Qantas Magazine | August 2022

TRAVEL INSIDER

EMBRACE THE WILD SIDE OF NEW ORLEANS FIND STILLNESS IN ICELAND’S BLUE LAGOON

KNOW LOS ANGELES’ HOTTEST NEIGHBOURHOODS DINE THE BEST RESTAURANTS IN MARGARET RIVER THINK EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ESG

New Orleans

ALL-INCLUSIVE VOYAGES 2022-2024

Part

SUV. Part coupé. All class.

The Audi Q3.

The rugged stance and versatility of an SUV with expressive design and sleek coupé-inspired curves. The Audi Q3 Sportback sets a clear direction: forward.

Overseas model with optional equipment shown.

50 Crowd-pleaser: Crab curry at Lankan Filling Station Know Dine

19 The people, places and pop culture to put on your radar

36 Spotlight on Los Angeles: your guide to the city’s best neighbourhoods

46 On The Menu: Hot spots for woodfired and charcoal-grilled cooking

52 Best Of... Margaret River

54 Local Heroes: Victoria’s High Country

56 Wine List: Tempranillo

62 Thrill your senses Feel heart-pumping excitement in Queenstown, New Zealand

68 Still your senses

Relax in the calming waters of hot springs around the world

72 Indulge your senses Feast on these immersive Australian dining experiences

78 Blow your senses

84 Slow your senses

Move to the rhythm of New Orleans’ true jazz spirit

Let time drift as you sail the Raja Ampat Islands, Indonesia

AUGUST 2022

132 Class action: How the pandemic brought new ways of teaching and learning to executive education

141 View From The Top: Hamdi Ulukaya, founder and CEO, Chobani

144 Small Business: The ins and outs of exporting

146 Career Path: Elizabeth Gaines, outgoing CEO, Fortescue Metals

148 Upstart: Sapia

150 Clock Wise: John Medina, author of Brain Rules for Work

Touring special report

99 The five breakout trends and who’s doing them best

Design

116 On The Inside: Mill Cabin, Snowy Mountains, NSW

118 Creative Process: Atong Atem

120 Foundations: Shokin-tei, Kyoto, Japan

122 The Statement: Rio low table

124 The Look: Men’s and women’s fashion

128 The Classic: Calvin Klein’s slip dress

Think.

153 Everything you need to know about ESG On board

161 Inflight entertainment

166 Health, safety and security on board and when you land

170 Games

Editorial

Editor-in-Chief

Kirsten Galliott

Content Director

Jessica Irvine

Deputy Content Director

Faith Campbell

Content Manager

Natalie Reilly

Digital and Content Operations Lead

Hana Jo

Online Editor

Christina Rae

Managing Editor, Qantas Hotels

Bridget de Maine

Digital Producer

Anneliese Beard

For editorial inquiries, contact: qantaseditorial@mediumrarecontent.com

Advertising

Head of Sales, Travel

Tony Trovato

+61 404 093 472

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Callum Bean

+61 404 729 224

National Advertising Manager, Business & Travel

Isabella Severino

+61 459 999 715

Qld, WA and SA Sales Manager

Elliott Barsby

+61 450 122 236

Head of Sales, Victoria

Chris Joy +61 406 397 715

Senior Account Manager, Victoria Miranda Adofaci +61 410 387 707

Digital Sales Director

Mike Hanna +61 402 640 095

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Creative Director

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Senior Designer

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Visual Director

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Copy Director

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Copy Editors

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Nick Hadley

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International Representatives

Greater China and Japan

Peter Jeffery +852 2850 4013

peterjeffery@asianimedia.com

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United States

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For advertising inquiries, contact: qantasadvertising@mediumrarecontent.com

Rare Creative Strategy and Partnerships

Head of Rare Creative Paulette Parisi Content and Partnerships Editor Mark Brandon Content and Partnerships Managing Editor Tracey Withers Branded Content Senior Editor Natalie Babic Branded Content Editor Meghan Loneragan Art Director Philippa Moffitt Designer Sophia Lau Strategy and Insights Director Jane Schofield Strategy Manager Daniela Brito Qantas Marketing Partnerships Manager

Sarah Campbell Qantas Partnerships Manager Emily Ryan Qantas Campaign Manager Alana Baird Content and Events Campaign Manager Jessica Manson

