hotel (0061 8

8621 2000, portlincolnhotel.

com.au; suites A$340).

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The demanding, day-long hike up Mount Gower on Lord Howe Island

is one of Australia’s best walks. Yolanda Carslaw climbs 3,000ft for

a bird’s eye view of one of the country’s most enchanting secret places

Glancing now and then at the swirling

ocean far below, I pulled myself up

the path, hand over hand on the fixed

rope, my feet seeking grip among

roots and rock. Had I fallen, I would

have landed in a bush of scarlet

mountain roses a few feet away rather than in the

sea, but it was still a relief to have something to grasp

en route to our goal, the highest point on Australia’s

most remote and enchanting island.

Along with a dozen holidaymakers, I was halfway

up Mount Gower on Lord Howe Island (population

300; guest beds 400), a hunk of igneous rock that

juts out of the South Pacific 380 miles from the

mainland’s east coast. The day-hike has a reputation

as one of Australia’s best. Described as “very hard and

demanding” in the tourist-board literature, it is barely

four miles each way, yet it takes at least eight hours

and can be attempted only with a guide.

My partner and I had prepared by taking shorter

hikes and exploring by bike – the seven-mile-long,

beach-fringed island is geared to enjoying nature

and the outdoors, with no nightlife or mobile-phone

reception. From different viewpoints, we’d admired

the 2,870ft mountain, table-shaped and tangled with

jungle, standing guard over the turquoise lagoon.

In bright sunshine at 7.30am we met our fellow

hikers and our guide, Dean Hiscox, once the island’s

ranger. In front of us stood Gower; to our left its

neighbour, the rarely climbed Mount Lidgbird.

For the first mile we skirted the coast and by 9.30am

we had reached Erskine Creek, where we refilled

our water bottles and had a breather in a glade

surrounded by banyan trees – whose roots, said

Dean, spread like tentacles as far as several hundred

yards from the main tree.

Nearly half of Lord Howe’s 241 native plants grow

nowhere else, and more than 200 bird species visit.

The previous day we’d seen hundreds of black-

and-white sooty terns gliding gracefully above their

breeding grounds, and when we’d paddle-boarded

to Blackburn Island, on the lagoon, we’d found it

alive with mutton birds nesting in burrows. There are

just a handful of mammals, and snakes, pleasingly,

are absent: Lord Howe has none of the nasties that

usually make me jumpy hiking in Australia, and we

saw not a single fly or mosquito.

Soon the track veered sharply upwards, following a

ridge that gave magnificent views over island and sea,

framed by curly palms, scaly barks and lilli pilli trees.

“See down there?” said Dean, while we were

waiting at a mildly tricky part called the “Get-up

place”, to “get up”, one by one. “That’s Wolf Rock,

where the HMS Nottingham ran aground 11 years

ago.” (It was a British ship, too, that “discovered”

the hitherto uninhabited island, 225 years ago;

50 years later the first settlers arrived to man

a provisioning station for the whaling industry.)

Higher up, we could see Ball’s Pyramid, a 1,800ft

sea stack apparently floating in haze between ocean

and horizon, where in 2001 Dean helped track down

a species of giant stick insect thought to be extinct,

having been wiped out on Lord Howe by black rats.

Rodents and weeds remain a problem. Dean

explained: “We got rid of goats, though three nannies

were missed and they’re living out their days on

Mount Lidgbird. Now we’d like to see rats eradicated,

and there’s a proposal involving helicopters

spreading rodenticides, but it’s political dynamite.

Islanders are allowed to own a dog, provided it’s

neutered, but cats are banned.”

All of a sudden we were on Gower’s flat top in

the cloudforest, thick with island apples, tea trees,

pumpkin trees with yellow flowers and delicate, just-

unfurling ferns. Best of all, though, were the palms.

There are four species endemic to Lord Howe Island,

including Howea forsteriana, which is exported, and is

the world’s most popular indoor palm. The varieties

that grow higher up have distinctive green and silvery

trunks, lavish fronds and produce bunches of crimson

fruit. Among the vegetation, Dean pointed out

burrows of the Providence petrel, an inquisitive bird

that has been seen as far away as the Sea of Japan.

