Innholdsfortegnelse for February - April 2023 i Australian Traveller

WHAT MAKES A JOURNEY AMAZING? While the answer is subjective, it’s undeniable that Australia has more amazing journeys than we could ever hope to squeeze into the pages of our first issue of 2023 – aimed squarely at inspiring your travels for the year ahead. But we’ve tried. We’ve hit the red dirt of the Gibb River Road to explore El Questro, tackled the Top End with family in tow and gone off-grid deep in the wilds of Tasmania. We’ve rounded up epic hiking trails and outback adventures that capture the essence of Australia and taken a trip around the world through food and music from Brisbane to Adelaide. And no one could deny the amazingness of a transcontinental rail journey. Writer Alexis Buxton-Collins jumps onboard the iconic Indian Pacific,…

SA RISING Could it be the great wine? The unparalleled festival scene? The exquisite natural beauty of the landscape? Whatever it is, Aussies are finally beginning to catch on to the fact that South Australia has been hip all along. The piqued interest is reflected in four brand-new tours launched by AAT Kings for its 2023/2024 season that take in the Eyre Peninsula, Kangaroo Island and the outback with stops including the Flinders Ranges, Coober Pedy and the salt flats of Lake Hart. The surge in interest illustrates that old clichés hold true – what you’re looking for is sometimes right in front of you. aatkings.com AT loves.... Hagon Workroom Souvenir tea towels are a classic travel memento, but sometimes they’re just too pretty to use. What about to wear?…

BERESFORD LUXURY SUITES AND VILLAS, SA Beresford Luxury Suites and Villas offers travelling oenophiles and hopheads lovely new design-focused lodgings located on approximately 25 hectares in South Australia’s McLaren Vale. In addition to the sprawling Beresford Estate vineyards all around, the $10 million development includes The Vale Taphouse, a microbrewery with its own restaurant. Lush it up in a Grand Reserve Suite, which has indoor and outdoor living spaces as well as its own bathhouse. It’s no surprise these luxury digs claimed the title of Best New Accommodation in the 2023 Best of Wine Tourism Awards. beresfordestate.com.au GREYLEIGH, NSW Greyleigh offers the ultimate grand, glam farm-stay experience two hours south of Sydney and just five minutes from the coastal town of Kiama. Established as a working dairy farm in the…

I’VE HEARD OF SINGING for your supper, but I’m donning my flats and walking for it instead on a small-group ‘Taste of the World’ tour in the inner ’burbs of Brisbane this evening. Who better to lead such an expedition than a local who regularly taste-tests what’s on offer? I’m in the company of Jamie-Lee Howard, founder and owner of Delectable Tours, dedicated to uncovering and sharing the area’s food and drink highlights, with a bit of history on the side. We meet at Newstead under the iron structure of the No. 2 gas holder dating back to 1873, a skeletal remnant of the second power plant that once powered the city. The upmarket residential and commercial surrounds belie the area’s industrial past where timber yards, asbestos works and wharves…

BEFORE WALKING INTO Sonny’s, I’d never given much thought to the identity of those who make the wine, spirits or beer I sip. Sure, I might know brand names, geographical origins and whether they dabble in environmentally sustainable practices. But Sonny’s, a 60-seater wine bar that opened late October in Perth’s convivial Mt Hawthorn, has expanded my horizons. Its bar crew thoughtfully favour female, people of colour and LGBTQIA+ makers and do it so thoroughly that 95 per cent of the drinks list can be traced back to these demographics. What a refreshing way to make purchasing decisions. It’s an ethical act that’s mentioned in passing, rather than shouted from the venue’s leafy corner terrace that feels so European I’d swear it has cobblestones. Welcoming staff, too, reflect diversity –…

