Many of us live life at a break-neck pace, juggling work, family needs and a host of other commitments. We aspire to a balanced life but often don’t achieve it, despite well-intentioned forays into yoga, meditation classes and the like.
Ill health and chronic tiredness are your body’s distress signals. Whether you’re on the verge of burn-out or just need a bit of pampering, good food and a moment to rest in soul-soothing surrounds, help is to hand.
There are a growing number of dedicated health and spa retreats close to Brisbane. Do yourself a favour - treat yourself to a restorative weekend in a retreat of your choice. Here are some inspiring (we hope!) suggestions:
By the bay
Pearl of the Bay
Just 35 minutes north of Brisbane, Pearl of the Bay is a resort-style dwelling overlooking the water at Scarborough on the Redcliffe Peninsula. While the seaside location, gourmet food and private guest rooms go a long way to inducing relaxation, the in-house Aromatherapy Day Spa is the key to a weekend of health and harmony.
The spa takes a holistic approach to your health and wellbeing, using a combination of high-performance skincare products, pure essential oils, native Australian wildflower remedies and personalised natural healing therapies. In a word: bliss.
Inner Harmony Yoga and Movement Centre
The more spiritually inclined should make tracks to Inner Harmony Yoga and Movement Centre, located on the bay front at Sandgate, about 30 minutes drive north of Brisbane. The centre offers a variety of yoga classes, workshops and retreats - all of which aim to provide yoga practices that encourage students to explore their potential. Their retreat program offers participants an opportunity for renewal - of both mind and body - while enjoying sumptuous vegetarian food prepared by an ayurvedic chef. Massages are also available. Check with the centre for this year’s retreat program.
And if you can’t make it away for a weekend, then sign up for some mind and body work at a Brisbane yoga school.
Sunshine Coast and hinterland
Living Valley Springs Health Retreat
Set in 180 acres of lush green hills and valleys, Living Valley Springs Health Retreat is only 30 minutes from Noosa on the Sunshine Coast, but a million miles away from the hustle and bustle of daily life. The retreat offers an extensive health program, including a variety of personalised treatments, detoxification, information and lifestyle planning.
If you’re seeking a health-centred holiday or you want to address a specific health problem, the team at Healthy Living promise to provide you with motivation, education and an easy-to-follow program to ensure you can make a positive health change for the rest of your life. What are you waiting for?
Fountainhead Organic Health Retreat
Operating within a working organic farm in Maleny, Fountainhead Organic Health Retreat is the only organically certified health retreat in Australia. The farm is spread over 40 acres, and includes 3 acres of lakes and creeks as well as a hot spring baths complex. All that glorious scenery is enough to induce an instant calm in anyone, but Fountainhead also offers an impressive range of health and wellness programmes, ranging from fitness, detox and depression retreats to 28-day “Change Your Life” retreats.
Gold Coast and hinterland
Camp Eden Health Resort
Established in 1984, Camp Eden Health Resort, in Currumbin Valley, is Australia’s longest established health retreat. Attracting people of all ages, walks of life and fitness levels, the resort focuses on helping guests achieve their personal goals and make positive changes in their lives - whether it be to manage their weight, improve their diet, stop smoking, combat stress or to just take some well-earned time out from their busy world.
Set on 290 acres of rainforest, Camp Eden offers a wide range of services and activities, including holistic body therapies and massage, spa beauty treatments, tennis courts, mountain bikes, bush walking tracks and a heated salt water pool. Techno- and info-addicts take note: there are no TVs, radios, newspapers or magazines, nor are laptops and mobile phones permitted. With distractions removed, you’ll have a chance to tune into nature…and yourself.
The Golden Door Health Retreat
Located in the Gold Coast hinterland, just 45 minutes drive south of Brisbane, the Golden Door Health Retreat,offers a complete program for your total health overhaul. Exercise, relaxation, wholesome cuisine and good health are combined in a holistic approach to your health and wellbeing. Whether your aim is to improve your fitness, relax and unwind, or just to enjoy some well-deserved pampering, you’ll find a program to suit.
Golden Door’s expert instructors tailor-make programs to suit each individual, introducing a holistic approach to exercise that will boost your energy while uplifting your soul. Activities include early morning tai chi, bushwalking, tribal dance, yoga, meditation, volleyball, belly dancing, spinning and swim stroke correction.
Valley Vistas Stress Buster Retreat
Nestled in the foothills of the Springbrook Mountains, with spectacular views to the Pacific Ocean, Valley Vistas Stress Buster Retreat is an oasis of calm and pampering - at affordable prices. Along with the bird song, the scents of the surrounding bushland and delicious home-style dinners and breakfasts, the retreat offers therapeutic massage, beauty therapy, spa and sauna as well as alternative healing therapies like CMR (Cellular Memory Release) to ease away tensions and reinvigorate the senses. For those who can’t do without their retail therapy, the shopping temptations of the Gold Coast are within easy reach.
Gwinganna Lifestyle Retreat
Looking for some instant calm? Check into Gwinganna Lifestyle Retreat, tucked away in Tallebudgera Valley in the Gold Coast hinterland. Superb organic cuisine, a wide range of activities, nurturing massages, ocean and valley views, scenic walks and a casual, relaxed atmosphere all provide inspiration for those in need of luxury-coated R&R.
A highlight is the 33-room Spa Sanctuary. With an elevated outdoor deck and lounge that overlooks that native spa garden, a steam room and custom-designed and themed treatment rooms, you’re guaranteed a five-star spa experience. Along with abseiling, high ropes, yoga and wildlife walks, special weekends are organised around women’s health, organic cooking and other interests.
The Hippocrates Health Centre
The creed here is "eat well, get well". That said, the Mudgeeraba-based Hippocrates Health Centre is probably best suited to “hard-core” devotees of the health retreat world. Based on the belief that wholesome natural foods can restore and maintain vibrant health, Hippocrates follows a strict wellness program. The centre offers a totally raw food, vegan diet that includes a variety of juices (such as wheatgrass) along with a self-help and self-improvement program designed to restore mental and emotional balance and harmony. The result? A regenerated, revitalised, rejuvenated - and very likely much slimmer - you!