For Rare Creative inquiries, contact: rarecreative@mediumrarecontent.com

Managing Director Nick Smith Chief Commercial Officer Fiorella Di Santo Head of Content, Travel Kirsten Galliott Digital Director Karla Courtney Head of Multimedia Aidan Corrigan Head of Audience Intelligence Catherine Ross Financial Controller

Leslie To Finance Manager Yane Chak Junior Accountant Yongjia Zhou

Qantas magazine is published for Qantas Airways Ltd (ABN 16 009 661 901) by Medium Rare Content Agency (ABN 83 169 879 921), Level 1, 83 Bowman Street, Pyrmont, NSW 2009. ©2022. All rights reserved. Printed by Ovato Print Pty Ltd. Paper fibre is from sustainably managed forests and controlled sources. No responsibility is accepted for unsolicited material. Articles express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of Qantas Airways Ltd or Medium Rare Content Agency. ISSN 1443-2013. For a copy of Medium Rare Content Agency’s Privacy Policy, please visit mediumrarecontent.com.

Escape to Eco Beach.

FROM THE EDITOR

I don’t know where to go next.

This is not the kind of admission a travel editor usually makes. Normally, I have a long mental checklist (sorted by season and experience) but right now the volume of choice – after two years of limitations –is positively dizzying.

So I’m going back to basics. What do I need from travel right now? As it turns out, quite a lot…

1. I need an adventure. I’m not talking about next-level adrenaline but I want to experience something that makes me gasp. Turn a corner and be startled by a pride of lions. Follow in the tracks of a herd of elephants. Watch mountain gorillas as they forage.

2. I need a restorative break. I want to quieten my mind, look after myself and be surrounded by great beauty. I’m thinking a walk somewhere majestic. The overland track on Tasmania’s Cradle Mountain?

3. I need to indulge. A weekend in wine country. Lunch at Brigitte Hafner’s Tedesca Osteria on the Mornington Peninsula sounds so right (see page 74), as does a wine tasting at Montalto followed by a private picnic.

4. I need something that feels new. A cacophony of colour and sounds and smells. It has to be India and its greatest hits, from Delhi to Mumbai and Jaipur to Jodhpur.

5. I need to reconnect… with myself and my family. I want to slow down, stretch out the days and find joy in simple pleasures. A villa in Umbria, perhaps, or closer to home, a beach house on the NSW South Coast or South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula. The kind of trip we want to take (or need to take) often depends on our state of mind. That’s why we’re focusing on the senses this month. We’ve found five very different types of holiday for you, whether you want to still your senses or thrill your senses. So it looks like I have a checklist after all.

Kirsten Galliott Editor-in-Chief

kirstengalliott

Our writers are not armchair travellers. Even in a pandemic. Rest assured any assistance we accept from the travel industry in the course of preparing our stories does not compromise the integrity of our coverage.

FROM THE CEO

Since borders reopened it has been fantastic to see Frequent Flyers booking Reward Seats in record numbers. After two years of restrictions it’s clear that a lot of people are making up for lost time. But we’ve also made a number of changes that are making it easier for members to book that dream trip with Qantas Points.

First, we’ve made millions more seats available for redemption across our entire domestic and international network and with our partners. We’ve made up to 50 per cent more reward seats available on international and popular domestic routes until the end of the year and released 2000 Points Planes, which have every seat available to book using points. Los Angeles, Bali, London and Auckland have been the most popular international destinations for customers travelling on points.

Second, we’ve reduced the number of points needed for Qantas Hotels and Holidays bookings by at least 30 per cent, so your points will go even further. We’ve seen redemptions on hotels and holidays double from pre-COVID levels since we made this change.

Third, we’re continuing to increase the number of ways members can earn and redeem points, including adding new partners like Optus and share-trading platform Superhero.

We’ve also expanded into the online holiday package market with the purchase of TripADeal. It means Frequent Flyers can now earn and redeem points on a huge range of holidays, from African safaris to Alaskan adventures and tropical beach escapes. TripADeal has seen a surge in bookings since the announcement, with more than half of new bookings coming from Frequent Flyers.

It’s great that we’re able to help more members take that dream trip and welcome passengers back to our lounges and flights. With airports and flights full again, there have been some challenges during the recovery and we thank you for your patience and understanding as we work hard to make your journey as smooth as possible.