By road FLINDERS RANGES ROAD TRIP, SA Experience the ancient essence of a landscape that’s more than 600 million years old. Beauty reveals itself at every turn on the Flinders Ranges self-drive loop, as you weave through relics of SA’s pastoral past between the charming townships of Saltia and Hawker. Continue up Flinders Ranges Way, where the road skirts the iconic Ikara/ Wilpena Pound. The killer views of this mountainous amphitheatre truly bring enchantment to this outback drive. By foot JATBULA TRAIL, NT Lace up your hiking boots and connect to Country on one of Australia’s most spectacular walking trails. You’ll start this multi-day epic adventure at Nitmiluk Gorge before traversing through Jawoyn Land and skirting past waterfalls steeped in cultural significance. Here, the Jawoyn people have been the Traditional…

THE FIERCE SUN BEATS DOWN MERCILESSLY as a dry wind blows across a near-featureless plain, the heat building until I feel like I’m trapped inside a giant hair dryer. A sheet of loose metal bangs against the verandah of an abandoned school where a thick layer of dust is broken only by the scrawled names of previous visitors. There’s also a metre-wide cube nearby, which is painted with slogans that are drier than the surrounding outback. “Our hospital needs your help – get sick,” reads one side. Suddenly, a siren rings out. I look up to see several hundred figures shuffling in the same direction... but this is no zombie apocalypse. Instead, my fellow passengers are being called back to the Indian Pacific and, in a few minutes, I’ll have…

Mosque museum YOU WON’T SEE FLEETS of grey nomads parked outside the curious brown corrugated shed at the end of a palm-flanked gravel driveway on the petering northern fringes of Broken Hill. Perhaps because the outback-spanning sagas that radiated from Broken Hill Mosque mostly fell outside the white-settler ‘Aussie’ narrative, lucky to receive even a cursory mention in our high-school history lessons. To see inside the museum, you have to contact 82-year-old curator and caretaker Amanullah Shamroze. Bobby, as he’s been called for as long as he can remember, unlocks the door and, in doing so, unshackles the story of Broken Hill’s ‘Afghan’ cameleers. The son and grandson of outback-building camel drivers, Bobby’s insight is rare and precious indeed. From the 1860s, the cameleers and their camels were shipped into…

LIKE A PHOENIX RISING from the ashes… No, wait. We can’t start there. If I remember anything from journalism school (apart from the fact that it was not called journalism school), it is to avoid clichés (like the plague). I also remember being taught not to bury the lead so without further delay, I guess what I am trying to say is that Misc., the 300-seat restaurant that now occupies the space where Parramatta Park Cafe once stood, is a stylish and longed-for replacement. It has been some time coming. The predecessor was gutted by fire in 2016 and Misc. owner Jad Nehmetallah – whom you might recognise from Gogglebox – won the tender to open on the site in 2018. After numerous delays (yes, some Covid-related), the restaurant opened…

LIKE ALL THE GREAT ART GALLERIES in great cities of the world, Sydney’s latest cultural destination couldn’t exist anywhere else. The Art Gallery of NSW’s new building, opened to the public in December just north of the original building – itself revitalised with every exhibition space reimagined – is deeply rooted in its place: on Gadigal Country overlooking Sydney Harbour. “We want to be as MoMA is to New York or the Louvre is to Paris,” gallery director Michael Brand told Australian Traveller upon its launch. “I think, and hope, that’s what we’ve achieved with the historical building and new building. It’s very Sydney and a unique experience for the city.” The Sydney Modern Project has been a decade in the making. The biggest cultural development undertaken in NSW since…

THE DENSE, DARK DESERT NIGHT SKY over the Northern Territory town of Alice Springs/Mparntwe is turning on quite the light show at the official launch of Parrtjima – A Festival in Light. The infinite stars of the Milky Way spill across the inky blackness, sitting in clear, bright relief, as if embroidered by the hands of angels on a thick, endless canvas. It feels like a heaven-sent endorsement of the festivities that are set to take place on the traditional Country of the proud Arrernte people over the next 10 nights; it is also a fitting inclusion given the theme for the 2022 program: Sky Country. LIGHTING THE WAY Parrtjima (pronounced parr-chee-ma) is a visual journey like no other. Or perhaps, more accurately, it is a visual journey that can…