As we ate our picnic we surveyed the crescent-

shaped island – which is being reclaimed, slowly,

by the South Pacific. “What you see,” said Dean, “is

3 per cent of what used to be here.” The millennia-

old “original” volcanic island, 20 miles wide and now

300ft beneath the sea, surrounds today’s Lord Howe:

its own “edge” drops another 3,000ft into the ocean.

We had nearly 3,000ft of our own to descend – and,

as always with mountain walking, going down was

the killer. Arms as well as legs got a workout as we

lowered ourselves down the paths, grasping rope,

tree, tendril or root. The reward, back at sea level?

A certificate declaring we had made it, as quaint as

everything else on Lord Howe. And for the two of

us, having declined the minibus lift that morning:

a rather hilly bike ride back to our lodgings.

Fly to Sydney daily with British Airways from London

Heathrow Terminal 5, with return economy fares

starting at £899. Book at ba.com. For more information,

see australia.com

Natural world Clockwise, from

main picture: the wild scenery of

Lord Howe Island; McCulloch’s

anemonefish; the view from Mount

Gower; luxury living at Arajilla

Coast to coast

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HOWE TO GO WALKABOUT

LCKI8KI8M<C���

4 OF THE BEST WALKS

IN AUSTRALIA

FREYCINET EXPERIENCE WALK Tasmania

This 23-mile trek over four days takes in some of

Tasmania’s rawest landscapes: steep hills, forested

areas with lakes, and remote stretches of coastline.

The itinerary starts with a boat trip to Coles Bay and

from there it is a (pretty steep) hike up Bear Hill, then

onward through ancient forests and past the curved

white beach of Wineglass Bay. Hikers follow the

Bluestone Bay clifftops along a path walked for

centuries by the Oyster Bay tribe, to the fossil-rich

ridgeline of St Marys. Stay at the eco-conscious

Friendly Beaches Lodge (freycinet.com.au), on a

400-acre property bordering Freycinet National Park.

THE ARKABA WALK South Australia

Geology, traversing the Flinders Ranges and taking in

outback scenery, from craggy ridges to dry riverbeds,

are among the pleasures of this 28-mile trek over four

days. The terrain is hilly, but not mountainous, rising

from 1,150ft to about 2,000ft; accommodation is at

the Black’s Gap Camp and Elder Camp, where guests

can sleep under the stars, and at the comfortable

mid-19th-century Arkaba Station (arkabastation.

com). From the tops of ranges, there are far-reaching

views over Wilpena Pound and the Elder Range,

spectacular at sunset when the cliffs turn deep pink.

Walkers spot kangaroos (both red and western

grey), emus and wallaroos (marsupials bigger

than wallabies but smaller than kangaroos). An

optional extra is a scenic flight above the wilderness.

THE GREAT OCEAN WALK New South Wales

There are two options on this spectacular coastline:

the 65-mile Twelve Apostles Walk, which takes seven

days, and the 34-mile Great Ocean Walk, taking four

days. Both routes use the contemporary eco-hotel

Bothfeet Walking Lodge (bothfeet.com.au) at

Johanna as a base, where muscles can be soothed

with massages and energy replenished with locally

sourced, low-GI meals, micro-brewery beers and

excellent local wine. The Great Ocean Walk starts in

the seaside village of Apollo Bay and finishes at the

Twelve Apostles, exploring along the way the pretty

rainforests of Marengo Point, the beaches of Blanket

Bay and the sheer cliffs of Castle Cove. The second

part of the journey is the toughest, ascending from

an altitude of 200ft to about 1,600ft in a day. Walkers

who want to end on a real high might book a

12-minute helicopter flight over the Twelve Apostles.

The peak season for walking is from September to

May, when the weather is warmer and drier.

LARAPINTA TRAIL Northern Territory

Again, there are two options along this route: the first

walk takes six days and covers 45 miles, and the

second takes three days and covers half the distance.

Both are through the desert, traversing the West

MacDonnell Range and taking in wild, inhospitable

and little-populated landscapes, from high ridgelines

to bone-dry plains. Accommodation is in tented

camps – Nick Murcutt’s Camp near Simpsons Gap

and Charlie’s Camp near Serpentine Chalet – with

a traditional swag for a bed and either a canvas

awning over your head or the stars above. The first

three days are the most testing, climbing rocky

mountains to 3,200ft; on day five, a sunrise walk can

be organised up Mount Sonder, with its views over

Ormiston Pound, a ring of mountains dominated by

Mount Giles. An optional helicopter flight can be

arranged over the West MacDonnell Range.