Thanks for choosing Qantas.

Alan Joyce CEO, Qantas

The world’s your oyster

That long-awaited trip to South America is back on the cards with Qantas restarting its direct route to Chile. You’ll be able to fly from Sydney to Santiago from late October. For a getaway closer to home, Qantas now offers direct flights to Nouméa, New Caledonia (above), from both Brisbane and Sydney.

Connect to Qantas

Fast and Free Wi-Fi

Once onboard, connect your own device to Qantas Free Wi-Fi on domestic flights in three simple steps:

Enable Aeroplane Mode and select the “Qantas Free Wi-Fi” network in your Wi-Fi settings.

Follow the prompts on the “Welcome Onboard” screen to connect.

Once you’re connected, you’re ready to access the internet and start exploring.

Having trouble connecting? Make sure you’re connected to the “Qantas Free Wi-Fi” network and go to wifi.qantas.com in your preferred browser to start the connection process. To ensure an enjoyable flight for everyone, keep flight mode activated, switch your device to silent and refrain from voice and video calls.

We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work, live and fly. We pay our respects to Elders past and present and are committed to honouring Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ unique cultural and spiritual relationship to the land and water.

Worth the wait

Floating bars in Fiji, hidden restaurants in Rome and cool surprises in Canada. Australians are exploring the world again – and here, three Qantas travellers share highlights from their recent trips abroad.

TRAVELLED TO Canada FREQUENT FLYER STATUS Gold

“

My husband, two kids and I flew Qantas Business direct to Vancouver from Sydney at Easter. Boarding that plane was superexciting, knowing we’d be arriving in a country where it was snowing. We stayed at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler (hotel. qantas.com.au/fairmontchateauwhistler) and spent our days skiing. There were amazing instructors for the children and they gave us great tips, such as visiting Creekbread (creekbread.com), a pizza place the kids loved. We also spent a few days in Vancouver and the instructors told us to catch the ferry to Granville Island, which has food markets, craft stalls and live music. The trip was so brilliant that we’re going back at Christmastime!”

TRAVELLED TO Italy FREQUENT FLYER STATUS Bronze

“

I lived like a local in Rome for a few days, staying in Trastevere, across the river from the main tourist spots. My goal was to have two gelatos a day and an Aperol Spritz by 11am. Each morning, my friends and I visited our local market, Mercato San Cosimato, where we’d pick up fresh fruit. I loved having a yarn with the growers. I had the best cacio e pepe of my life at Tonnarello (tonnarello.it), which is tucked in an alleyway. The waitress didn’t speak English so we communicated through smiles and hand gestures. We accidentally ordered fried artichoke and had no idea how to eat it. So we followed the lead of the Italians next to us. It was the most delicious mistake.”

TRAVELLED TO Fiji FREQUENT FLYER STATUS

“

My husband and I had our honeymoon in Fiji in March and it was heaven. Our Qantas flight was super-quick and the food was so delicious. We stayed at Tokoriki Island Resort (hotel.qantas.com. au/tokorikiislandresort) in a villa on the beach. We’d go for at least four swims each day. Everyone should get the boat to Cloud 9 (cloud9.com.fj), a bar in the middle of the ocean. We drank Margaritas and ate incredible woodfired pizzas. The resort organised a boat trip to a private island for a picnic. It was just us, a beach hut and a stretch of sand, where we ate green papaya salad and cheese. We also did a snorkelling tour and saw turtles and Nemo fish. It was the most relaxing trip.”

Bronze

HERE BEFORE PAVED ROADS

THE WAITLIST

One of Queensland’s best South-East Asian restaurants launches an offshoot in Port Douglas and an eatery in Melbourne’s Federation Square wants diners to taste every corner of Victoria.

Victoria by Farmer’s Daughters

When chef Alejandro Saravia opened Farmer’s Daughters, his Melbourne CBD lovesong to Gippsland, in 2021, he was inundated with emails from producers in other parts of the state. “They were introducing their products to us and true to our commitment to promoting the Victorian farming industry, we thought it’d be a good idea to expand our reach.”

