Trip of a wife time PART II: Australasia

In the long-awaited sequel  Mark Woods  finally reveals if his spontaneous travels ended in marriage.

After our delightful but damp month in New Zealand Sarah and I were ready for some heat. G'day Cairns - a place so sticky you could put a wrapper round it and call it a toffee.

After we'd stopped lying on hot rocks like a pair of hypothermic lizards we decided to follow the tourist trail and take a trip out to the Barrier Reef. Big mistake.

It wasn't so much the lack of marine life that made our experience far from great. Nor was it the ashened, bleached and all together disappointing coral that was the biggest blow. No, what really got in the way was people - hundreds of the blighters. We'd been foolish enough to go out on one of the many boating behemoths that take gullible punters like us for a ride in every sense of the word.

After a jam packed journey out to the reef, what seemed like thousands of us donned our protective stinger suites and flopped into the tiny roped off section of sea like a legion of lemmings. After finding a square inch of water that wasn't populated with the flapping fins of our unfortunate companions we eventually gazed beneath the surface and saw...nothing. Our part of the reef looked like it hadn't attracted any sort of life since Don Bradman was in his pomp.

We approached our hotel a few hours later with a mixture of desperation and fear - we needed seclusion, peace and a special place to remind us that we were weeks away from entering into the holy union of marriage. No pressure then.

But the stunningly beautiful Thala Lodge on the coast road south of Port Douglas didn't disappoint. Comprising of a chain of secluded cottages dotted around cliff top woodland, it managed to pull off that trickiest of feats - making you feel like you're a million miles from civilisation when in fact you're a short walk from an a la carte meal of the highest quality. Then there was the pool - a gem of a little multi-tiered woodland water grotto - perfect for watching the stunning local birdlife from.

And that wasn't the only wildlife on show - as we reluctantly checked out I spotted what remains the largest beetle I've ever seen or ever want to.

Back on the road and heading north we made an impromptu stop at Mossman Gorge to take the Dreamtime tour - a guided walk through a sacred Aboriginal forest. Robert our sage of a guide then proceeded to give us two of the best hours of our entire trip.

From cathedral like trees with magical auras to carefully concealed hiding places where parents desperately tried to stop their young ones becoming forgotten children - this was a truly enlightening and in many ways humbling experience that many modern day Australians would do well to book themselves on to.

Heading south my wife to be began to get excited. Very excited. We were about to enjoy the most luxurious, most opulent, most exclusive few days of our entire trip.

The celebrated Hayman Island resort lies off the coast of eastern Australia and is famed for two things. Its gargantuan Hexagon shaped swimming pool and being one hell of a place to kick back and relax.

Right from the off the place had us in its velvet gloved grip. The boat they sent to take us to paradise was straight out of a bond film - more horse power than the Kentucky Derby and flooded with champers.
 
Then there was our room - I've been to music festivals held in smaller spaces.

The sitting room, the bar, the bedroom the balconies - both of them - the stunning bathroom - I'd love to tell you more about island itself but it took us two days to find our way out of the suite.

Once we had finally managed to prize ourselves away from our palace the rest of the island lived up to expectations - glorious sunshine shone on everything you could want from a holiday paradise and as we sat round that famous pool, watched by a cackle of local Cockatoos - it’s fair to say that life felt very good indeed. 

Anything out of place in paradise? Well only if you are a big frog hating scardey cat like me. Like much of north west Australia Hayman Island has been colonised by the truly repulsive Cane Toad. It’s not as if you’ll find one of the warty whoppers in your bath, but dropping a morsel of food in one of the outside tables at the otherwise lovely La Trattoria restaurant isn’t recommended let’s just say.

Once back on the mainland we headed south towards Brisbane and a connecting flight that would take us to Melbourne and a step closer to our nuptials.