Book through Australian Walking Holidays (0061

2 8270 8400, australianwalkingholidays.com).

More walks: greatwalksofaustralia.com.au

THE DETAILS

When to go

The island has a mild climate,

with temperatures around 25C

in high summer (December

to February) and in the teens

in midwinter (June to August).

Visitors can hike Mount

Gower with Dean Hiscox

from September to May.

Where to stay

Capella Lodge (0061 02 9918

4355, lordhowe.com/lodge;

rooms from A$650/£380, half

board), on a small beach with

a lagoon at the foot of Mount

Gower, has sleek modern suites

and a horizon pool. Arajilla

(0061 2 6583 2622, arajilla.com.

au; rooms from A$615/£365, full

board, minimum stay two nights)

is an eco-friendly boutique hotel

on Old Settlement Beach, with

a spa and gourmet dining. Less

luxurious but equally charming

is Pinetrees Lodge (0061

2 6563 2177, pinetrees.com.au;

five nights for A$1,115/£655,

full board), which has tennis

courts, a spa and a boat

house with an honesty bar.

Where to eat

There are about 10 places to

eat and shop. Buy picnic food

for lunch and eat out in the

evenings (Capella Lodge and

Arajilla have good restaurants).

It is possible to have fresh fish

delivered to accommodation.

What to do

Go snorkelling on the lagoon.

We saw green-blocked wrasse,

unicorn fish and tiny reef sharks

on a half-day trip with Islander

Cruises. People don’t visit Lord

Howe Island for the nightlife,

but we found the “Bowlo”

(bowling club) was the place

to be the afternoon of the

Melbourne Cup. The island’s

museum and visitor centre

has displays relating to history

and wildlife; also look out for

posters advertising film shows,

nature talks and other events.

The golf course (£25 for nine

holes, including clubs) is scenic,

well-kept and deserted. Go in

late afternoon for the best light;

there’s also a weekly barbecue.

For details of all the activities

above, see lordhoweisland.info.

���LCKI8KI8M<C�

SOUVENIR SEARCHLessons from global experts

The Sydney-based duo behind Dinosaur Designs,

Louise Olsen and Stephen Ormandy, started selling

their resin jewellery and homeware at a stall at

Paddington Market in 1985. Twenty-eight years later they

have boutiques in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and New

York, have collaborated with Louis Vuitton and Paul

Smith, and have exhibited at London’s Victoria and Albert

Museum. Their pieces reflect the natural colours of

Australia: the Ocean collection draws inspiration from

the Great Barrier Reef. From A$50/£29 for a ring to A$475

for a necklace (dinosaurdesigns.com.au).

Furniture designer Trent Jansen is best known for

upcycling old road signs into distinctive urban stools

(moooi.com). But his most covetable piece is a little

more luxe: a rocking chair for the design collaborative

Broached Commissions in Melbourne, which aims to

explore the identity of Australia through its designs. The

Chinaman’s File rocking chair was a response to stories

about Chinese immigrants in the mid-19th century who

walked hundreds of miles to reach the country’s gold

mines. “It struck me that a chair like this, with its

motherly rocking movements, would have brought them

some comfort,” says Jansen. From around

A$9,835/£5,798 (broachedcommissions.com).

In 2010 a group of surfers on Bondi Beach came up

with the idea of creating sunglasses that were not only

eco-friendly (made of sustainably grown wood and

bamboo, waxed and fitted with polarising lenses), but

also ones whose profits would go to a local foundation

to restore sight to people in developing countries. The

sale of one pair of wayfarer-style Grown sunglasses

pays for surgery for one person, or eye examinations for

12 children. From A$115/£67 (growndesigns.com).

Tim Jennings started his Mbantua Fine Art Gallery

25 years ago to provide an outlet for Aboriginal art from

the Utopia region of the Northern Territory. Today, he

has three galleries, in Alice Springs, Darwin and

Mornington, featuring art by more than 50 artists –

including Emily Kame Kngwarreye; one of her paintings

sold in 2007 for A$1,056,000/£618,637, at that time the

highest price ever paid for a work of Aboriginal art.

Artworks start at a few hundred dollars (mbantua.com).