The result is Victoria by Farmer’s Daughters (victoriarestaurant.com.au), a new 180-seat restaurant at Federation

Square. Its sole purpose is to champion the food, wine and arts of often overlooked Victorian regions. The focus will rotate: on one visit there may be pottery from Bendigo or art from Gippsland, the next it might be a wine-matching dinner from a small winery or a micro-distiller creating bespoke cocktails. Food-wise, everything will be Victorian, from seafood to venison to vegetables, and cooked over wood and coals. There’ll even be visual projections transporting guests into different regional communities. “We want it to be somewhere that everyone can gather together and celebrate Victoria,” says Saravia.

QLD

Hervé’s

The Craft’d Grounds precinct in Brisbane welcomes a classy newcomer: a French-inflected loft restaurant (hervesrestaurant bar.com.au) helmed by ex-Hôtel de Crillon hospitality honcho Hervé Dudognon. Steak, seafood platters packed with Australian produce, an Australian/French/ Corsican wine list and affogato menu are the highlights.

NSW Izgara

The name is Turkish for “grill” and grilling is the life-force behind chef and co-owner Efe Topuzlu’s Potts Point spot (izgarasydney.com.au), inspired by his family’s restaurant from his teenage years in Istanbul. Iskender lokum (lamb loin on smoked eggplant) and other decadent classics – and a few modern surprises, like a caviar service – arrive amid plush velvet banquettes. The cocktails are a standout; be sure to try the frothy Apricot Sour.

QLD Jungle Fowl

Ben Wallace and Rachael Boon, the team behind the South-East Asian long lunches at Oaks Kitchen & Garden at Oak Beach, have opened a bigger offshoot in Port Douglas (junglefowl. com.au). There’s a walk-in bar for drinks and snacks, plus a bookings-only restaurant that serves banquet-style feasts. Unlike the BYO Oaks, wine and cocktails will be more of a feature here.

Victoria by Farmer’s Daughters in Melbourne

TIME SQUARE

They’ve mixed gold with rubber, collaborated with the likes of Ferrari and made it onto the wrist of Jay-Z but until now, there’s one place Hublot hasn’t been game enough to venture – the square face. Game because, by the admission of the Swiss watchmaking house’s CEO, Ricardo Guadalupe, “this is a divisive, disruptive and unconventional shape that no-one has known how to rework for decades”. When Hublot’s Big Bang first came on the scene back in 2005 it introduced a new status symbol and it feels like the Square Bang is well on its way to reinforcing this icon’s popularity.

Art of gold

The case

The square is Hublot’s fourth shape following round, barrel-shaped and the unconventional geometry seen in the brand’s Master Pieces. The new timepiece has a guaranteed water resistance to 100 metres – traditionally a challenge for square-faced watches – and despite the 42-millimetre size, wrist comfort is assured by an ergonomic strap and lug design.

The movement

While the case is square, the calibre is by nature round. Instead of hiding this fact, Hublot has chosen to highlight it, with its signature Unico movement – a 354-component automatic chronograph operating at 4Hz –a feature of the dial.

The dial

A sandwich construction under sapphire reveals the inner workings of the watch, which is finished with rhodium- or goldplated hands, depending on the model, and framed by six functional polished and sandblasted screws on the bezel.

The strap

The watch makes the most of Hublot’s One Click system, with textured rubber complementing materials like ceramic, King (red) Gold and titanium. Perhaps the most striking is the Square Bang Unico All Black: a collector’s edition limited to 250 pieces.

The price

Hublot Square Bang Unico All Black watch / $36,600 / hublot.com

In its 50 years, Perth-based family-run jeweller Linneys has become known for an inimitable style that combines modern technology with traditional goldsmithing techniques. Take this Keshi pearl, diamond and yellow-gold ring, inspired by the coral coastline of Western Australia and transforming a cluster of baroque-shaped Australian South Sea pearls into a wearable work of art that would look equally at home on a gallery plinth as resting on your finger.

Linneys freeform style Keshi pearl, diamond and yellow-gold ring (design may vary according to the individual pearls used) / $9950 / linneys.com.au

BROOME, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

The pearl is nature’s best argument for what’s possible when foreign matter meets a new environment. Known for the South Sea pearls scattered off its coastline, Broome is a town that embodies this idea more than most. Home to the Yawuru people for more than 30,000 years, the centuries since European arrival have drawn Japanese, Malay, Chinese, Filipino and Koepanger treasure-seekers. Every year, as pearl harvest season comes to a close and the tropical heat seeps back into the evenings, the town turns up the volume on this multicultural bonhomie with Shinju Matsuri – Japanese for “festival of the pearl” – a 15-day extravaganza that began in 1970 and today draws a crowd of about 20,000 (20 August-4 September; shinjumatsuri.com.au).