Now like many first time visitors to Oz we’d only planned to spend a day or two in the Victorian capital and like the vast majority of those visitors we too regretted the brevity of our stay in a big way. Melbourne has the perfect mix of Australian new world optimism enveloped in a city boasting a strong sense of the past and a bohemian spirit that creates a unique atmosphere.

Staying at a hotel as comfortable and understatedly stylish as The Westin helped of course. It’s chic design is the epitome of modernity in many ways, but just like the city it sits in, this striking place manages to combine it with a traditional sense of service and hospitality that make it stand out among the urban hotels we stayed in on our trip.
With the pre Christmas bustle in full swing the Westin’s city centre location was also perfect for hitting Melbourne’s fantastic shops, but it was the town’s restaurants that really impressed.

The Fitzroy area alone boasts eateries offering every possible cuisine with more fusion going on than a nuclear plant – add in the bars and the general  lust for life atmosphere – without any of the lust for vomiting in the gutters that plagues many a provincial British town – and you’ve got yourself one very special place indeed.

But as much as we wanted to stay, we had a knot to tie and we’d decided that the Blue Mountains were the place to do it – so we hit the road again and headed towards Sydney – not before we squeezed in a quick tour of the incomparable MCG of course. Weddings are important, but cricket is cricket.

By the standard of almost every other country in the world the drive from Melbourne to Sydney is a glorious one. By Australian standards, it’s not bad.

There’s one little spot that you really should seek out as you head north towards the big S. Paperbark camp, which is situated about 200K south of Sydney, was put on this earth for those of us who love the idea of camping out beneath the stars, but baulk at the damp socked, creepy crawlied, cricked necked reality that actually pitching your own tent invariably delivers.

Placed carefully amongst the towering eucalypts and beguiling paperbarks, twelve deluxe safari style tents give the pampered camper vast wrap around verandas, insect screening of Israeli airport security proportions, cotton linen and your own private en-suite, so you can bird watch and bathe at the same time. And because the whole place has some of the most impressive and sincerely delivered eco tourism credentials I’ve ever come across, you don’t have to feel guilty about a thing – except maybe feeding the wild possums in the camp’s superb candle lit restaurant. Bliss. But not quite wedded bliss yet.

Into Sydney for a few days pre-wedding shopping and of course clocking most of Sydney’s familiar and well chronicled sights, before we headed out to the Echoes Hotel in Katoomba, perched on the very edge of the stunning Blue Mountains national park.

It’s a funny thing checking into a hotel as singletons and knowing that you’ll leave as a married couple – like looking into the mirror the morning before plastic surgery – things will never quite be the same again.
Although the room we were shown to was significantly smaller than we’d imagined it to be (website images can be deceiving can’t they!) the view from our balcony across Jamison Valley was more breathtaking then we could have ever imagined.

As we stood there looking out the day before our wedding bathed in bright sunshine and sipping on a glass of champagne the thought of saying our vows in front of a backdrop of such raw natural beauty made us feel very glad indeed that of all the amazing places we’d been on our journey, this was the one we had chosen to become man and wife.

But, dear reader, life is never that simple is it?

As we woke up the next morning, nervous and excited in equal measure I pulled back the curtains to once again take in the stunning vista and was confronted by...nothing. Well, not exactly nothing, more a wall of white, dense, damp, fog that was so thick, so all pervasive, that everything past the balcony rail was gone, enveloped in its dank embrace. Man it was foggy.

“It would burn off though wouldn’t it?”  - we said to each other every five minutes as the hour of our nuptials approached. But to scorch this pea-souper off we’d have needed to swap solar systems seats with Mercury for the morning – and even then I don’t think it would have fully shifted.

As we asked local after local what they thought, desperate for some blind optimism, it became obvious that this was far from an unusual occurrence for this part of the world and that we’d have to move the whole thing indoors.
But do you know what, after all the thought and preparation into choosing this place, when it came to the magical moment of saying I do it didn’t matter one jot that it felt like we were getting married on a North Sea oil rig. The truth is that at that precise moment the world only consisted of the two of us, for those few seconds the whole universe zeroed in to where we were standing – and we were married.