Jurassic jewellery Louise Olsen

and Stephen Ormandy (with Skipper

the dog), at the Sydney boutique of

Dinosaur Designs. Their fan tortoiseshell

choker necklace, left, costs A$345/£202

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60,000Approximate age in years of the Kimberley’s Bradshaw rock-art paintings (five times older than

the Egyptian pyramids)

7,000Weight in kilograms of

fireworks that will be let off in October’s display of tall ships

and warships in Sydney Harbour

12,000,000Cost in dollars of Perth’s new rollercoaster, which will carry

thrill-seekers at 52 miles an hour, and at G-forces of upto 4.5 (greater than a space

shuttle launch)

TRAVEL BY NUMBERS

CUT TO THE CHASER

We have had bars in record shops, bars in art

galleries — so why not one in a men’s

hairdresser? The latest incarnation from

Sydney’s award-winning barman Mike Enright,

above, is The Barber Shop, designed in the style

of a traditional English barber and advertising

short back and sides, as well as drinks with

sides, such as platters of ham and cheese.

Although most barmen try to keep knives and alcohol

apart, Enright said he wanted to put “a bit of the barber

into the bar and a bit of the bar into The Barber Shop” –

which explains the mirrors, blades and brushes, and his

choice of cologne: a splash of gin. The Barber Shop, 89

York Street, Sydney (thisisthebarbershop.com).

COAST ROAD

The new Peninsula Link freeway, connecting

Melbourne to the Mornington Peninsula, has

halved the journey time to 45 minutes – hence

the growing number of new places to stay

along the coast. Visitors to the Provençal-inspired Tussie

Mussie Vineyard Retreat (tussiemussie.boutique

retreats.com.au) can choose from a lodge, a cottage or

an old laundry, surrounded by kitchen gardens and rose

beds. The Spindrift Beach Retreat (spindrift.boutique

retreats.com.au), with its pale, New England-style interiors,

overlooking Balnarring Beach, is available for private groups to rent.

Gourmands might prefer to opt for George’s Boutique B&B

(georgesonarthurs.com.au), with its cooking lessons, and then drop in

to the new Red Hill Epicurean (redhillepicurean.com.au), which has

a restaurant, wine cellar, bakery and cheese larder. For more

information, see visitmelbourne.com/regions/mornington-peninsula.

Australians have always loved the

great outdoors, but they have only

recently begun to use their deserts,

harbours and cityscapes as

backdrops for classical-music

extravaganzas. Earlier this year, the

Sydney Symphony Orchestra

performed a three-night season at

Wolgan Valley Resort and Spa in the

Blue Mountains (to acclaim from the

Telegraph’s music critic, Michael

White; it will be repeated in March

next year). Next month, on October

18, Uluru will be the spectacular

backdrop for a Verdi concert by the

Darwin Symphony Orchestra,

celebrating the 200th anniversary of

Verdi’s birth and, on October 19, for

an evening of contemporary

Australian music, from jazz to

didgeridoo (ayersrockresort.com.au/

dso). In a more conventional

location, the Sydney Opera House

will, on October 27, provide the

setting for a concert to celebrate its

40th anniversary, with the same

Beethoven programme to which it

opened in 1973 (40.sydneyopera

house.com). In 2014, the festival

season kicks off in Sydney (January

9-26), followed by the biennial

Adelaide Festival (February 28-

March 16), the largest fringe festival

in the world after Edinburgh. The

Canberra International Music

Festival takes place in May, and the

Australian Festival of Chamber

Music in Townsville in August. There

are rock and jazz festivals, too. For

more information, see australia.com.

50Percentage of cetaceans

worldwide found in Australian waters: 45 species of whales,

porpoises and dolphins

ROCK MEETS CLASSICAL

Essential tech for your tripPocket Weather Australia

A$1.99

This uses data from the Bureau of

Meteorology, giving precise

information on expected rainfall,

temperatures and wind conditions

across the country.

Sydney’s Living History A$4.49

Detail-rich city guide by Sally

Hammond, author of Sydney Café

Culture, with quirky titbits from

the city’s oldest pub to highlights

from its museums.

Australia Taxi A$0.99

Phone numbers of local cabs in all

the country’s major cities, with

GPS to find the nearest rank.

