OZtralia.tv Blog

Get What You Pay For

By: Phoenix Arrien

Australian luxury hotels are increasingly offering sleep menus. No, this is not being fed through the ears while you sleep, it is offers of services and amenities to help sleep come about easier.

Sleep menus often include:

• Massages

• Yoga

• Aromatherapy, such as baths or candles

• Scented (usually lavender) eye pillows

• Nightcaps

• Soothing music

• Herbal teas

• Some items that hotels offer we don’t usually think about until we need them including sewing kits - to repair that tear or resew the button back on the garment;

• Shoe polish and shine - if the shoes are looking a bit scruffy there are often shoe shine kits or even the concierge will shine them for you;

• Discounts for restaurant or shops in the local area

• Cellphone charger - forgot yours? Often hotels have the most common types

• Secretarial services - photocopying, typing, personal assistance and deliveries are often available

Just ask!

A ‘Fancy’ Melbourne Hotel

By: Phoenix Arrien

Luxury hotel rooms are an enviable opportunity to indulge and feel just a little, well, superior and the opulent suites of the Windsor Hotel on the edge of the Melbourne’s CBD is just too easy to make certain friends envious.

The hotel has had 125 years to perfect the fine art of envy and it does it well. So stay in an opulent suite, invite friends to tea, walk them under the dining room’s higher-than-heaven, art-deco ceilings and begin with the finger sandwiches at the top of the three tiered silver stand on your table, work your way through the little rich pastries and finish with Devonshire Tea.

Next lead the way to the top of this grande olde dame of regal hotels, throw open the door to your suite and bow graciously. The ooh’s! The aaah’s! Or at least grunts of appreciation (surely) as friends take in the golden rooms decorated with swish drapes, plush carpeting and period furniture.

Wave them to the mahogany seats, pour tea into gleaming china cups or nonchantly produce drinks in clinking crystal glasses from the bar, then let them gaze through the bay windows at views of Parliament House and parks.

Carelessly drop a few previous guests’ names - Kylie Minogue, John Howard, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Muhammad Ali and Katherine Hepburn - then shoo them out. ‘You will excuse me of course; the butler needs to run the bath - that clawfooted one in the marble bathroom. Do come again next lifetime’.

www.thewindsor.com.au

Being Active in Australia

By: Phoenix Arrien

All this activity creates an appetite and it’s time to immerse myself in the good life and indulge in the local specialities. Mt Beauty is part of the great north-eastern Victorian expanse of fertile ground called the Kiewa Valley and the local producers are churning out exceptionally good food and wine, beckoning visitors with delicious choices.

Firstly, drinks at the iconic Bogong Hotel where we swapped stories with other adventurers, much like polar explorers at an Antarctic Base, while the fire roars in the old fireplace and mists descend into the valley.

Next door is Roi’s Diner, a misleading title for an exceptional restaurant we had not expected to find ‘out in the sticks’. Roi is a sumptuously skilled and talented chef who, after a heart attack in the big smoke, came out to the slow tranquillity of Mt Beauty, bringing his 35 years of culinary skill with him.

Roi holds classes at the local TAFE teaching, “…old farmers who used to live on baked beans. They now all have pasta machines.” From the melt-in-the-mouth smoked salmon and fresh polenta bread entrée to the Berry and Cointreau ice cream dessert, I can understand those farmers.

In a contented celebratory mood we continue our gourmet trail the next day at the Annapurna Estate with a locally produced antipasto platter for morning tea washed down by a light, white Pinot Gris. There is enough room for lunch further down the road at the Ceccanti Winery where a picturesque lunch under shady trees takes the concept of succulent mustard chicken and real chocolate pie to new heights of human appreciation.

Passionate Italians who live and breathe their food and wine in beautiful environments run both estates. I find out later that Annapurna means the ‘The Goddess of Bountiful Harvest and Fertility’ Let me add the Goddess of Good Times. Bellissimo!

More information:

Kiewa View Cottage: info@kiewaview.com www.kiewaview.com

Bogong Horseback Adventures:  (03) 5754 4849  www.bogonghorse.com.au

Gliding Club:  (03) 5754 1719  www.visitmtbeauty.com.au/gliding

Bogong Hotel (03)  5754 4482  bogonghotel@bigpond.com

Roi’s Diner Ph 03 5754 4495  www.roisdiner.com.au

Ceccanti Wines  (03) 5754 5236  www.ceccanti.com.au/home/index.htm

Annapurna Estate  (03) 5754 4517  www.annapurnawines.com.au

Active Beauty: Part Two

By: Phoenix Arrien
After my gliding experience and still on a high, I head back to our accommodation. As we are doing activities that concerned preliminary walking through muddy fields, we forsake a hotel and stay at Kiewa View Cottage, a comfortable three bedroom house central to everything. The house has a dedicated and very useful area to store equipment, hang up dirty outdoor clothing, then spread out to stretch and relax.

