Australia’s newest hotels
Suddenly, Australia is getting a heap of new hotels.
After opening QT on Bondi beach in Sydney back in 2015, the Asia Pacific Group expanded into Melbourne late last year with a new hotel in the Central Business District
The Melbourne hotel has 200 bedrooms and 24 apartments designed for longer stays and has rooms with rainforest showers and rooftop bars. There is also a strong focus on food with Pascale offering a Euro-based menu, and Hot Sauce offering Korean and Japanese food.
The same group has the Art Hotel brand. These are funky places, each dedicated to a particular Australian artist. Deliberately located away from city centres, you will find them in hip residential areas.
One is the Olsen in the suburb of South Yarra. All the art in that hotel comes from Dr John Olsen. It has 224 rooms, day spa, bars and restaurants.
Then there is the Johnson in Brisbane. Located in Spring Hill, it is dedicated to the abstract artist Michael Johnson. It boasts 96 suites, with a 50-meter swimming pool. And it has an indoor/outdoor small restaurant in Tumbling Stone.
The Jackalope, which will open in early 2017, is an example of a boutique hotel blending in with a vineyard on the Mornington Peninsula. It will have 46 rooms, along with two restaurants; Doot Doot Doot which will offer cuisine based on local produce and Rare Hare where patrons will go for cellar door tastings and check out the food store.
For those wanting a taste of the Australian outback, there’s the Mount Mulligan, just a 30-minute helicopter ride from Cairns in Queensland. Guests will be able to get in some barramundi fishing. Or they can enjoy cattle station experiences and jaunts to the Great Barrier Reef. Or they can check out Mount Mulligan, a cliff face ten times higher than Uluru. But the Mulligan is designed to be small and confined for the discerning - just 12 suites.
For those wanting to see Tasmania, there’s the Thousand Lakes Lodge. A 90-minute drive from Launceston, it offers guests the opportunity to catch wild trout, go on walking trails and get in some wildlife-spotting, including wombats, quoll, Tasmanian devils, wallabies and possums.
by Leon Gettler, February 1st 2017
