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qualia Great Barrier Reef
At qualia, off Australia's Queensland coast, you must go flying over some of the 3,000 reefs that make up the Great Barrier Reef
By: Mary Gostelow
This is one of life's great thrills. To anyone who has gazed down at the azure and royal blue patchworks of French Polynesia or the Maldives, add several paler hues, and outline with brown blobs of coral.
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This is more like exquisite mola appliqué than a plain old as-your-gran-made quilt. And it is all so deserted, highly protected and designated by UNESCO: the few large pontoons that cater to tourists have to maintain onboard security year round, 24 hours a day. We buzzed around for a couple of hours before landing back at the private helicopter pad at the base of qualia Great Barrier Reef.
I had not even unpacked before this flight. I had flown direct from Sydney into Hamilton Island, best known of the 74 Whitsundays, and walked across the tarmac to be greeted by Jason Friedman, my long-time New York aristocratic friend who is one of the world's best-connected hoteliers (last sighted when he was running the Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle, Thailand). There he was, his hair highlights matching my silver Porsche bag and qualia's gleaming Mercedes people-mover. We drove all of five minutes to the resort.
It is probably relevant at this stage to point out that the whole of
Hamilton Island, which measures three by two miles, belongs to the Oatley family. Eighty percent of the island, which rises to 800 feet above sea level, is preserved natural forest, and there are seriously challenging hiking trails (we saw them from the helicopter). The rest of the island consists of town, other lodging, residences, the airport, and qualia Great Barrier Reef. There is a yacht club, which the Oatleys are expanding, and the marina will eventually have 250 berths: they are also heavily investing in a peak-top 18-hole Peter Thompson golf course on the spectacular ridgeback of nearby Dent Island. Hamilton Island had been developed by Keith Williams but after the Qantas strike in 1992 he lost it to Bankers Trust. Since buying what was by then the pretty run-of-the-mill operation in 2004, Bob Oatley, his wife and kids Sandy, Ian and Roz have embarked on a three-point plan to take it to ultra-luxury. Key features are the golf and yacht club, and a superlative resort to drive the success of the other pointers. To do this, they have spent on extra infrastructure, which included a power cable from the mainland and a backup generator in case the cable got cut. (Fortunately Bob Oatley, who had been in coffee in New Guinea, set up what became one of Australia's iconic wine brands, Rosemount Estate, which he conveniently sold on to Southcorp - he and his sons are now heading their own Oatley Family Wines, which includes the Montrose, Wild Oats and premier Robert Oatley labels.)
qualia Great Barrier Reef is therefore instrumental to the Oatley game plan, and not only because Bob and Val have a villa right here on its estate. The resort occupies all of a 30-acre promontory, reached only by a 12-foot high gate set in a melange of stone blocks from a nearby island quarry on Hamilton Island. You drive about half a mile flanked by tall greenery and waving white acapanthus flowers. Grey corrugated iron roofs, painted slightly different shades to blend best into the surroundings, just show their heads. There are 60 detached villas in all, from 900 sq ft up, all single story and with ample space between neighbors: there is also one two-floor, two-bedroom beach house. Exteriors walls are grey concrete or local grey stone: this is local architect Chris Beckingham's first hotel. Inside, you marvel at the use of New Guinea hardwoods, which come in various hues from gold through to mid-brown. Your new home has foot-wide floorboards that run broadside on, as you enter. Walls are all-glass, or cream-painted concrete or wood, all rising to a low-barrelled wood ceiling with silver ceiling-hung fans in the parlor and bedroom.
Your proximity pad, like a credit card with no metallic stripe, lets you
move wherever you want. To access your room you merely press the pad against an area of your door. As I went into Windward Villa 23 -
north-facing, 1,200 sq ft total - I just went WOW. The all-glass walls in
front of me looked down through the top of Hoop firs to the ocean. About a mile away are three islands. To the left is Dent Island, where Oatley's sensational Peter Thompson golf course has just opened (it runs along the crest of the long peaked island, and 17 of the holes are features). The middle island is Plum Pudding Island, named for its shape, and to the right is Henning Island, where qualia Great Barrier Reef will drop guests off for romantic beach picnics.
Windward villas all come with outside decks, completely private,
cantilevered over the steep slope below. You have a double daybed and two single wood loungers, and a dining table, and an 18 by nine foot pool. Back inside the room's entrance, you can turn left through a sliding opaque glass screen to the bedroom, facing straight out to sea. Behind the bed are cupboards, with a safe that sensibly has a light inside it. Continue further to your left, through a door in a solid wall to the bathroom, which has cut stone floor and walls (and a flat wood ceiling), a freestanding oval egg-like tub formed of corian (DuPont's acrylic polymer and alumina trihydrate), a big glass-walled shower, two basin units with oval corian basins, Aesop toiletries and hotel-label waffle-look towel robes. There is, by the way, color, in the form of the soft teal and cream furnishings in the parlor - which also has a desk unit, with excellent free wifi. There is a wet bar, with Riedel glasses, a kettle and a coffee plunger and a big Sony high-definition television rises from a floor-set rod with 125 complimentary new-release movies.
