Health and wellness experiences
Australia’s clean air, stunning spas, world-class health retreats and wide open spaces all offer the opportunity to relax, refresh and reconnect.
In Australia, you can embrace the wellbeing of your body, mind and soul. Not only can you focus on wellness within world-class spas and health retreats, but you can also reconnect with yourself and with nature on Aboriginal culture walks or within remote accommodation. Indulge in a body clay ritual or practice yoga next to crashing ocean waves as you take a wellness journey through Australia.
Australia’s best health and wellness retreats
Revive, refresh, detox or just simply chill out at these outstanding health and wellness retreats around Australia.
Pop into these top health retreats to feel shipshape again. One has a celebrity co-owner, another includes archery and tennis, and another has a revitalising pool right next to a creek. In some cases the program is about tough love while others take a more gentle approach. Say om.
Embrace the solitude on the Gold Coast
Stay for two days or stretch it out to seven at Gwinganna Lifestyle Retreat in the Gold Coast hinterland (courtesy transfers are available from Gold Coast Airport). Try the ancient art of qi gong (a form of tai chi) while watching the sun rise over the distant Pacific Ocean. Explore the 16 walking trails or join a dance session before refuelling with an organic lunch. Afternoons are designated as dreamtime: nap, swim or read a book. Stay in a room in a reconstructed Queenslander (an elevated timber house that is a common sight throughout the state) or swan around an open-plan villa with a private plunge pool.
Get fit and be pampered near Byron Bay
Gaia Retreat & Spa, in the lush Byron Bay hinterland of northern New South Wales, comes with a celebrity connection (Grease star, Olivia Newton-John, is a co-founder). The day spa, with 14 treatment rooms and more than 35 healers and therapists, is central to the pampering Gaia experience. After starting the day with yoga, choose from activities that include clay sculpture or Let’s Get Physical fitness and boxing. Meals draw on Gaia’s own organic garden and, at dinner, guests can even enjoy a glass of organic wine.
Retreat to the world’s oldest rainforest
The treatment menu at the delectable Daintree Ecolodge and Spa, set within the wilderness of the world’s oldest rainforest in Tropical North Queensland, was developed out of respect and with approval of the elders of the local Kuku Yalanji tribe. Using 100 per cent natural ingredients, the spa creates a healing experience in harmony with nature. The signature treatment, called Walbul-Walbul (meaning ‘butterfly’), incorporates the contrasting sensations of oil and desert salts, and uses exclusive Australian indigenous products and massage techniques not found anywhere else across the globe. Relax under the canopy of the rustling rainforest and unwind with the extensive spa menu.
Soak away your cares in Victoria
Wade into the healing waters of Victoria’s spa country (home to 141 mineral springs) at Hepburn Bathhouse and Spa. The historic spa, which has been around since 1895, is today a thoroughly modern affair, with communal bathing (swimming costumes are mandatory) in the mineral relaxation pool and salt therapy pool, as well as private tubs in the spa. The complex also includes an outdoor creekside spa pool and a Moroccan-style hammam. The Hepburn area’s therapeutic mineral springs are rich with potassium, magnesium, silica and chloride.
Take detoxing to the next level on Kangaroo Island
Head to South Australia’s rugged Kangaroo Island (known as Australia’s Galapagos) for a complete lifestyle reboot. Kangaroo Island Health Retreat’s five day Dynamic Detox program isn’t for the faint of heart: only six people at a time with reasonable fitness can undergo the program at the haven overlooking Emu Bay on the island’s north coast. Daily activities include beach and country walks of up to 10 kilometres (six miles), while meals include soups and fruit platters.
Unwind near Margaret River
Just three hours south of Western Australia’s famous Margaret River is the town of Yallingup, home to the stunning Injidup Spa Retreat. The retreat features ten adult-only villas, offering the perfect getaway to recharge and reconnect. As well as a gourmet breakfast hamper on arrival, each villa has a private plunge pool and views overlooking the ocean. During your stay, participate in private yoga classes, indulge in rejuvenating spa treatments and enjoy the serenity on the expansive outdoor balcony.
Harmonise near Hobart
At Harmony Harvest Health Retreat, a 30-minute drive south of Hobart in Tasmania, it’s possible to check in for just a day’s worth of rejuvenation. The one-day Relax Retreat program includes healthy meals delivered to your two-storey eco cottage (where a spa bath sits in a striking glass-walled sun room), along with deep tissue massages and a detox mud treatment for two. Stay five nights and treatments include reflexology, an organic facial, chakra healing massage, spiritual consultation and more. An eight-day weight loss program is also available.
6 of Australia’s prettiest farmstays
Experience life on an Australian farm in these spectacular locations.
It can be a pretty good life on a farm – especially when you’re just visiting. Feel like milking a cow or making butter? Go for it. Rather just sit back with a glass of wine and soak up the views? Well, you are on holiday, after all.