My goal the next day is to taste the wind again and I ride out from an old tobacco shed converted into atmospheric stables with the fine folk at the Bogong Horseback Adventures to explore the slopes and forests of the valley.

The ride is exhilarating as we trot up slopes to look at the layers of mountains, make our way along tracks overhung by gum trees and canter on long flat runs.

Mt Beauty is the home of mountain biking and many people also visit to experience bushwalking in the summer and skiing in the winter. Fourwheel driving, fishing and boating also takes people deep into the mountains along, into or on top of icy, fresh rivers and lakes.

Tomorrow…eat, drink and be merry

I just had the best weekend for a long time…

By: Phoenix Arrien

Next time the fella asks what do women want, I can honestly say, a girl’s weekend away. Add: a ‘luxury’ girls weekend away. This is one of the biggest trends in Australia in recent years and I recently partook. Good friend Annie and I left the blokes behind, jumped on a train into Melbourne’s CBD and indulged in Stamford Hotel’s Celebration package.

I didn’t realise how much fun it would be. Girls and luxury go together like cashmere and silk… or pies and footy. The Stamford is a high rise hotel located near Melbourne’s city attractions and we giggled and gossiped all the way up to our room. There to be met by a large space with balloon, slippers, headbands, magazines and views of the city.

A ‘High Tea’ came in a multi-tiered stand of sweet and scrumptious goodies that didn’t survive very long. Champagne bubbled away in glasses, squeals and squeaks arose all through the afternoon and I realised that I could never be this silly and ecstatically frivolous with a bloke.

No, sometimes it takes another gal to gush, giggle, gurgle and gumf.

Stamford’s Celebration Package is available at nine Stamford Hotels and Resorts throughout Australia including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide as well as Auckland, New Zealand.

Australia’s Southern Road of Wonders

By: Phoenix Arrien

Further along is quieter Apollo Bay, home to fishing boats and a well-attended annual music festival. The crescent shaped beach, ending in a small harbour, shelters marine life from the rougher Southern ocean and I spend a happy hour with a socialable grey seal cavorting by the pier.

Time for a bit of a feed at one of the cafes and a bed at one of the hotels. See you bright and chirpy tomorrow.

It’s not just water we had come to see. The dense, tall-timbered rainforest of the Otway Ranges is a diamond in a region of jewels. Within its massive 88,000 hectares are waterfalls, lakes, glades of massive tree ferns and native animals. Maitland’s rest is a historic little walk taking us through a lush rainforest pocket of ferns and creeks.

Little villages dot the area around the Otways allowing you peace and quiet, the reason Ron Kintscher, a UFO fan loves the area. Living in a pyramid-like structure he built himself (from which he sometimes flashes coloured lights to intrigue passers-by), Ron operates two unique self-contained guest cottages named ‘Seatree’ so named because it is near the sea and he loves trees) in the peaceful little village of Yulong.

He pointed us to neat little secluded beaches you can only get to by foot or boat and the rustic ambience of little places with sweet names like Lavers Hill.

A long soak in one of the Seatree cottage’s spas whilst gazing at the vista of sea, forest and pasture is taking me into blissful relaxation. This is the true escape: beautiful landscapes and luxury surroundings with no doorknocks, phones or faxes squealing their intrusions.

Yawn, final day tomorrow and I will take you to the Apostles for a divine experience.

Green Vacations in Australia

By: Phoenix Arrien

Want to travel to Australia and stay somewhere a little greener? A resort in the sunny north-eastern state of Queensland has become Australia’s first 100 percent solar-powered and carbon-neutral tourism operator.

Hidden Valley Cabins and Tours on the Paluma range - one and a half hours northwest of Townsville - now leads this country in a crucial environmental initiative. Owners Ian and Bonnie McLennan use alternative natural power sources as well as purchasing carbon credits and using to offset any green house gases which are released.

It is a stand-alone operation drawing no support from a power grid. The McLennan’s have introduced a range of carbon-friendly initiatives including replacing conventional light bulbs with energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs and minimising waste by compacting food and paper products for use in the garden.

Other green initiatives include educating guests and the public on the importance of protecting wildlife; building low impact walking tracks; recycling all aluminium cans, papers and cardboards; planting native trees and vegetation; and building with local timber.