Big Red Bash, Qld & NSW 4–6 JULY, 17–19 AUGUST The 2023 edition of Birdsville’s Big Red Bash will mark 10 years of rockin’ the Simpson Desert. The Bash is a celebration of great Aussie music, set against a backdrop of iconic outback plains. This year’s stage will be headlined by rock legends Icehouse, aka the progenitors of Australia’s unofficial national anthem (Great Southern Land). Other acts include folk-favourite John Williamson and beloved doo-wop quartet, Human Nature. You’ll also be able to catch some of the headliners at the NSW sister festival, Mundi Mundi Bash, hosted on a working sheep station in Broken Hill. bigredbash.com.au; mundimundibash.com.au The Karijini Experience, WA 5–9 JULY The Karijini Experience is five days of culture, art, food and music on beautiful Banjima Country. The festival…

Slender reeds dance under the rippling channels and birdsong drifts on the breeze, harmonising with the soft shushing of grasses. WITH EYES CLOSED AND FACE directed to the barely fathomable beyond, there comes a tremendous awareness of the firm stone beneath my feet. This rock has been relentlessly pummelled by saltwater for millennia. Yet, even after all those thousands of years colliding with ocean and wind, it remains steadfast. With the same stoicism, the brisk coastal wind makes landfall from its journey beyond the horizon, whipping windcheaters into sails and tussling untethered hairs. And the ocean itself, bridled by lunar whims, carries on with its undeviating rhythm, in and out, in and out. It’s a cathartic reminder of just how insignificant our impression here is. None of us will outlive…

COME MARCH, ADELAIDE TRANSFORMS into a locus of art, music and culture from around the world. This is all thanks to the annual WOMADelaide festival, known for collating a motley of international performers into an eclectic program. WOMADelaide runs adjacent to two of the city’s largest festivals, Adelaide Fringe and Adelaide Festival, a trifecta that brings an ebullient buzz to the City of Churches at the end of each summer. Now in its 31st year, the 2023 edition of WOMADelaide will see some of the festival’s biggest headliners to date – with Grammy nominees Bon Iver and Florence + the Machine taking the stage in Botanic Park/Tainmuntilla. The festival’s goal is to pull together music and art from niche and mainstream genres from around the globe. WOMADelaide (which stands for…

THE WATER LAPS SOFTLY against your legs just off the quiet shores of the Hawkesbury River, tree-studded ridges dancing at its edges. The sun is warm on your back, yet the cool breeze coming off the river makes you shiver with delight. Decked out in a pair of rubber waders, you’ve just learnt how to shuck a locally grown Broken Bay oyster and now you get to experience its slippery explosion of oceanic flavours in the same waters it was sourced. Sydney Oyster Farm Tours is a recent addition to the Central Coast Makers Trail. This self-drive food, drink, agritourism and aquaculture journey an hour north of Sydney takes in local producers trading in everything from pearls and spices to beer and botanical wines to cheese and chocolate. A blossoming…

Alba Thermal Springs & Spa, Vic Discover the regenerative forces of nature at Alba Thermal Springs and Spa in the Mornington Peninsula, where more than 30 natural pools, from geothermal hot springs to herbal-infused botanical pools, are surrounded by coastal Moonah woodland. Opt for a night pass to soak up the tranquillity of the sunset or starry sky. albathermalsprings.com.au Aurora Spa & Bathhouse, Vic This European-inspired bathhouse (pictured left) in Sorrento will take you on a wellness journey with luxurious treatments and year-round mineral bathing. An understated yet decadent interior is inspired by the soothing palette of the surrounding Mornington Peninsula, a slice of serenity just an hour outside of Melbourne. auroraspa.com.au BODHI Yallingup, WA The Margaret River region is renowned for its pristine, unspoilt beauty. BODHI Yallingup spa continues…

