Heart-warming Hotels
The Sun Herald
Sunday February 13, 1994
HAYMAN ISLAND QLD
THE minute Hayman's private launch purrs up to the jetty you know you are in for a special sort of breakaway. The sleek Sun Paradise is one of two boats which collect guests from the airport on Hamilton and transfer them in celebrity style to Hayman Island.
After an hour aboard the launch with its brocade-chaired interior, wedding-white deck sofas and endless flow of champagne I defy anyone not to feel a warm romantic glow.
The illusion of having stepped on board a Hollywood film set is heightened by the fact that crew members seem to mysteriously know your name, even though you haven't been introduced. "Ms Doling, your drink", "Ms Doling, your check-in card," they whisper, as if they were asking you to sign an autograph or a billion-dollar, six picture deal.
I knew I should have worn something floaty and Rita Hayworth-ish instead of shorts and baseball cap.
Once on the island the spell isn't broken. The resort fans out behind a champagne-coloured beach. Choose the west wing for views of the amazing designer pool (seven times Olympic size) or the east wing for privacy.
Those in the throes of a really grand passion, who also happen to have a bank balance to match, can book into one of the penthouses. The largest is the exquisite French Provincial penthouse complete with grand piano and fin de siecle furnishings.
There is also the creamy Californian penthouse, where everything is operated by the push of a bedside button, and the English penthouse in muted regency stripes.
But unless you're mad about fake bamboo and native totems avoid the South Seas penthouse.
Once your suitcase has been delivered to your room you can discover the reef by helicopter, water ski, play tennis or relax in the luxury health centre.
A three-night package to Hayman flying Ansett Airlines ex Sydney costs from$769, ex Brisbane, $659. More details 13 13 44. Or book direct with Hayman on(079) 46 9100.
CABLE BEACH CLUB WA
ONCE upon a time Broome was the centre of the pearling industry and it is still a great place to collect shells if you're poor and pearl necklaces if you're rich. The area has all the ingredients for a romantic break; kilometres of deserted sand to walk along hand in hand at sunset, brazenly blue water and balmy evening breezes.
There is also the Cable Beach Club with its old world colonial charm. The whirl of fans overhead and the wide verandas look like something right out of the last days of the Raj when women were winched into their stays and men sweated behind handlebar moustaches but never, ever unbuttoned their collars in front of the staff.
The antiques and original paintings scattered around the bar and restaurant areas enhance the old world feel. As do the dark wood-stained floors. For the most romantic getaway stay in one of the shuttered bungalows, modelled on the original pearlers' cottages.
* Accommodation at the Cable Beach Club is from $176 a night. Book direct toll-free on (008) 09 5508.
MARRIOTT SURFERS PARADISE RESORT QLD
WHAT makes the Marriott's executive suite the perfect place for a romantic getaway is its bath. Yep, definitely, it's hard to go past it. This has to be the bathroom for which a champagne and bubble bath combination was invented.
The round bath has a spectacular 180 degree view of the Surfers Paradise skyline through its smoked glass windows. At dusk the two of you can sit and sip wine while the spa bubbles like Bollinger and Surfers lights up like a Christmas tree outside.
The resort seems to be a million kilometres away from the surf 'n' disco atmosphere of the rest of the Gold Coast. Words like "understated" and"elegant" and all those other adjectives glossy hotel brochures are so fond of(but which thankfully the Marriott doesn't use in its own) spring to mind.
The honey-coloured sandstone lobby with its sweeping staircase sets the style. It is quiet, cool and relaxed. Overhead, vast rattan fans sway back and forth as hypnotically as dancers' hips. This is the kind of place where you could happily wear your best evening dress or equally well drip through from the pool on your way to the lift. The wet foot marks on the tiles are a dead giveaway.
The resort is surrounded by a series of man-made lagoons. There is even an artificial reef with tropical fish for snorkellers or those who want to learn to scuba dive. Crescents of white sand surround the lagoon, so you can have a beachside holiday without ever setting foot outside the resort.
Ansett Holidays can arrange a package to the Marriott Surfers Paradise including five nights accommodation and return airfare ex Sydney from $667, ex Brisbane from $579. Call Ansett on 13 13 44 . Or the Marriott Direct on (075)92 9800.
THORNGROVE COUNTRY MANOR SA
I SWEAR that the stone lion that guards the entrance to Thorngrove Manor winked at me as I passed and the tall trees that line the drive seemed to turn and wave. And I'd swear there are fairies at the bottom of the garden too. Thorngrove is not so much a manor house as a magic castle.
With its towers and turrets and twisting staircases it's the kind of building you'd expect to find in the Bavarian mountains or welcoming you to Disneyland.
Instead, it's nestled in the Adelaide Hills just outside Stirling. Designed and built by the owner, the whole place is an extraordinary flight of fancy. Whatever the thinking behind its creation, this fabulous folly is the ideal place to spend a romantic weekend.
There are only three separate suites, each so cleverly designed that it's almost impossible to bump into anyone else even if you want to. In fact, if it weren't for the BMWs parked in the drive it would be hard to tell that anyone else was in residence.
Entrance to one of the self-contained suites is up a flight of serpent stairs, another through the courtyard, yet another through the main knurled-wood door complete with heavy iron hinges which creak as you open it.
There is also a two-level, self-catered tower apartment called The Keep.
The biggest suite has a Victorian brass and iron bed with flowery drapes and a main drawing room with a log fire roaring in a Gothic grate. There is also a medieval tower room with a lion-carved four-poster - the perfect place for courtly love.
Suites at Thorngrove Manor cost between $260 and $350 a night. Dinner, which is extra, is served by candlelight in the privacy of your own suite. The Keep costs $160 per night. For bookings phone (08) 339 6748.
LILIANFELS NSW
IT WAS only when I was half way down into the Jamison Valley, its sheer stone walls overhanging the pathway, that I considered the horrible truth about bushwalking in the Blue Mountains - what goes down has to go up again.
In this case "up" was a thousand or so steps up to the skyway where Japanese tourists pack like sardines into the cable car to get a better look at the green valley floor.
However, I had a real incentive to climb. The thought of Devonshire tea with cream and jam served on a silver tray in the elegant gardens of Lilianfels.
The original house was built in 1890 as the summer residence of Sydney's Lord Chief Justice. Now the expanded 86-room guest house, advertised only by a discreet brass plaque on its red brick entrance pillar, clings to the cliff top with breathtaking views from Echo Point to the valley below.
The rooms, decorated in cool shades of moss green and mint, are all just a little different from one another but all make you feel as if you have just been invited into Lady Windemere's drawing room.
The original house is now Darley's restaurant where you can have a candle-lit dinner by windows which open on to the wide, wooden veranda. Or sit in the rattan chairs and look out at the hollyhocks and chrysanthemums in this oh-so English looking country garden.
For the ultimate in romantic seclusions the servants' quarters have been transformed into a private apartment complete with four-poster bed and open fire places.
In the main hotel there is also a library, a billiard room, a black and white tiled swimming pool. Alternatively you could try your hand at a love-all match on the tennis court or play a refined game of croquet on the lawns.
Rates start at $245 per room but there are weekend and mid-week deals available. Phone (047) 801 388.
© 1994 The Sun Herald