The west coast haven shines brightest during its annual festival of the pearl.

For event director Saira Hanlon, the Sunset Long Table Dinner, where guests enjoy a banquet of local seafood catered by Sydney Cove Oyster Bar on the sands of Cable Beach under a technicolour sky, is about as quintessentially Broome as it gets. “I always describe it as ‘barefoot black-tie’,” she says. “We showcase incredible local produce like pearl meat, the drinks are flowing and you get to marinate in what’s probably the best sunset you’ll ever see.”

Other crowd-pleasers at this year’s festival include the Chinatown Feast, a hawker’s market of local chefs and performers; the Jetty Gala, a high-end cocktail-style event held on the new Town Beach jetty; and the Paspaley Floating Lantern Matsuri, where paper lanterns are lit and set afloat from Gantheaume Point.

Make it a weekend…

It’s worth settling in and resetting your body clock to what locals refer to as “Broome time”. Nestled into Roebuck Bay, The Mangrove Hotel (hotel.qantas.com.au/mangrovehotel) marries vibe and comfort. Its sprawling beach club lawn demands you spend the afternoon perched on a daybed with a glass of Margaret River chardonnay, watching the sun dance on the ocean. When you’re ready for dinner, The Aarli (theaarli.com.au) on Hamersley Street serves imaginative Asian fusion share plates and a Yuzu Tom Collins that’ll knock your thongs off. It’s big-city energy hiding in the gateway to the Kimberley.

The Sunset Long Table Dinner (left) and the Paspaley Floating Lantern Matsuri (below) at Festival of the Pearl

A PROMISE THAT WON’T COST THE EARTH.

When you say “I do” you make promises of a brilliant future together. Choosing an engagement ring from Secrets is the sustainable diamond alternative because we’re working towards a better future, so you’ll have peace-of-mind knowing that it won’t cost the Earth.

MAKING THE CUT

We’ve scanned the zeitgeist for what to read, watch, wear and drink now.

1

Home

Australian kitchen appliance brand Breville (breville.com) has partnered with Aboriginal designer and curator Alison Page to create a series of home products, including a kettle (above), toaster, blender and coffee machine, decorated with paintings by First Nations artists. The appliances are available at David Jones (davidjones.com) and have been featured in an exhibition at The National Museum of Australia, alongside traditional First Nations tools, to reveal the long and rich history of this country’s culinary culture.

2

Podcast

What makes a cult? A charismatic, controlling leader? Unquestioning devotees? Rabid evangelism? All of the above? In Sounds Like a Cult , hosts and journalists Amanda Montell and Isabela Medina-Maté seek to understand whether some of the ordinary cultural icons of our time are, in fact, cults. Everything from multi-level marketing to Soul Cycle is thoroughly and hilariously analysed every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts.

3

Streaming

For those left wanting more after the final season of Game of Thrones comes a prequel about the ancestors of the Targaryens. The House of the Dragon –set 200 years before Daenerys (the mother of all dragons and aunt of Jon Snow) arrived on the scene – is based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Blood Starring Emma D’Arcy (Truth Seekers) and Matt Smith (The Crown , above with D’Arcy) the episodes will hit Binge from 22 August.

4

Beauty

The conundrum of when to apply serum or mist looks like it might finally be solved. The answer? Put the serum in the mist, which is what Chanel has done with its Revitalizing Body Serum-In-Mist (above, $120; chanel.com.au). With 97 per cent naturally derived ingredients, including red camellia, the mist has antioxidant properties. Also in the same innovative category is Pure Serum Mist from Skin Inc. ($103; sephora.com.au).

5 Drink

A favoured drink of bohemians in the late 19th century, before bouncing back in the 1990s club scene, the green, anise-flavoured spirit, absinthe, has overcome bans to be noticed again in a big way. Its hallucinogenic effects are no longer a thing but the flavours are strong. Try Absinthe Minded from Earp Distilling Co. (from $89; earpdistillingco.com).