On a farmstay, how much you participate is up to you, and all of these properties are about letting guests experience the country atmosphere, the fresh air and the fresh produce.
Australia’s prettiest farmstays
Near Brisbane
Just over an hour from Brisbane, in the Lost World section of the Scenic Rim (an amazing World Heritage landscape of mountains and rainforests), is Tommerup’s Dairy Farm, a small-scale operation that produces not only dairy but ethically raised pork and veal. The farm has been in the family for 140 years, and the present-day Tommerup’s are determined to give guests a taste of real country life, in a farm-to-fork adventure.
Accommodation is in 19th-century buildings that combine rural charm with modern conveniences, and activities include milking cows, feeding pigs, goat, sheep, calves and chickens, and collecting eggs, as well as fishing, kite flying and bird watching. “We want it to be an authentic experience,” says Kay Tommerup, who runs the farm, and oversees all the activities, with husband Dave. “We want people to see how milk gets from the farm to the carton. And relax, too.”
Also in Queensland is Spicers Hidden Vale, a gorgeous rambling property combining luxurious accommodation with family-friendly activities.
In Tasmania
There are lots of reasons to like the Rustic Hut farmstay in Tasmania’s north-west. Firstly, it’s near a seaside town called Penguin, which is a great name for any town, but especially one that is home to a penguin rookery and a three-metre (10-foot) tall ferro-cement Big Penguin on the esplanade.
Secondly, the farmstay offers options: you can sit back and relax in one of four rustic huts, embark on bushwalks (everything from strolls around the farm to an eight-day hike to Cradle Mountain), or get a taste of farm life by milking cows, churning butter, feeding animals (everything from cows to goats to guinea pigs) and collecting eggs.
A kids’ Aussie Adventure Club gives parents time on their own and you can get home-cooked meals to complete the genuine farm life experience. “We want to show people what we do every day,” says Tania Farrell, who owns the farm with husband Phillip. “People especially love making butter – they find it fascinating.”
Near Perth
A petting pen for little kids to meet little critters, canoeing and fishing on a three-acre dam, a games room and playground, and the chance to help feed more than 100 animals – from alpacas to turkeys to kangaroos – are all part of the family-friendly (and pet-friendly) experience at Diamond Forest Farm Stay.
Near Pemberton, in the tall-trees region of south-west Western Australia (about a 3.5-hour drive south of Perth), the farmstay offers accommodation in private, self-contained, timber cottages with slate floors and verandas boasting suitably bucolic views.
“We mostly cater to young families,” says Kerriann Turner, who runs the farm with husband Mark. “Kids get to meet farm animals up close in a safe environment, and they absolutely love it. Even if they start off a bit timid, by day two they are having a great time.”
Also worth putting on your Western Australia bucket list is El Questro, in the remote Kimberley region. A vast cattle station, it offers stunning outback waterholes, prehistoric gorges and some seriously luxurious accommodation.
Near Melbourne
A working Angus beef farm, Rivendell, in Victoria’s far east Gippsland district, has been transformed since Peter Thomas and his wife Annette bought the property in 2003. They’ve added stunning gardens, a 200-tree orchard, a truffière, and farmstay accommodation in the form of two self-contained cottages: the four-bedroom Arkenstone Cottage and the quirky one-bedroom Bag End. There’s also an on-site restaurant that can provide breakfast or dinner using farm and local ingredients.
Guests can feed sheep and chickens, groom horses, hang out with the peacocks, have a picnic and a swim at a private beach on the Tambo River, or explore further afield, where they’ll find wineries, trout fishing and boating on the Gippsland Lakes.
If you need to unwind after all that activity, the spa house in the orchard is a pretty good place to do it. “You leave the world behind when you come down the drive,” says Peter. “This is the most peaceful place you could find.”
Also in Victoria is the Royal Mail Hotel, the home of two highly regarded on-site restaurants, stylish lodgings, dedicated kitchen gardens and a food ethos centered around sustainability and seasonality.
Near Sydney
Tucked away in the hills behind the surf town of Ulladulla, four hours south of Sydney (or two hours east of Canberra), Cupitt has a little something else going for it, too: it’s home to a winery, brewery and fromagerie.
Need any more convincing? OK, well accommodation is in a charming, two-bedroom, 100-year-old heritage cottage, secluded from farm activities behind a stand of trees. “There’s a large deck with lovely sunsets over the vineyard,” says functions manager Mel Louth. “It’s an oasis, really.”
While you can’t milk cows or feed animals here, you can take a behind-the-scenes tour to see the kitchen garden and where the wine, beer and cheeses are made, attend on-site growers’ markets, and stretch your legs on the two-minute walk from your cottage to the award-winning restaurant, offering seasonal food with French and English influences.
Also in New South Wales, though located in Sydney’s Blue Mountains region, you’ll find Farm Panaroma, a 50-acre hobby farm owned by prominent Sydney chef Sean Moran who uses the farm to grow produce for his iconic Sydney restaurant.
