Читать книгу Australia's Best Spas - Amanda Jane Clark - Страница 8

SPA GUESTS HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE TIME TO LISTEN TO THEIR SOULS AND THEIR BODIES

- JANE SEGERBERG

Health, Relaxation and

Wellbeing Australian Style

Alittle pampering can go a long way. Imagine lying in a fragrant rainforest spa while a gentle, warm rain drums a hypnotic rhythm over you. You roll over and someone hands you a divinely soft bath robe and delicious iced tea, which you sip while your feet and legs are massaged. That pesky ache in your shoulder has vanished after expert attention from your therapist's nimble fingers and the essential oil blend mixed especially for you has worked its heady aromatherapy magic on your mind and body. You feel deeply relaxed and blissful....

Step away from the stresses of daily living and see life from a different perspective. Exotic escapes and sublime indulgences that will leave you looking and feeling your ultimate best await you in Australia's multitude of spas.

Getting there is definitely part of the fun. Your journey to inspiring locations will take you through magnificent national parks, to sparkling oceans and sandy beaches, across breathtaking harbours, into glamorous cityscapes and remote landscapes rich in ancient wonders.

Even if it were possible to visit a different spa each month, it would take several years to experience the varied delights of every Australian spa. From just four spas in the late 1990s, there are now over 300, with a dozen more opening in 2005. The figure continues to rise, as spa visits become an essential component of many holidays and we utilise spa treatments as a method to reduce stress, feel good and live longer.

Australia is blessed with a mind-boggling array of spas in a multitude of shapes, sizes and locations. While not able to include even a quarter of the wonderful spas available in every corner of the country, this book highlights the best quality spas that await you in premier locations, from Queensland's palm fringed golden coastline to Tasmania's wild mountain wilderness. It also provides recipes to allow you to indulge in, or at least reminisce about, a few of the blissful and pampering body treatments and deliciously healthy spa cuisine you will encounter, at home.

A spa's treatment menu and design are strongly influenced by it's location-for example warming treatments and plenty of steam rooms and hot spa baths are available in cool climate locations such as Cradle Mountain in Tasmania, Lilianfels in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales and Breathtaker Retreat at Mount Buller in the Victorian Alps. Spas in warmer tropical locations specialise in developing innovative ways to keep you cool, soothe your sun-kissed skin and make it glow. There's nothing like a body polish, massage or perhaps even a spray-on tan to make you proud to show a little flesh.

At The Dome Retreat in Brisbane, guests are taken to another world that is simply divine.

In our society of abundance-peace of mind and personal time-out to relax, reflect and rejuvenate have become precious, often elusive treasures. Restorative and balancing treatments provided in a peaceful spa environment are an effective counter to the pressures of our modern lifestyle. Whether your spa visit is a treat or a regular date, for an hour, a day or a week, the combination of traditional methods with the best scientific research, latest equipment and pure natural products makes today's spa experience an indulgence that is good for you.

Apart from the obvious physical benefits, a spa visit can be a spiritually euphoric experience. With all the laying of hands, cleansing and renewal, sensory stimulation and heightened awareness of our physical presence, the effect of submitting to treatments designed to deliver ultimate pleasure can be mind altering.

The spa experience is your time to relax, reflect, revitalise and rejoice. As international spa professional Jane Segerberg elaborates, "Spa guests have the opportunity to take time to listen to their souls and their bodies. Personal issues are resolved, new horizons are identified, a new perspective and understanding is achieved, new friendships are established, and old relationships are reconfirmed. Spas achieve these miracles in a number of ways, from relaxing treatments to mountaintop experiences, experiental walks, water therapies, clairvoyant readings, meditation, yoga, hikes, lifestyle balancing and nature."

It has become de rigueur for many holidaymakers to plan at least one spa visit during their vacation, and hotels and resorts are often chosen because of the spa facilities available. Couples are well catered for, with treatments providing an intimate opportunity to share a sublime experience so rarely available within our normal workaday routines. So popular are spa visits at many hotels and resorts that guests are advised to book their treatments before they arrive, to avoid the disappointment of finding the spa fully booked.