Movie

7 Style

8 Book

The Nigella of Millennials, bestselling author and home cook Julia Busuttil Nishimura has released her third cookbook, Around the Table. It’s brimming with easy recipes that have been influenced by the Melburnian’s Maltese heritage and Japanese family – ginger cake with cream cheese icing is just one highlight. 6

Writer and director Jordan Peele turned the idea behind Stepford Wives into a perfectly horrifying allegory about racism in 2017’s Get Out – and won an Oscar. Now he’s back with another horror movie, Nope , a sci-fi tale about a small town that experiences an abnormal event so terrifying the human response is a firm “nope”. Starring Get Out ’s Daniel Kaluuya (above, centre), Steven Yeun and Euphoria’s Barbie Ferreira, Nope beams down into cinemas on 11 August.

Low-rise “bumster” pants. The skull scarf. A dress spray-painted by robots. Armadillo heels. British designer Alexander McQueen, known in the late 1990s as the l’enfant terrible of fashion, created all of them. Although he died at just 40 in 2010, his culturedefining pieces live on and now they’re coming to Melbourne. The exhibition Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse, features more than 100 of his designs along with 70 artworks that influenced him. Opening on 11 December at the National Gallery of Victoria Gala, the exhibition will run until 16 April 2023 (ngv.vic.gov.au).

SILVER LININGS

The ship

With all-suite accommodation, personal butlers and an indulgent wellness concept, Silversea’s newest cruise liner redefines luxury.

The food Silversea’s culinary program, S.A.L.T (Sea and Land Taste), uses food to deepen the connection between passengers and the culture at their destination. These might include shore excursions to meet artisan producers or onboard cooking classes led by local culinary pros. At dinner, guests can sample S.A.L.T Kitchen’s changing menu that reflects the food of each port. Next door, the snug S.A.L.T Bar has a list of boutique wine and drinks from the region. There’s also intimate Kaiseki for Japanese, La Dame for high-end French cuisine and poolside Spaccanapoli for pizza. If you feel like staying in, the 24-hour in-suite comfort food menu (think lobster rolls and truffle fries at 3am) includes the “balcony experience” – a hot chocolate delivered with a cosy cashmere blanket on cooler

days or a cocktail on ice and refreshing body mist when the sun’s out.

Wellness

Silver Dawn’s new wellness concept, Otium, filters through every area of the ship, from the new spa to in-suite indulgences. The spa boasts nine treatment rooms, a sauna and steam room. Or call your butler for the in-room bathing experience of a candlelit bath with Sicilian sea salts and classical playlist. And to get your heart rate up, try the top-deck jogging track, the fitness centre or swimming pool.

The journeys

In 2023-2024, Silver Dawn’s itineraries will include voyages to Portofino, Northern Europe, the British Isles, the Caribbean and Central America, among other destinations (silversea.com).

A vision of quiet luxury, Silver Dawn is big enough to provide standout facilities but still feels intimate – there are plenty of inviting places to relax, such as the comfy sofas with ocean views tucked away on the rear deck of level nine and the peaceful outdoor terrace at Arts Café on eight. There are 298 all-suite cabins (a total of 596 guests), each with separate sitting areas that can be curtained off, beds dressed in Egyptian cotton, private balconies and full-sized bathtubs. You can chill out in several light-filled lounges, including the Panorama with its pianist and walls of windows that bring the ocean outlook in. An almost 1:1 staff ratio ensures seamless service.

(From top) The Silver Dawn; S.A.L.T Kitchen; the outdoor spa deck

Brooke Boney

The former Triple J newsreader and now the entertainment presenter on the Nine Network’s Today show is known as a bit of an all-rounder. Here, she tells us what makes her world turn.

The last book I read was…

The podcast I’m listening to is…

About motherhood and relationships but not in the way you’d expect. Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters centres on the lives of three women who are cis- and transgender. It was interesting and refreshing and I felt lucky to be reading the perspective of a community we haven’t heard enough from in this space. Peters herself is a transwoman and her debut novel is excellent.

Normal Gossip . It’s hilarious and juicy and sounds ridiculous but is actually really entertaining. My mum joins Facebook community groups from neighbouring towns so she can see gossip and drama. Sometimes, she tells me about it. Apparently, someone else had already come up with this idea and turned it into a podcast because that’s what Normal Gossip is about.