ULTRA APPS

NEED INSPIRATION? THE ROYAL ACADEMY’S EXHIBITION, AUSTRALIA, HAS JUST OPENED, SHOWING 200 WORKS NEVER SEEN BEFORE IN THE UK (ROYALACADEMY.ORG.UK)

Big country Matthew Wood,

of the Darwin Symphony

Orchestra, will conduct Verdi at

Uluru on October 18

Relax Spindrift

Beach Retreat,

below, and Tussie

Mussie Vineyard

Retreat, above right

In association with British Airways

In 1935 Australia was almost a fortnight away,

even by air. A four-engined biplane operated by

Imperial Airways would lumber into the sky

from London’s Croydon Airport and touch down

in Paris, from where passengers caught a night

train to Brindisi in Italy before lumbering into

the sky again. And again.

Twelve days later, after scraping over mountain

ranges and battling through Indian Ocean

storms, the intrepid adventurers finally landed –

a little shaken and definitely stirred – at the

fledgling airport in Brisbane, Australia.

The 12,754 mile trip, inaugurated in April

1935 and operated weekly in partnership

with Qantas Empire Airways and Indian

Trans-Continental Airways, cost £195 one way,

equivalent to more than £11,000 today.

To put that in context, BOAC’s successor,

British Airways, now operates a daily service

from London Heathrow Terminal 5 to Sydney on

a Boeing 777 at a fraction of the price in a shade

under 23 hours with just a single refuelling stop.

And, with its codeshare partners, British Airways

can now take you to 11 destinations in Australia.

The wonder is that anybody went at all.

But then, as now, Australia was too enticing.

Colourful cities, sun-soaked beaches, big skies,

wonderful wildlife and friendly locals — Oz has it

all and lots of it. Whether you’re snorkelling on

the Great Barrier Reef, sailing in Sydney Harbour

How Down Under became much closer

For more information on British Airways flights to Australia, visit ba.com

Air travel has come far since 1935, when it took two weeks to reach Australia, but just like today visitors couldn’t resist, says Paul Dunbar

Flight path: from

past glories, right, to

today’s friendly crew

and World Traveller

and First cabins, top,

British Airways has

always led the �eld

or paddling with platypus on the Great Ocean

Road, you don’t do things by halves.

There’s Sydney, one of those cities where

the clichés – touring the Opera House, climbing

the Harbour Bridge, surfing off Bondi Beach –

don’t seem like clichés when you’re doing them.

Less than a two-hour drive from the city,

the Blue Mountains offer great wildlife

encounters, stunning scenery and some

incredible accommodation. Hiring a car and

doing the loop around to the Hunter Valley

makes for a great road trip.

Canberra is well supplied with first-rate

museums and galleries and Melbourne, city

of contrasts, dedicated in roughly equal measure

to high culture, fine food and competitive sports,

should not be missed.

Sunny, booming Perth is famed for its

laid-back coastal lifestyle of sailing, dining

and surfing, while elegant Adelaide is

surrounded by lush vineyards and bushland

hopping with kangaroos.

Brisbane has changed since Imperial’s

biplanes roared in, becoming a cosmopolitan

metropolis with the pleasure grounds of the

Gold Coast just down the freeway.

Hobart, gateway to Tasmania’s wild rivers,

rainforests and amazing nature experiences,

is also a delightful colonial-style city in its own

right. Hedonistic Cairns is an ideal starting point

The high life

begins on the

ground

British Airways flights

to Australia depart

from Heathrow’s

spacious, state-of-the-

art Terminal 5, opened

in 2008 and winner

of the Best Airport

Terminal category at

the Skytrax World

Airport Awards in

2012. It is used

exclusively by

International Airlines

Group (British Airways

and Iberia).

There’s no need to

queue to check in, as

this can be done online

up to 24 hours before

departure — leaving

more time to try out

some of Terminal 5’s

100-plus stores and

restaurants, including

Cartier, Harrods and

World of Whiskies.

First and Club World

travellers — and

Executive Club Silver

and Gold Members,

and oneworld®

Emerald and Sapphire

frequent flyers — will

find a sanctuary in the

luxurious and relaxing

Galleries lounges.

Here they can read

The Daily Telegraph

and other quality

periodicals, help

themselves to

complimentary food

and beverages,

including a selection of

fine wines, and watch

live sport or selected

entertainment in the

20-seat cinema.

