Innholdsfortegnelse for August - October 2023 i Australian Traveller

SPRING IS ON THE HORIZON and this issue is all about waking up and tuning in. Not hitting snooze, but the reset button instead, and getting out there to experience Australia in all its sensory glory: from its coastal walking trails to its outback wilderness and from its wineries to its wellness retreats. I find good vibrations and meaningful connections in the Barossa Valley, while Kassia Byrnes spends an immersive 24 hours at Horizontal Falls and Emily Murphy gives us a first look at Ulur-u’s spectacular new light show, Wintjiri Wir-u. Megan Arkinstall loses sense of time deep in the Flinders Ranges on the Arkaba Walk, while Celeste Mitchell has a very gourmet experience on WA’s Cape to Cape Track. Elizabeth Whitehead experiences one of Kakadu’s six seasons and Carla…

Something like a phenomenon It’s not every day that Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre floods. In fact, this South Australian lake only fills entirely once every 25 years. That time is now. The floodwater that drenched north-west Queensland in May has moved south towards the inland salt pan, filling its vast network of streams, channels and floodplains along the way. Outback Spirit has added additional departures for its 2023 Lake Eyre season. Soar over Australia’s largest inland lake on a scenic flight on one of two seven-day tours, held in August and September, which include outback icons such as the Oodnadatta Track and Birdsville on the itineraries. outbackspirittours.com.au AT loves...Dinosaur Designs’ Flamingo collection Louise Olsen and Stephen Ormandy of Dinosaur Designs have taken what’s often considered the world’s oldest colour…

Reviews FOR A LONG TIME, VISITORS were hard-pressed to find top-quality hotels at the Southern Cross Station end of Melbourne’s CBD. Thankfully, this busy pocket of town has recently experienced a wave of new hotel openings, with the Dorsett Melbourne one of the latest to join the fold. Tucked away on Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne is the fourth Dorsett outpost in Australia. While the city’s streets buzz with the clatter of trams and traffic jams, the Dorsett is an oasis of quiet and calm. The warm, open-plan lobby is an exercise in playful opulence. Featuring luxe soft furnishings in varying shades of forest green, russet and beige, glam golden fixtures and floral arrangements add a touch of class to the space. The check-in process runs with the smooth efficiency you’d…

AFTER BEING OVERLOOKED for so long, Melbourne’s unassuming western suburbs are finally stepping into the spotlight. Just half an hour from the city centre, Werribee was once mostly known for its market gardens, water treatment plant and open range zoo. Now, the rapidly evolving suburb is shaking off stereotypes with savvy entrepreneurs opening new eateries, bars and hotels that are breathing life into an area ripe with potential. Put simply, Werribee is getting on with business. Home to a community rich with cultural and linguistic diversity, you’ll see global influences left, right and centre when you walk the streets. There’s a real buzz around Watton Street in particular, with the shopping strip being slowly revitalised with the addition of a classy wine bar, hit Italian restaurant and a sandwich spot…

LIKE MOST LONG WEEKENDS AWAY, ours starts with an early Friday afternoon knock-off, but instead of battling the afternoon traffic on the freeway, we head to the Brisbane International Cruise Terminal. We’re setting sail on a four-night round-trip weekend getaway on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas that departs from our hometown and holds the promise of a unique way to explore our own backyard. With a port day in Airlie Beach bookended by sea days, we won’t have to worry about getting from one destination to the next, whose turn it is to cook dinner or what to do each evening. It sounds like heaven and we can’t wait to get onboard. PLANNING IS EVERYTHING With more than 4000 passengers wanting to make the most of their long weekend,…

“ONCE A TRIP SOMEONE WILL SAY to me, you can’t call this a job!” Elise Parker laughs as we journey towards the starting point for today’s hike. As a guide and driver, Elise is attuned to the envy her guests feel, having pressed pause on their busy lives and discovered the slow road. She sees it every week. The drive to Redgate Beach, one of many famous surf spots along Western Australia’s Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park coastline, is stunning to the point of distraction: the forest-flanked roads, the shimmering blue of the Indian Ocean on the horizon and barely another soul to be seen. “Keep your eyes out for your favourite winery, because no doubt we’ll pass it,” our lead guide Matt Fuller adds from the back of the bus. Vans…

Wintjiri Wiru VENTURING INTO THE ANCIENT Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is something you will never forget. Sacred to the Anangu people, Uluru holds secrets to many Anangu creation stories, or Tjukurpa (pronounced ‘chook-orr-pa’). Tjukurpa is the foundation of Anangu culture and is what connects the Yankunytjatjara and Pitjantjatjara people to Country and their ancestors. It is all-encompassing. From important lessons on survival, to relationships and how to behave and the origins of the universe. Passed on verbally through generations, you won’t find a book on Tjukurpa, and equally, you won’t be able to learn Tjukurpa stories on a whim. Anangu only share Tjukurpa with people they trust as it’s an intimate look into their culture. For the first time, visitors are receiving a privileged invitation to personally experience a Tjukurpa…