A movie I saw recently was…

The social media account I love to follow is…

The Eyes of Tammy Faye . Jessica Chastain is incredible as the wife of Baptist preacher Jim Bakker. I fell into a bit of a Google black hole afterwards reading about the HIV/AIDS crisis, which I find difficult to believe was only a few decades ago.

Problematic Fame on Instagram. It shows what extremely beautiful people look like in unedited photos. I understand how much effort goes into looking presentable for TV and photos. Believe me, I feel like I’ve spent half my life in the past five years sitting in make-up chairs. But I still see photoshopped images of celebrities and think they’re real. So when I came across Problematic Fame, I felt it was my civic duty to share it.

The last performance I went to was…

The Foo Fighters in Geelong in March. It was amazing and emotional and not just because I’ve been listening to their music and watching their hilarious video clips for the past couple of decades. It was the first international act I’d seen in more than two years and to watch thousands of people experiencing the joy that comes with seeing live rock music was a very special moment. I’ll never forget [the late] Taylor Hawkins belt out a cover of Queen’s Somebody To Love

LONDON

1 Luxury Pan Pacific London

The grand, 194-room, 43-suite property (hotel.qantas.com.au/ panpacificlondon) opened in September 2021 near Spitalfields, one of London’s most historic areas. Trilby-hatted porter Cyril ushers guests into The Orchid Lounge, to sink into velvet armchairs for an English high tea. Cocktail bar Ginger Lily serves more than 150 rums and Straits Kitchen restaurant brings the tastes of Singapore to the capital with dishes such as fragrant chicken rice and mapo salmon. The Wellbeing Floor has a 24-hour gym, pre-check-in rest area, spa and 18.5-metre pool.

One Hundred Shoreditch

Open since March, this sleek stay (hotel.qantas.com.au/one hundredshoreditch) reaffirms Shoreditch as the city’s hippest ’hood. Local artist Jan Hendzel’s sculpture throws orange light across the minimalist lobby and the 258 Arctic-white rooms are decorated with artworks. There’s more art in the Lobby Bar, best viewed as you sip a Spiced Plum Spritz, and in Goddard & Gibbs restaurant, where the fish pie is a must. Up in the California-retro Rooftop Bar & Terrace you can graze on tostadas, while down in basement bar Seed Library order a raspberry-leaf-scented Bellini.

Four new places to stay in the British capital.

3 Family

Room2 Chiswick Hometel

A cool, cosy crash pad (hotel. qantas.com.au/room2chiswick hometel) in an upmarket West London neighbourhood, this 86-room property has Chiswick Common only a frisbee throw away, with cafés, kids’ clothing boutiques and toy shops nearby. It’s more like a home than a hotel, with handmade furniture and fittings. Lounge rooms or suites are best for families and you can prepare meals in a full kitchen (in larger rooms and suites) or kitchenette (in smaller rooms). It has a strong sustainability focus, with 100 per cent renewable energy and in-room recycling.

4 Business

Westin London City

This 222-room hotel (marriott. com) opened in the financial district last November. It offers a lavish spa (complete with 12-metre pool) and views over the River Thames to the Tate Modern and Globe Theatre. There are seven meeting rooms and event spaces, five breakout rooms and technical services available (including photographer and TV production crew). When the deals are done, celebrate at the in-house Hithe + Seek wine bar, which offers tastings and a tightly curated menu of old-world classics meets new-world creations.

Janua SC58 Dining Table in stained black lacquered solid oak. Freifrau Leya Armchair low and Amelie Chair. Janua BC06 Room68 shelving in stained oak black.

FREIFRAU

LAND ROVER RANGE ROVER

The fifth generation of this modern luxury icon has arrived, with materiality, technology and comfort at its heart.

21232675AB_ 2022-04-04T23:25:10+10:00

What’s changed? Everything: new design, fresh interiors, cutting-edge infotainment system and pages-long list of options. Plus, for the first time, seven seats and hybrid engines are on offer. What kind of powertrains? It has a choice of engines, including diesel, mild hybrids, petrol (a 4.4-litre V8) and extended-range plug-in hybrids with up to 125 kilometres of range. Is an EV option coming? Look out for it in 2024. The exterior looks elegant. Expressing the art of restraint at this level has actually taken years of technological manufacturing and leaps in torsional engineering. What’s it like inside? Beautifully crafted with a stellar choice of textiles and materials, including deep-pile mohair carpets, near-aniline leather, sustainably derived leather alternatives, Kvadrat Remix wool blends, fine veneers and ceramic detailing. Any cool tech? The 13.1-inch floating glass touchscreen with a personalised system is highly intuitive. This Range Rover has wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, integrated Amazon Alexa and Spotify, wi-fi hotspot for up to eight devices, plus a 34-speaker Meridian Signature Sound System with Active Noise Cancellation built into the headrests. The camera and safety equipment are outstanding, too. What about party tricks? It sounds crazy but the turning circle is on par with a modern hatchback. How much? From $220,200, plus on-road costs. landrover.com.au