While a nurturing touch will always be at the heart of any great treatment, the latest spa trends include more energy healing treatments like Reiki massage, and steam faci lities such as the amazing hydrostorm-a glass cocoon for two where water jets of every strength can be angled to every part of your body while aromatic steam and coloured lights tantalise your senses. Exotic steam environments like the often beautifully decorated and domed Middle Eastern Rasul are appearing in new spas and there is an awareness of the need to use less water. To this end the hydrotherm cocoon is often chosen over the Vichy shower in areas prone to drought and water restrictions. Hot stone massage is popular and more men are requesting facials and massage as therapy versus luxury.

It may be cold outside but the heated indoor pool at Lilianfels Blue Mountains Resort and Spa feels like sun-warmed rain.

Experiencing the Vichy shower in the Healing Waters Spa at Silky Oaks Lodge is the closest you may come to lying naked in a forest while being caressed by a warm gentle rain. This is truly fantasy-making stuff indeed.

THE TIME TO RELAX IS WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE TIME FOR IT

- SYDNEY J. HARRIS

It seems the older the knowledge incorporated into a treatment the better, and the more esoteric the tradition, the more impressed we are with it. As Australia's spa guru Kirien Withers explains, "We are steaming in Rasuls, healing on Aboriginal healing beds, awakening our third eye with ayurvedic shirodhara and releasing under native American hot rocks. Steam, massage and water therapies, along with herbs and natural ingredients are the common threads."

Australia is the world leader in incorporating organic, pure and natural ingredients into beauty products and many spas are using outstanding Australian-made spa products such as Sodashi, Li'Tya and MV Organic Skincare. The experience of being enveloped by traditional Australian healing rituals and the ethereal power of Australian bush flower essences is amazing.

There are four major types of spas in Australia-the retreat spa, the resort spa, the day spa and the salon or mini spa. Retreat spas such as the Golden Door Health Retreats in Queensland and New South Wales are havens tucked away from the world, in the country wilds or near the ocean. Here, you can literally retreat from your daily life to focus totally on your wellbeing-to completely refresh and renew, or address particular health and lifestyle concerns. Resort spas such as the Sun Spa at Hyatt Regency Coolum or The Spa and Total Living Centre at Couran Cove Resort on South Stradbroke Island are generally attached to a fu ll resort and offer lifestyle balancing and rejuvenating treatments. Day spas are the fastest growing sector of the industry, found either within a hotel like The Spa at the Mansion Hotel in Melbourne, or standing alone in an urban environment, like the Gillian Adams Salon and Spa in Sydney. They offer a range of pampering and therapeutic treatments along with self-care and lifestyle balancing education. Salon or mini spas offer spa-style treatments and service standards, such as waxing, manicures and facials, that are within a more traditional salon environment.

Four hands are far better than two when it comes to Auroral relaxing double massage

Indigenous ingredients and healing techniques inspired the natural spa products in the Li'Tya range.

SPAS WILL BE THE PERSONAL TRAINERS OF THIS NEW CENTURY

- SUZANNE DAWSON

A great spa should excite our senses and make us feel special, in both a physical and emotional way. Its luxurious pampering and healing treatments will be offered in a safe, nurturing environment and while it does not need to dazzle us with design and decor, it should be welcoming, sparkling clean, comfortable and inviting. Spas release you from the trappings of your ordinary image of yourself. A great spa will rub your mind, body and soul the right way.

The Australian spa is sophisticated yet down to earth, energised and vital, life enriching and yet still accessible. With the inspired guidance of skilled professionals and a heavenly spa environment designed to delight our senses and meet our every need, we have the blessed opportunity to experience the kind of pleasure, relaxation and renewal we may not have known existed. A sublime spa experience can unlock an energy deep within you and facilitate personal change and self-discovery. It can provide balance and unleash our body's natural ability to heal itself. A spa visit can give you the time and space to solve a previously intractable problem or soothe the effects of some of life's savagery. In this light the question becomes-can we afford not to visit a spa regularly? No wonder new spas, each individually wonderful and unique, are appearing faster than we can visit them. Happy spa-ing and remember, there will always be a new spa treatment to experience somewhere in Australia that is worth travelling to. Enjoy!

The Vichy shower bed at Daintree Eco Lodge, carved into the shape of a leaf from the ylang ylang tree that grows in the surrounding rainforest.

At the beach in Palm Cove outside Espa in Queensland.