THE TOP HIDDEN BARS IN SYDNEY Skip the long lines and hunker down with a cocktail among quirky decor and moody lighting at these 15 hidden bars in Sydney. If you can find their entrances. AUSTRALIA’S COOLEST NUDE BEACHES If you love the freedom that comes with taking your kit off in summer, these nude beaches across Australia are the place for you. NOOSA NATIONAL PARK GUIDE Noosa is more than just a prime holiday location, it’s home to a natural wonderland. Check out our ultimate Noosa National Park guide. MELBOURNE’S BEST BOTTOMLESS BRUNCHES Get dressed up, grab your closest friends and make haste. These Melbourne bottomless brunch spots are calling your name. LET’S GET DIGITAL Get the latest travel news, reviews, offers and more, direct to your inbox. australiantraveller.com…

ROOM WITH A VIEW Sydneysiders dreaming of a spring staycay should put the Manly Pacific – MGallery on their radar. The iconic hotel, which first opened in the early 1900s, was redesigned as part of a $30 million collaboration with Coco Republic as an elegant ode to the ocean. Despite being a hot chippie’s throw away from Manly Beach, you will want to stay and play all day at the 213-room hotel, which ups the coastal-chic vibes. Lounge beside the pool, enjoy seaside dining at Bistro Manly and cocktails at 55 North. manlypacific.com.au ITALIAN ACCENTS Sydney’s iconic Hotel Morris, first opened in 1929, is one of Australia’s first Handwritten Collection hotels. The charming Heritage-listed property, operated by Accor, features 82 beautifully restored Art Deco-style rooms. Expect exuberant tones and rich…

IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE that you could squeeze any more natural beauty into the Dandenong Ranges. That was until the lush mountainous region, just 35 kilometres east of Melbourne, was gifted a new garden. Technically, the garden is a replica – its original incarnation made history as the first Australian entry to win Best in Show at London’s prestigious RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2013. Ten years later, it has been recreated on Wurundjeri Country within the Dandenong Ranges Botanic Garden by its original landscape designer, Phillip Johnson. Johnson says the new Chelsea Australian Garden at Olinda has features of the original, such as “the incredible rocky gorge”, a collection of stones meticulously stacked to create a rocky wall above the billabong. The garden, which opened to the public in…

Walk the walk IT’S HARD TO IMAGINE SYDNEY without its iconic arch spanning the harbour. It’s even harder to imagine that same landscape hundreds or thousands of years ago, but I do exactly that atop this beloved landmark on an Indigenous-led bridge climb. The Burrawa Indigenous Climb Experience launched in 2021 and provides not only stellar views and a sense of achievement but also the chance to learn what the landmarks mean to the 29 clans of the Eora nation, the Traditional Owners. After watching an Acknowledgement of Country of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation via video link, we attend a safety briefing, hand over our belongings and don grey jumpsuits. I’m with First Nations guide Kyle Ivey, who is leading the tour. Kyle, a Bundjalung man, starts…

Reviews I NEVER ORDER THE TIRAMISU. If fellow diners order one, I’ll dig a spoon in to appraise its worthiness. But I rarely have anything agreeable to say. And, you know what your mother says about not having anything nice to say. Hence why the tiramisu is studiously avoided. This dessert doctrine comes about because my Sicilian father makes the gold standard of this pick-me-up laced with mood-improving coffee and booze. Rarely do other versions of this calorie-rich sweet meet that elevated bar, even in Italy. Too often they’re just goldfish bowls of cream that leave a cloying lactic finale to a meal, inevitably leading to button-loosening and regret. I’ll have none of it. But tonight, I dine at Byron Bay’s hot new eatery, Pixie, with a companion who unfailingly…

NOTHING WILL SHAKE OFF the stultifying mundanity of a flight delay – five hours, one cup of consolation coffee and a complimentary pack of desultory mini biscuits later – quite like hearing Damien Tscharke describe the esoteric principles of biodynamic winemaking. We’re talking lunar cycles and vibrations. Energies and frequencies. Order and chaos. We’re on another plane, figuratively – and mercifully not literally – speaking. Through Tscharke Wines, Damien is evolving Barossa Valley traditions with a single-minded dedication to sustainable winemaking of the highest degree; today it is one of just three certified organic and biodynamic wine producers in this South Australian region. Damien blurs the line between science and art with his innovative development of grape varietals such as albariño and montepulciano. And while he comes from six generations…

ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE The forecast is SUNNY this spring with VIBRANT wining and DINING experiences that shrug off the grey of winter and make the most of the SEASON, writes Carla Grossetti. Pretty-as cafes Plant yourself in Sydney’s south HAZELHURST CAFE (pictured above) screams spring, with bunches of blooms, pots of upturned paint and trailing plants setting the scene for the colourful cafe, an offshoot of HAZELHURST ARTS CENTRE, in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire. Sit on a lipstick-pink table on the terrace to enjoy a light lunch of crispy duck salad, spritzer on the side. hazelhurstcafe.com.au Bay watch in WA Beguiling from every angle, LITTLE BAY is a light, bright cafe that is all swing chairs and sunshine just metres away from Perth’s Watermans Bay. Fill your keep…

Arkaba A LAYER OF OCHRE-COLOURED DUST has already settled on my hiking boots. We have only been walking for what feels like an hour, following the beaten track that meanders into Wilpena Pound/Ikara in the shade of lofty river red gums. We leave behind two emus fossicking in the undergrowth and stop to watch a pair of Mallee ringneck parrots as they flit through the trees like splatters of technicolour paint. We reach Hills Homestead, a stone house built in the early 1900s by European pastoralists, where we pause for cups of hot tea. I ask our guide, Bruce, how far we have just walked, curious to gauge how difficult the hike ahead of us is going to be. He doesn’t answer my question; instead, he gently offers this piece…

THE NGV EXHIBITION Pierre Bonnard: Designed by India Mahdavi (until 8 October) is a case study in colour. Bonnard is one of the 20th century’s most beloved painters, a master of the palette whose use of pigment serves as a mediator of emotion. From the iridescent pastels that bleed together to form enigmatic dreamscapes to the vibrant shades that leap out of the frame, colour is the language of the artist that speaks volumes to the observer. And there’s no place more befitting to witness a Bonnard than among the dramatic scenography curated by India Mahdavi. The Paris-based architect and designer says she “sought to design a mise en abyme”, an art technique (that literally translates to ‘placement in abyss’) in which a copy of an artwork is placed within…

HELLO DOLLY Dolly is the swanky new subterranean bar in the basement of Le Méridien Melbourne. The speakeasy-style bar with a moody 1930s backdrop pays homage to the golden age of cinema and the dolly zoom camera technique pioneered during the filming of Vertigo, Hitchcock’s 1958 masterpiece. Zoom out to admire executive chef Christian Graebner’s Euro fare such as oysters served with Champagne sorbet. dollymelbourne.com Good times, bad decor Manky Sally’s is the brand-new home for Moo Brew, Mona’s very own brewery. Located on Hobart’s Salamanca Place, this luxury dive bar offers a taste of the museum (and its idiosyncrasies) in the heart of the city. Come for the beer and Asian-leaning bites and stay for the good vibes and bad carpet. The teeny-tiny brewery also offers tours and tastings…

I’M NOT MY MOST-WELL SELF when I check into Gaia Retreat & Spa in the Byron Bay hinterland. An immune system waging a prolonged conflict with itself persists, despite my assurances we’re actually on the same side. The squeeze from full-time parenting in tandem with full-time business-running is tightening. And those interest rate rises have dolloped an unappetising quenelle on an already full plate. Although I manage an alacrity for life even when the highlights feel dim, I’m hoping this wellness retreat will offer a better way to maintain my physical and mental health while navigating minor hardships. It’s tricky to unshackle ourselves from our perpetually renewing bad habits. You know the culprits: the angst-driven over-achieving, the overt consumerism, the doom-scrolling and the self-medicating. Tick all that apply. But what…

NEVER DID WE EVER THINK we’d see a four-poster bed in a caravan park. And yet here we are, gazing with bewildered awe at white draping billowed by split system air conditioning, with views of a wooden deck sparkling with strung globes. There’s also a flat screen, a lumberjack-style wood-panelled kitchen with a microwave and a swish, en suite bathroom – all wrapped within canvas walls, and all from $179 per night. Camping used to mean rugged sleeps on hard ground after your air mattress betrayed you. Going off-grid tended to be code for ocean baths and smoke-fragranced clothing with a rubbish bag shoved in the boot. But none of it, it seems, is true anymore. Or at least, it doesn’t have to be. The basic options are still there,…

UNTIL 17 SEPTEMBER Frida & Diego: Love & Revolution ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA, SA Step into post-revolution Mexico at the Art Gallery of South Australia to discover a dramatic fusion of artworks by trailblazing creatives and lovers Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Featuring more than 150 works – from paintings to photographs – the exhibition introduces Australia to the life, love and politics that surrounded this influential couple. agsa.sa.gov.au 10–27 AUGUST DARWIN FESTIVAL DARWIN, NT While the rest of Australia rugs up for the winter, Darwin remains the perfect temperature for festivities. That’s why Darwin Festival is pulling together more than 280 vibrant performances of music, dance, comedy and theatre, turning up the volume in the NT’s vibrant capital. darwinfestival.org.au 25 AUGUST – 3 SEPTEMBER…