SCENE STEALER
Scene Stealer - Luxury Travel Magazine
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Scene Stealer | |||||
| By: Hilary Doling, Issue 35 – Winter 2008 | |||||
| (Qualia – Hamilton Island, Queensland, Australia) | |||||
| AUSTRALIA’S CHICEST TROPICAL RESORT IS NOW NINE MONTHS OLD AND CELEBRATING BY OPENING 33 NEW SUITES. | |||||
| Down at the busy Hamilton Island marina, golf carts jostle for parking space next to ice cream shops and resort wear boutiques. Cars are few but carts are many, the preferred form of transport on this Whitsunday holiday island. But mine still manages to cause a stir; I’m clearly driving the Rolls Royce of buggies as we zip through town. My sleek shiny electric cart is complimentary and top of the range like almost everything else at the all-inclusive and exclusive Qualia resort. | |||||
| We purr up the hill away from the mayhem of the marina and through the gates of Qualia – ahh peace. Set on the tip of the island, its 27 suites surrounded by tropical gardens make Qualia more retreat than resort. Even the 33 new studios due to open any day now won’t spoil the tranquility. Cleverly designed by Chris Beckingham – who also created owner Bob Oatley’s own house on Hamilton – Qualia’s private pavilions, outdoor showers and wide balconies are reminiscent of the very best of Asian resort design. Yet thanks to corrugated iron roofs and wide eaves the property somehow manages to stay resolutely Australian at the same time. | |||||
| The name of the resort, Qualia, derives from a Latin word that means the qualities of things as we experience them with our senses. And that’s just what Qualia claims to offer – a feast of sensory experiences. | |||||
| Sight | |||||
| Did I like Qualia? You could say it was love at first sight. Because the entrance to the resort definitely has what is commonly called ‘the wow factor’. Double doors open on to the vast 100-metres Long Pavilion, an indoor-outdoor space open to the sea and sky. It’s like walking into an art gallery with a vast work of art along one wall. The view is a watercolour painting of the Whitsunday passage, brushstrokes of blue dotted with emerald green islands like splashes of paint on the canvas. Except this artwork is ever changing; sometimes there is the white streak of a boat’s wake and at sunset when we sit sipping champagne cocktails, the ‘canvas’ is streaked ochre and vermillion, one misty morning it’s an abstract study in greys. In the suites too the eye is drawn outwards towards the water and the neighbouring island. There’s even a bath-with-a-view, surrounded by floor to ceiling windows to the world. | |||||
| Sound | |||||
| It’s the drippy end of the rainy season when I stay at Qualia and rain plays timpani on the designer tin roof. Oddly this makes my stay particularly magical and forces me to relax. Huge covered verandahs the size of a room means lazy days are spent lounging on the outdoor day bed reading a book as the rain finds its rhythm. The rain haze is like a net curtain drawn across the view. Its patter mutes other sounds. Because the sky isn’t unrelentingly blue, when the sun appears I appreciate the beauty of my surroundings even more. I also appreciate the sound of silence. I close my eyes. There is the insect buzz of a far off boat and the rustle of the wind through the lush eucalypts and melaleucas planted all around the resort, and that’s it. On our isolated point we seem to be a world away from frenetic holiday-Hamilton. | |||||
| One little sound track I personally could do without is the revolving Michael Bublé tape in the Long Pavilion. I joke with fellow guests about having been ‘Bubléd’ during our stay and we all agree you can have too much of a good thing. | |||||
| Taste | |||||
| Breakfast and dinner are served in the Long Pavilion where people gravitate to the open deck. Chef Stephan Rio combines French flare with Aussie ingredients such as lemon myrtle. The degustation menu, regularly on offer, is a great way to sample his combination of tastes. Lunch is more casual and served down at the sand-side Pebble Beach restaurant a short saronged stroll from the pool. | |||||
| Touch | |||||
| The spa has been built at the very heart of the resort at the crown of the hill and it sets the spirit of place. Rooms radiate off an inner courtyard with peaceful lily ponds – all is calm. Many of the senses are satisfied here, the scent of essential oils from the oil burners, the subtle taste of the organic cleansing teas but most of all it is ‘touch’ as the therapists’ fingers stroke away city tension and balance the body. I recommend the Bularri Yarrul hot stone treatment, using stones from northern NSW as a very special experience. | |||||
| Afterwards I fairly float back to my suite, feet barely touching the ground. One evening I go to the spa’s pavilion for a sunset mediation session: with my eyes closed I am aware of the gentle touch of the soft breeze against my skin. | |||||
| Scent | |||||
| The perfumes of the spa, the Anoint chakratherapy oils, and the rose and lavender of the Eminence and Phyts face and body treatments are on my skin as I walk down the hill from the spa. In the rooms Aesop toiletries are also an indulgence for your sense of smell. At the end of my stay I’ve reconnected with those small sensual pleasures like the taste of good leaf tea or the smell of scented bath oils, and am determined to incorporate them into my busy home life. To help me there is a good-bye present in my room, a Linden Leaves body oil called ‘Memories’. | |||||
| Details: | |||||
| Qualia | |||||
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