Nature sets the morning alarm at Metung Hot Springs, and there is no hitting the snooze button. It’s still dark when the sound of wood ducks splashing in the freshwater lagoon below first floats up the hill to our glamping tent.
The distinctive birdcall, more honk than quack, is joined by a chorus of kookaburras. “We’ll get you out of that kingsize, four-poster bed,” they seem to laugh, though I could have been hearing things.
An hour or two later, I’m grateful. Bathing at Australia’s newest geothermal hot springs opens at 8.30am and by 9am I’m high on a coastal ridge, floating in a warm pool. Wind that’s been an irritant during my visit to East Gippsland has disappeared and I’m looking over my toes to Lake King, the surface of its salty water ruffled only by a small boat and a family of black swans. Rare Burrunan dolphins, said to be regular visitors to this part of the Gippsland Lakes’ estuarine lagoons, are nowhere to be seen, and neither are other bathers. Apart from an attendant who’s driven me three minutes from reception in a golf cart, I have the Stargazing Pool – along with a spotted-gum hot tub and seven individual bubbling baths niftily fashioned from oak wine barrels – all to myself.
The exclusivity is purely circumstantial and I soak it up, given my previous pool-hopping experiences at Metung’s bigger sister property. The always-in-demand Peninsula Hot Springs on the Mornington Peninsula have not been so company-free or relaxing.
Four hours’ drive east of Melbourne, Metung Hot Springs launched in November on 10 undulating hectares at Kings Cove, outside the village of Metung. It’s the latest in a pipeline of hot springs – developed and yet to be – now numerous enough to form a 900km Great Victorian Bathing Trail stretching from the far west of the state to Gippsland in the east. Open for day visitors and luxury overnight stays, Metung is a partnership between 22-year local hospitality operators Adrian and Rachel Bromage, who you will find on site, and Peninsula Hot Springs founder Charles Davidson.
Work on the site is ongoing, and visible behind hoardings and ropes. Rachel tells me it could be 10 years before their dreams are fully realised, but in the meantime, the opening stage offers thermal bathing, including a wheelchair-accessible pool (on the complex’s entrance level), 10 safari tents, a sauna, dome tent for spa treatments, café, and morning wellness activities such as forest bathing and hot-springs yoga. And then there’s the nine-hole golf course.
Nearby Metung Country Club – the venue for glamping check-in, welcome Asian-style canapés and a glass of local Lightfoot sparkling – was bought by the sanctuary’s developers last year, and its greens and fairways are benefiting from irrigation with grey water recycled from the baths.
The source is an aquifer 500m underground. The water is 43C when it hits the surface, but is mixed with cool water from a second cold-water aquifer to reach an agreeable temperature. The solo bathing barrels on the Hilltop Escarpment are the hottest at 38-40C; when I drop into a plunge pool during an afternoon of bathing, I find its 22C a cool respite from the sauna it’s next to, rather than bracing in the Wim Hof way.
Hot springs bathing isn’t new to the area. “Greetings from Metung” postcards from the ’70s carried pictures of bathers lounging in steaming concrete pools fed from bores first dug for oil exploration almost a century ago. Those pools, closer to Metung itself, closed in 1996 due to vandalism, the cost of upkeep and the challenge of treating waste water. Good reason to buy a golf club.
We arrive late in the afternoon, with enough time before dinner to explore our accommodation and for a masseuse to iron out the wrinkles of my long drive during an hour-long “Metung Mist” relaxation massage in the spa dome tent. Skincare products and bathroom amenities are Larn’wa, a range based in Aboriginal lore and whose developer Rachel says has strong ties to the Gunaikurnai people of nearby Buchan.
“Tent” is too modest a word to describe the safari-style pavilions. Surrounded by mature native trees and cascading down a slope to the lagoon, they are roomy enough to fit an elephant in comfort. A breakfast board served at the country club is included in glamping packages; loaded with fruit, muesli, chia puddings, chorizo, bacon and tomatoes, it comes with sourdough toast and eggs-done-your-way and will set you up for a day of sightseeing in Metung and beyond. Tents on the water are slightly pricier than those on the hill.
I’m not sure if my partner – no stranger to sleeping under simpler canvas – is more amazed by the split-system airconditioner mounted above our timber-framed kingsize bed or that he can sit with a beer in a wine-barrel tub on the private deck. The barrels are fed by the same spring water as the thermal pools until they empty at 8pm, after which they can be refilled with regular bathwater. An ensuite equipped with minty Larn’wa products is tucked behind the bed – shower on one side and toilet on the other.
My first night’s sleep in the bed, its mattress custom-made by Melbourne manufacturer AH Beard to Rachel’s specifications and called a Metung Hot Springs Float, is so refreshing that rising for a 7.30am Pilates class is easy. It’s the first class to be run at the centre, and wellness manager Nicole Moran is beside me on a yoga mat, “test stretching” the session. She recommends the hot-springs yoga, and I will return to try it, along with the floating sauna on the lagoon and extra pools and relaxation areas scheduled for completion by winter. Perhaps the ducks will have flown to warmer waters by then.
The writer was a guest of Visit Victoria and Metung Hot Springs.
ESCAPE ROUTE
Metung is in East Gippsland, a four-hour drive east of Melbourne. Glamping packages at Metung Hot Springs are priced from $550 a night for Hillside tents, including bathing and breakfast for two (more at peak times).
Author: www.escape.com.au
published 2023-07-15 18:34:20
Source link