NAMADGI NATIONAL PARK MIGHT BE the only national park in the Australian Capital Territory, but it’s a big one, taking up nearly half (46 per cent) of the ACT, a fact that surprises even most Canberrans. Just 40 minutes south-west of Canberra city, with more than 106,000 hectares of alpine, sub-alpine and mountain areas, Namadgi is dominated by high granite peaks, but there are surprises too – such as hidden fern gullies, waterfalls and special bogs called fens. The high-altitude sphagnum moss bogs provide critical habitat for endangered species and act as giant sponges purifying and slowly releasing pristine water for Canberra’s water supply. On Ngunnawal land, Namadgi is named for the Aboriginal word for the mountains it resides among, with evidence it’s been inhabited for 21,000 years. A shocking…

“WELCOME TO LIFE,” is the cheery greeting I get when I check in. It’s the type of thing a midwife might say to a newborn, but in this case, I’m being welcomed not to life itself but ‘lyf’, a ‘co-living hotel’ in the backstreets of Collingwood, Melbourne. The open-plan lobby’s workstations fitted with ample charging outlets set the tone from the get-go. This is a buzzy place made for travellers who take their work with them wherever they are in the world. If you’re cool with a small, utilitarian room because you spend most of your time out and about, this place is for you. The hotel’s shared spaces have been designed to foster connection and collaboration. I find a community kitchen for guests to prepare meals behind the reception…

Eco adventures LIVING HERE IN lutruwita/Tasmania can feel like having the nature channel on 24/7 and visitors have long been drawn to the state for this reason. But with ecotourism booming, the environment, as palawa Elder Clyde Mansell stresses, is “in danger of being loved to death” – and it’s more important than ever that our outdoor adventures don’t compromise the very thing we’re here to appreciate. As travellers and consumers seeking to protect the island’s landscapes and its cultural and heritage values, we must look beyond the blurb and into the literal backyards of the owners of Tasmania’s outdoor adventure tour companies. Where do they live? How do they live? And do they personally practise the values espoused by their business? Those passing the litmus test include Roaring 40ºs…

IT’S LUCKY NO ONE CAN hear you swear halfway along the Oodnadatta Track. I gingerly shimmy under the stricken Nissan Patrol for my third #$@&%*! attempt to jack it up on the soft track. The passenger-side rear tyre has a #$@&%*! gaping hole in it, thanks to a sharp #$@&%*! rock that must have been lurking under the red-dirt. #$@&! This was my first ‘real’ middle-of-nowhere outback road trip, last decade. The 4WD had threatened to fall on me twice as I tried to raise it. I hadn’t seen another vehicle in hours. And I knew that even if I did manage to change the wheel before wedge-tailed eagles snacked on my entrails, I would be sans spare tyre for the next few hundred kilometres. It’s obvious now that my…

El Questro AS WE THUNDER ALONG THE RED DIRT ROAD there isn’t a storm cloud in sight. No sign of the heavenly downpour that took place here just last week. Technically it’s the start of the wet season in the East Kimberley, but as our 4WD travels over thirsty earth, we leave a plume of dust in our wake. Later as we slow-weave our way deeper into the landscape, the majesty of Balanggarra Country is so close we can literally reach out of our open-style safari vehicle and touch it. As if reading our thoughts, our Akubra-clad guide, Todd Smith, looks back eagerly through the rear vision mirror. “Do you reckon you can keep a secret?” he asks with excitement brimming in his voice. “If so, I’ll show you something…

5–13 MARCH Brunswick Music Festival MELBOURNE, VIC Brunswick Music Festival delivers an event just as cool as the inner-city precinct itself. This year’s edition is headlined by psychedelic pop band Crumb and Niger’s Mdou Moctar. As a Tuareg musician, Moctar brings the dreamy Sahara Desert blues of his home country. brunswickmusicfestival.com.au 10 FEBRUARY – 5 MARCH PERTH FESTIVAL PERTH, WA Perth Festival pulls together an irresistible program of eclectic musicians and artists. This year, attendees can discover a cybersonic Garden of Eden and accompanying concert curated by none other than Icelandic iconoclast, Björk. perthfestival.com.au UNTIL 19 FEBRUARY CRESSIDA CAMPBELL NGA, CANBERRA, ACT “Find beauty in the everyday” is a common aphorism. Perhaps nobody embodies this better than artist Cressida Campbell, whose works capture the romance of oft-overlooked objects. This NGA…