Relaxation and Romance

When it comes to sunshine, beaches and sparkling waters, Australia has all the ingredients required for a sensational holiday. Complementing its natural splendours is a great array of resorts that offer a luxurious base for experiencing those wonders in style, whatever your budget. Hayman Island resort brings stylish living, fine dining and a glamorous, cosmopolitan clientele to this picture-perfect island, one of the loveliest of Queensland's Whitsunday Islands. At the eastern gateway to the Kimberley, El Questro is a 400,000-hectare cattle station that boasts an architect-designed safari camp poised spectacularly on a cliff above the Chamberlain River. Right on the Great Barrier Reef and fresh from a total makeover, Lizard Island sets a new benchmark for tropical island resorts with clever architecture complementing an exquisite marine environment.

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There is no more exciting way to experience Australia's vast and varied coastline, its lakes, rivers and islands than from the water, and throughout the country there are operators that offer cruising options, from charter vessels to luxury cruises. Off the north Queensland town of Airlie Beach, the glorious beaches, reefs and islands of the Whitsunday Passage are Australia's premier sailing area, with many cruising options available locally. Sydney from the waterline is one of the best ways to experience the harbour city, and local cruise operators can put you in the picture with an enormous range of sightseeing and sailing options.

The rugged majesty of the Kimberley coast is one of the most sensational parts of Australia's coastline, and several small cruise vessels operate between Darwin and the pearling port of Broome. The Coral Princess is a small, luxury cruiser that makes three-day excursions between Cairns and Townsville, stopping off for underwater views of the marine wonders of the Great Barrier Reef. The Olive May is a historic, 13-metre gaff-rigged cutter that cruises the inland waterways of Bruny Island and the D'Entrecasteaux Channel, a sensational and majestic region of southern Tasmania. A houseboat is the perfect way to explore the placid waters of the Murray as it snakes through the magnificent scenery of western Victoria and South Australia - a journey brimming with adventure. Just south-east of Melbourne, the Victorian coastline teems with the sights and sounds of wild Australia, and Bay Connections offers a range of cruises with close-up views of seal colonies and majestic seabirds.

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Romance requires a perfect backdrop, and when it comes to weddings and honeymoons, Australia's luxury resorts (link to reservation page; title=Australia resorts) and grand country-house hotels will bring an extra touch of sparkle to make them unforgettable occasions.  

Perched dramatically on the edge of a cliff, Lilianfels is a boutique hotel that brings the style, panache and opulence of the Orient Hotels group to the Blue Mountains, just an hour from Sydney. Inspired by the work of the Milan fashion house, the world's first Versace hotel has brought the splendours of the late renaissance and baroque era to one of Australia's premier holiday destinations. Built in 1854, Chateau Yering is a patrician stately home in the Yarra Valley winegrowing district that combines the calm, elegance and furnishings of another era with the luxuries of the present. Castaway-island fantasies come alive at Haggerstone, a private, thickly forested Barrier Reef island, where all food is grown or caught locally and the nearest human habitation is 150 kilometres away.

Tower Lodge, the creation of Australian wine guru Len Evans, is the ultimate luxury lodge, consisting of 12 glorious guestrooms built around a central courtyard amid the vineyards of the Hunter Valley. Reminiscent of a European castle, Peppers Delgany Portsea is a stone mansion that has been converted to offer luxury accommodation in the aristocratic surroundings of Victoria's Mornington Peninsula. Close to Uluru (Ayers Rock) in Australia's Red Centre, Ayers Rock Resort is a complex of low-rise, ochre-coloured buildings that provides luxurious accommodation in a remarkable part of Australia.

We all need time out now and again, and Australia makes good use of the naturally soothing properties of its forests and beaches to come up with a choice of spas and specialist health resorts that are among the world's best, providing the ultimate in rest and relaxation. In the hills east of Adelaide, Adelong Lifestyle Accommodation offers private villas and an emphasis on total relaxation, with such facilities as private spa pools, saunas and massage rooms.

Surrounded by the vineyards of the Hunter Valley, Cypress Lakes Resort is a full-scale health resort with a range of holistic treatments, massages, hydrotherapy, spa and health and fitness clubs. At the heart of Victoria's spa country, where the water table is rich in mineral salts, The Massage Healing Centre offers a variety of massages: remedial, healing, relaxation, therapeutic and shiatsu. Imagine saluting the sun on a beach in the golden light of dawn, or relieving the stresses of everyday life in a purpose built yoga studio where the only distraction is birdcalls from the canopy of a tropical rainforest outside. South of Sydney in the Southern Highlands, Solar Springs is a long-established health resort with a holistic approach to physical and mental health involving exercise, diet and relaxation therapy.

Buried in a tropical rainforest, Daintree Eco Lodge offers a program of mental and physical therapies, including massages, body wraps, aromatherapy, facials, meditation, yoga and relaxation. Taking the waters in the traditional style with mineral salt spas that detoxify and ease stressed joints and muscles is a great way to begin or end a visit to a day spa.

Best Australian Hotels helps you find the best places to stay in Sydney!

Within the protective breakwater of the Great Barrier Reef outer reef is a 250,000 square kilometre maritime province, a vast labyrinth of smaller reefs, coral cays, lagoons, rocky inshore islands, deep channels and underwater caverns. As well as a habitat for an amazing treasury of marine life, this area is also home to an astonishing variety of tropical island resorts. The greatest concentration of resorts is found in the Whitsunday region of north Queensland, the long chain of islands just off the coast from Airlie Beach. They cater to just about every taste - from families to singles to well-heeled sophisticates who demand fine dining and a beauty parlour from their island paradise.

While most of the Queensland island resorts are located well inside the Great Barrier Reef, some are situated on the small coral islands of the outer reef - such as Heron Island Resort off Gladstone, a 19 hectare, egg-shaped island ringed by sand. Where the sand stops, the coral begins. It is everything a coral island should be, surrounded by luscious swirls of opal colours crowded with marine life - a paradise for divers and snorkellers.

Another resort surrounded by the Great Barrier Reef is Lizard Island, the most northerly of the Queensland resort islands, which has only recently emerged from a major reconstruction that has made it a favourite for those who appreciate fine design along with five-star natural credentials.

Source: Tourism Australia 2006