But it would have been nice if it had been sunny, that’s all I’m saying.

So that was it, we’d had an amazing trip and no man could now put us asunder – we were heading home.
Well not quite, you’ve got to have a honeymoon haven’t you and despite almost everyone we came across in Sydney telling us we had a death wish even thinking about it, we were off to Bali.

It’s true there had been rumours of more bomb and kidnap threats in the past few weeks and if I said we’d not thought about pulling out I’d be lying - but seeing as we’d be getting the London Underground to work once we were home it felt like less of a risk than our twice daily commute.

So with more than a little trepidation we landed in Denpasar and made our way to The Legian on the ultra stylish Seminyak strip. As with almost everywhere on this beautiful island The Legian had suffered deeply after the Bali bombings, with numbers way down – but once you were inside you forgot the troubles, you forgot everything.
Of course the hotel is a luxurious building; the apartments are vast and as well appointed as any that you’ll find on the planet. Likewise the food is unreservedly divine, with a diverse range of tastes for those that want to stray from the mouth-watering local fare.

The infinity pool is stunning, the sandy beach inviting, the spa and fitness centre relaxing and exerting in equal measure. The Legian is an utterly unforgettable place.

But despite that it’s not really the place that leaves the most indelible of marks on your memory. It’s the people. Never have I experienced a level, or I should say style of service that’s even approached it. 

Of course most excellent hotels have excellent staff, attentive, courteous and proactive, but this was different. At the Legian they have allowed the innate beauty of the Balinese people to flourish in those that work there, rather than, as happens all too often, extinguishing personality beneath a list of rules and regulations or a climate of fear that means being yourself just isn’t an option.

You get to know the staff at the Legian, you get to like them and you get share in the pride they have for their country and indeed in making sure that you have the most relaxing time you’ve ever had in your entire life.
What this does is banish any guilt and awkwardness on your part – those moments where you feel like just another pampered westerner taking advantage of the thickness of your wallet. Because at The Legian they allow their team to be people first and staff second and it pays enormous dividends.

Nowhere more so than at The Chedi Club, the Legian’s sister hotel further inland and an absolute haven of tranquillity. Surrounded by paddy fields each of the nine pool villas are as close to perfection as you’d want – pure unadulterated peace and seclusion – honeymoon central in fact.

If you have need to leave the gates of your very own portion of paradise the cooking courses, craft treasures and spiritual buzz of Ubud are just a pleasant walk away.

But it’s criminally tempting not to and again that was in no small part down to the way we were looked after as well as the to-die for surroundings. At The Chedi Club you get assigned a guardian angel (our phrase not theirs) who is tasked with making you love the place so much that you barricade yourself in as your stay comes to an end.

We were lucky enough to have Joe looking after us, a young man who is destined for great things indeed. Intuitive, unobtrusive, interesting and kind, gentle Joe had us eating out of the palm of his hand.

My wife, yes wife, was fortunate enough to celebrate a birthday while we were there and from the rose petals around our pool when she woke up to the sumptuous suckling pig served on our terrace that night Sarah had a day that I’m going to spend a lifetime trying to emulate – but never managing to.

As we waved goodbye to Joe and headed for the airport that really was it, our luxury wedding cum honeymoon cum round the world trip was over. As we queued to check in the post holiday blues started to drain into us at an alarming pace, we’d be back at work in 48 hours time, in the middle of winter.

With faces like a wet weekend we shuffled up to the check-in desk and presented our tickets – only to be told that we should be in the club class section - we’d completely forgotten about our lavish decision to fly in style with Quantas. With our moods transformed and a renewed spring in our step we skipped into the lounge before enjoying one final night of luxury as we snuggled into our full length beds for the journey home.

Paying for our trip of a lifetime might be a struggle for a while, remembering every detail for years to come will be a very simple pleasure indeed.