I did a little run - lots of hills both inside the resort and through its
impressive outer gate, opened by my magic proximity pad. Back inside, I ran all the way down to the beach, to the watersports center, and the main shared infinity pool. A tower of rolled beach towels, pomegranate and white stripes with a hint of lime, exclusively by Collette Dinnigan. At the far end of the pool is the apple-green lawn where, thanks to friend-of-qualia Great Barrier Reef, Sarah Murdoch, wife of Lachlan and daughter-in-law of Rupert, recently performed.
The gym has good equipment, including the rower that Europeans favor, and a television that was permanently tuned to MTV. There was
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just in time to shower myself in Aesop and head to dinner, on the terrace of the Long Pavilion, the all-purpose front office, lobby, bar, restaurant and library. We were sitting by a pulled back full-wall window, the breezes making any additional music unnecessary.
Tuesday and Saturday dinners are Degustation only, though the clever and most un-celebrity chef, Jane-Thérèse Mulray, provides a parallel Végustation menu, and as might be expected from anything with which Jason Friedman is involved, the outfit is so flexible they will in fact do whatever you want. So, we stuck mainly with that night's Végustation menu, which started with a bite of tofu, and proceeded in turn to roasted baby beets tucked into a small bowl of green salad, a single ravioli and then a spoon of mint sherbet. We combined the planned pistachio gratin with mushroom duxelle with a bite of fresh tuna, and since this young lady was still ravenously hungry the super-chef then produced a proper, adult-sized dish of salmon on top of various vegetables. Carbs came in the form of a constant replenishment of delicious fresh-baked warm bread rolls, with olive oil and balsamic. Oh and of course the tabletop was super-brand, in the form of Georg Jensen silver, Riedel glassware and Villeroy & Boch plates.
We had given up on the end of our offered menu, leaving tomato and
strawberry consommé, and manuka honey wafers with lemon ice creams, for the next visit. We had mainly followed the sommelier's pairing suggestions, although we veered slightly, to try some of the
Oatley Family's Robert Oatley Chardonnay and Montrose Black Shiraz.
Back home, night turndown had included a program for tomorrow. All
non-motorized watersports are free and I could go kayaking, snorkelling or diving. I could take one of the resort's boats, for a reef and fishing tour, or book a place on the 45-foot Luxury Atomic Marine - a silver beauty - for a sunset cruise. Or I could hire the helicopter that we took yesterday. The program includes all times, plus of sunrise and sunset, and high and low tides, and reminds us that GM Jason Friedman is hosting hour-long cocktails Mondays and Fridays, at 6:30pm.
Having deliberately left the black wall-window blinds open, I woke with the dawn, looked out at that water, those islands, and went for another exploration of the town outside the gates. I ran up to the island's observatory, and passed a couple of golf buggies bearing local stalwarts about to join Jason Friedman in his early morning rehearsal for a six-person canoe extravaganza. Before breakfast, I diverted to the library, a first class affair with three computers, the entire Charles Dickens in hardback and such lush tomes as the complete Robert Mapplethorpe on flowers, Helmut Newton featuring beautiful women, as usual, and various histories of Ferrari. I decided erudition, for now, must give way to a need for caffeine. The breezes still blew, the white napkins flew away but who cared? The marmalade and preserves were Australia's best, Beerenberg, the choice of organic yogurt smoothies included beetroot, the fresh-squeezed juice came from a Philippe Starck-look sculptured jug, the paw-paw was magnificent, and the sourdough bread was real, with flavor. And, what a nice touch, someone came round with a choice of newspapers in the middle of the meal.
My appointment at the spa, which tweaked its philosophy on April 1st, 2009, beckoned. Think of a cross-shaped deep green granite path, about six feet wide, each arm of the resulting cross about 50 feet long. The spaces between are shallow decorative pools, with a few fish-like floating leaves. Low buildings all around house the relaxation rooms and six treatment rooms. You feel calm as soon as you go in. The karma is right, says manager Sonja Sorich, who has switched to all-Australian products, Lit'ya and Sodashi, and her extensive menu includes a red mud body wrap. I settled for Anita's hot stone massage, using Bularri Yarrul volcanic-rich aboriginal stones from Byron Bay, and when it was over I found myself staring out into a vivid green garden.
The ambience at qualia is one of its prime selling points, says
Jason Friedman, a botanist by training. 'Being environmentally
responsible does not mean asking guests to save water by re-using towels or bed linen. qualia is not about to make anyone feel guilty. Being environmentally responsible is about responsible operations, not being wasteful and using appropriate technologies. I want guests to leave with a greater understanding and respect for the Whitsundays and Great Barrier Reef ecology. qualia's guests wield great influence and armed with the right experience they can do a great deal of good in spreading the word to travelers.'
I thought these words over back in my home, villa 23. I looked out over the infinity edge of my private pool, into greenery, with a background of ocean, those other islands and the sky above.
But all good things have to come to an end. The hotel had already printed out my boarding card. At precisely 30 minutes before my plane was scheduled to leave I was helped into the Mercedes, given three plastic containers - bread, addictive eggplant dip, a veggie wrap -
and driven down to the airport. It was a case of straight through security, and a walk across the tarmac escorted by Virgin Blue hosties, who all looked straight off of a Paris catwalk, and we flew away. Bye bye qualia, until the next time.
qualia Great Barrier Reef, Great Barrier Reef, Australia
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