Eligible customers

can even enjoy a

complimentary spa

treatment at one of

the terminal’s three

Elemis Travel Spas,

which offer a range of

facials and massages,

including the

unmissable “exotic

hand and arm

re-energiser”. Facilities

for arriving First and

Club World passengers

include showers and

a clothes pressing

service, so they can

finish their journey as

fresh as they started.

to visit the Great Barrier Reef, dubbed one of the

seven wonders of the natural world.

If the prospect of spending 23 solid hours on

an aeroplane fills you with dread, be assured

that things have come a long way since the first

passengers endured those thundering biplanes.

Each British Airways Boeing 777 has four

cabins. First passengers have their own suite

with fully flat 6ft 6in bed (with complimentary

pyjamas!), power supply and a personal

entertainment system that delivers endless

hours of audio and video via its 15in screen and

noise-cancelling headphones.

In British Airways’ award-winning Club World,

travellers have a super-comfortable armchair

that converts into a fully flat 6ft bed, plus

a power supply and a similar entertainment

system with 10.4in screen.

And World Traveller (economy class) offers

great-value, all-inclusive fares with no hidden

charges, delicious meals and full bar service.

Plus today’s reclining seats are ergonomically

designed and come with adjustable headrests

and lumbar support. The entertainment system

has a seat-back screen and free headphones.

In World Traveller Plus (premium economy),

seats are wider with greater recline, head and

foot rests, lumbar support and extra leg room.

They also have an entertainment system with

noise-reducing headphones.

Baggage allowances are generous, too:

up to three bags free in the hold for First and

Club World, two for World Traveller Plus and

one up to 23kg in World Traveller.

Dining aloft has a long pedigree. Even in 1935,

Imperial Airways’ advertisements boasted that

its cabin crews served “full restaurant meals”.

Today, from World Traveller meals specially

crafted by top chefs to match the time and

duration of the flight, to the apex of the airline

experience in First where travellers can choose

from à la carte meals, prepared to order at

any reasonable time, and a selection of fine

wines, the choices and quality available are

outstanding. I’d be tempted to stay on the

plane and fly straight back.

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he 48-year-old fashion designer,

based in Sydney, was the first Australian to launch

a ready-to-wear collection in Paris. Her range is

now sold internationally, from Melbourne to

Moscow, and fans include Nicole Kidman and

Halle Berry. She has travelled widely, and at

the age of eight spent four years on a yacht,

sailing from South Africa to New Zealand.

Where do you go on holiday?

The past three years we’ve been to Italy. Two

years ago, my husband Bradley and I eloped to

Positano, and this year we went back with our

baby, to Villa Tre Ville (villatreville.it), which has

only 17 rooms and its own vegetable garden

and boat. It’s family-owned, and very discreet.

Where next?

Brittany, because Bradley loves to surf. Or South

America. Or perhaps Nihiwatu (nihiwatu.com),

a sustainably managed island off Indonesia

which is owned by Chris Burch [co-owner of

the fashion label Tory Burch]. It’s right on the

beach, with great surf, so I can lie by the pool

and eat the fish we just caught while my

husband goes surfing.

Your idea of a perfect holiday?

Somewhere I can go to a local market and be

inspired by a culture, or the local people, or their

crafts. It drives my husband insane, because he

likes to lie about and relax. I relax by perusing.

What if you did want to lie about?

I once went to Naladhu (naladhu.anantara.com),

a six-star resort in the Maldives. You get your own

pool, and the sea is clear and teeming with fish.

Favourite holiday spots in Australia?

We have a magical, retro Hamptons-style house in

Palm Beach, an hour north of Sydney, which is

right on the ocean, with kookaburras on the

verandah. We spend summers at our 30-acre

property three hours south in Milton, where

Bradley surfs and my daughter rides her horse.

The hottest hotels in Sydney?

The revamped Watsons Bay (watsonsbayhotel.

com.au) opens soon: small, chic, and right on the

harbour, beside beautiful beaches and a park.

Blue Sydney (tajhotels.com), on a jetty by the

water, is just a short walk from the Opera

House through the Botanic Gardens.

Any other Antipodean favourites?