The original Hidden Valley Cabins were established in 1982 to cater for timber cutters, tin miners and graziers in the area. Ian and Bonnie McLennan bought the resort 21 years ago, demolishing the existing buildings and rebuilding the entire resort.

The frame work and roof trusses are made from selectively logged local hard wood and the outside cladding on the buildings is railway sleeper off cuts which were commissioned to be burnt if not purchased by the McLennan’s.

The McLennan’s also undertook substantial revegetation to replace any native trees or plants lost in construction. A swag of awards has found its way to their wall and mantelpiece: Best Hosted Accommodation, Best New Tourism Development 2007 and a finalist in the 2007 Queensland Tourism Awards for best Hosted Accommodation.

Situated near Running River on the western slope of the Paluma range, it is home to varying species of birds, butterflies, wallabies, lace monitors, platypus and nocturnal animals.

Giving You The Best Australian Travel Experience

By: OZtralia.tv Staff

We are proud to continue to give you the best travel experience for Australia online.

From our video map, you can see all of Australia. But now, from our direct pages, we also give you a wealth of written information on every location we cover in Australia.

Below are links so you can check it all out yourself.

Watch videos and find information about
all the amazing Australia’s travel destinations:

» Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest
» Sunshine Coast - Noosa
» Brisbane
» Canberra
» Melbourne
» Byron Bay and the Rainbow Valley
» Sydney
» Whitsunday-Overview
» Rainbow Valley
» Hobart and Southern Tasmania
» Northern Tasmania
» Perth and the Sunset Coast
» Cairns and Port Douglas
» Surfer’s Paradise and the Gold Coast
» Uluru
» The Great Ocean Road

The Australian Outback’s Crown Jewel

By: Phoenix Arrien

A four hour bus trip takes me from Alice Springs to the largest stone monolith on earth. Riding high on anticipation I keep my eyes on the horizon as the bus trundles on, kicking up red dust.

Then out of the flat plains rise a shadow - there it is!

Oh.

It is just a large rock.

I feel disappointed…it just doesn’t…well…impress.

Then the driver informs us it is actually ‘some hill or other’. The entire bus contingent chuckles self-consciously as if to pretend that we all knew that all along, of course.

Uluru was named ‘Ayres Rock’ by explorer William Grosse in 1875. It is an important place for Aboriginal peoples of the Central Desert, contains many sacred sites and doubles as a well-known Australian tourist symbol. When in 1985 Uluru was returned to Indigenous owners, it became an important symbol in the often turbulent relations between governments and Aboriginal people.

Then I see it and what a strange and incredible sight it is. A great squat monolith rises from the desert like a gigantic red cocoon or a very still creature from a Dreamtime creation story. Looking like the top is going to crack open and a fantastical butterfly from some Dreamtime legend is going to heave out and shadow the entire desert with its wings, the experience of  being at the Rock is disconcerting and entirely mesmerising.

It is a hauntingly beautiful red iceberg in a hot sea of sand and scrub and it plays with my imagination and senses. The rock is smooth, except for strange dark abrasions and holes. Ledges and caves pock the surface. People are crawling up the side of the Rock to test their body’s heart attack capacity, however this is discouraged by the indigenous owners who feel responsible for them.

I am spending the night here to watch the sunset and sunrise colour the rock brilliant reds and blues. It changes colour and the enormous dome of sky changes behind it. This is awesome.

The Australian Outback’s Alice Springs

By: Phonix Arrien

So anyway, having survived crocodiles in the north of Australia, then watched the Logies on TV in a pub in a tiny speck of a town called Humpty Doo (seriously), I turned south towards the centre of this vast continent.

There is a town sitting in the very centre of Australia and to visit is to appreciate the resilience and ability of people, animals and plants to adapt to harsh, desert conditions. This town is called Alice Springs - even though the woman it was named after never visited the place and there is no springs anywhere nearby.

You can get to Alice by coach - takes a long time from anywhere; travel on the train, a great trip on the Ghan, named after the Afghans who supplied the great stations with supplies before the railway was built; or you can fly. Or of course you can drive.

Once there the best ways to see the sights is on a ‘get-on-get-off’ bus and my first stop is theTelegraph Station, built in 1872 as a relay for the single telegraph wire that crossed the continent from Adelaide to Darwin. The restored building contains rustic gizmos and gadgets: the ancestors of wireless internet, blackberries and strawberry coloured mobiles.

The town is actually three kilometres south of the Telegraph Station which is next to a waterhole (though hardly a ‘spring’). Alice used to be called Stuart but in 1933 was officially named the more popular title everyone had been calling it anyway: Alice Springs.

Time to tuck into a motel for the night, yawn. More tomorrow.