We’re just back from the six-star, super-relaxing

Qualia (qualia.com.au) on Hamilton Island, which

has the whitest silica-sand beaches. We saw

whales in the bay, and stingrays leaping out of the

water. In New Zealand, where I grew up, we’ve

stayed at Huka Lodge (hukalodge.co.nz) and eaten

great food at Cape Kidnappers (capekidnappers.

com), on a farm on the North Island coast.

What about Europe?

I love the family-run Villa Brunella (villabrunella.it)

in Capri, which has a pretty pool and wonderful

views. In Paris, Le Meurice (lemeurice.com) for

work, or an apartment (booked through

parisperfect.com) in the 6th arrondissement

for a family trip, so we can wander to the food

markets. And in Rome, a loft apartment rented

through romeloft.com.

Favourite restaurants in Sydney?

It’s hard to choose, there are so many. The five

I go to all the time are: Sean’s Panaroma

(seanspanaroma.com.au), on Bondi Beach, which

serves line-caught fish and home-grown produce;

the sensational modern Asian restaurant Billy

Kwong (kyliekwong.org) in Surry Hills; Neil Perry’s

Rockpool Bar&Grill (rockpool.com) for seafood,

beef and great salads; Fratelli Paradiso

(fratelliparadiso.com) for casual Italian; and for

fine dining-style food in a relaxed warehouse

setting, Kitchen by Mike (koskela.com.au).

Best places to eat worldwide?

In London, the River Café (rivercafe.co.uk) for

dinner and Petersham Nurseries (petersham

nurseries.com) for lunch. In New York, ABC

Kitchen (abckitchennyc.com) or Locanda

Verde (locandaverdenyc.com), in The Greenwich

Hotel, which is unpretentious and fun.

Do you prefer luxury or simplicity?

I don’t like frills and fuss; I prefer hotels or villas

with character. White linen and mosquito nets

do it for me – plus a view and room service.

The most glamorous room you’ve stayed in?

Last week I was in the Presidential Suite of the

Mandarin Oriental (mandarinoriental.com) in

Guangzhou, which had six beautifully-designed

rooms, all Asian in style. The suites at the Hôtel

du Cap (hotel-du-cap-eden-roc.com), with its

gardens and romantic Thirties architecture, are

unbeatable. In Paris, the suite at the top of the

Plaza Athénée (plaza-athenee-paris.com) is

incredibly lavish, too, as is the penthouse at

Le Meurice, with its 360-degree rooftop view.

It makes me fall even more in love with the

city and want to throw a rock-star party.

Any tips for shopping abroad?

Look out for art and antiques and ship them back.

In London, I recommend Michael Hoppen Gallery

(michaelhoppengallery.com) and, in Paris, the

lovely white porcelain shop Astier de Villatte

(astierdevillatte.com) or Le Bon Marché

(lebonmarche.com) for fashion. When I was in

St Tropez this year, judging at an Antipodean

film festival, I drove to L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, which

is full of antique shops, then stopped off

for moules and a glass of wine. A perfect day.

Do you like travelling to remote places?

You have to in Australia! We often rent houses in

the middle of nowhere for fashion shoots, and I’ve

been to Broome, where Lord McAlpine has a hotel

(mcalpinehouse.com.au), and Cape York, with

only crocodiles, sharks and turtles for company.

Finally, do you travel light?

No, I’m a terrible packer. I take everything – and

far too many shoes. On the last trip, I took about

10 pairs. I’ve learnt: clothes don’t crease quite as

much in hard Samsonite suitcases, so everything

is now thrown into one or two (or three) of those.

Interview by Lisa Grainger

TRAVELLING LIFE Collette DinniganThe Australian fashion designer on Sydney’s best restaurants, an Indonesian idyll and a six-star resort in Queensland

TQualia, on

Hamilton Island, has the whitest

silica-sand beaches. We saw whales in

the bay and stingrays leaping out of the water

*Availability may be extremely limited, particularly during peak periods. Flight prices are return from London Heathrow to Melbourne and include all pre-payable taxes, fees and other charges, correct as at 05/09/13. Routing is based from London to Melbourne via Singapore and Sydney. Prices subject to change. Bookings must be made by midnight 15 October 2013 for selected travel between 03/11/13 to 26/11/13 and 09/02/14 to 02/04/14. Some payment methods attract a handling fee. For selected destinations, eligible travel dates and full terms and conditions visit ba.com/australiadeals

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