JANUA

HAMILTON ISLAND, QUEENSLAND

Responsible for showing off her island home to visiting celebrities, dignitaries and royals, Hamilton Island’s Executive Concierge, Laurelle Fazel, knows this place like no-one else. Happily, the local industry expert of some 25 years is just as committed to sharing her insider knowledge with those of us who arrive without a private jet and entourage.

Passage Peak

“It’s difficult to go past a sunrise hike at Passage Peak, a trail that’s around 1.5 hours long and winds up to the highest point on the mountain, with hikers given sweeping vistas in all directions

as they go. That said, doing the hike without first downloading the Hamilton Island App and listening to the Passage Peak audio tour as you walk feels like a missed opportunity. It tells you all about the island’s history, as well as some of the flora and fauna that you’ll see along the way, hopefully helping to distract you from the occasional stairs and steep inclines.”

Hamilton Island Air

“I’m never going to dissuade anyone from taking a snorkelling tour of the fringing reefs that surround Hamilton Island but I always tell them to try to hold off until they’ve done an aerial tour of the region (hamiltonisland air.com). It doesn’t matter if it’s a helicopter tour or a seaplane, I’m amazed by just how much more you can see from up there. Not only does it help you form a better understanding of the coral formations you can explore in detail later but seeing how it all comes together in this colourful display suddenly makes sense. It’s called an aerial tour but it’s really the ultimate reconnaissance mission.”

Clubhouse Restaurant

“Unlike those who head to Hamilton Island Golf Club on Dent Island for a leisurely afternoon of golf, you’ll often find me crossing that same passage on the 10am ferry. My final destination is lunch at the exquisite Clubhouse Restaurant (hamiltonisland golfclub.com.au), a scenic venue that can surprise first-timers with its service and quality. Before I take my seat, I like to take an hour-long buggy ride around the 18-hole course. The views of the surrounding islands jutting out of the Coral Sea as you drive are spectacular!”

Reuben Nutt, Kara Rosenlund About Town STORY

(From top) Passage Peak; Hamilton Island Executive Concierge Laurelle Fazel; the Clubhouse at the Hamilton Island golf course

WELL READ

The book everyone is reading

Australian-American novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner

Geraldine Brooks has done it again with her sweeping and complex historical novel, Horse. Jumping between the 1850s, 1950s and the present, this book is many things: an exploration of prejudice, humanity’s relationship with animals and the telling and remembering of history. But first and foremost it’s a story about a horse: Lexington, the greatest thoroughbred sire in United States history.

The non-fiction to know about Sometimes the hook is all it takes to know that you have to read a book. The Premonitions Bureau by Sam Knight has such a hook. In 1966, psychiatrist John Barker was intrigued by people who appeared to predict the future. He set up the titular bureau out of the British mental hospital where he worked and gathered people who made claims of clairvoyance (from postal workers to ballet teachers). As the book’s blurb explains, “among them were two unnervingly gifted ‘percipients’ [who] predicted plane crashes, assassinations and international incidents with uncanny accuracy. And then they informed Barker of their most disturbing premonition: that he was about to die”. Tell me you can resist that pitch.

The book you should be reading

The team at Sweatshop – the celebrated writers’ workshop and literacy movement that’s based in western Sydney –has for years championed new voices who might traditionally have been left out of the Australian publishing story. The talent they’ve unearthed and the wonderful writing they’ve introduced to the world are inspiring and energising for any lover of literature.

STORY BY MICHAEL WILLIAMS

From the latest novels to classic books worth discovering, these are the page-turning picks for the month.

Another Australia , edited by Winnie Dunn, is the follow-up to its previous boundarypushing anthology After Australia . It’s powerful and constantly surprising so get ready to meet your new favourite writers.

The classic to revisit Australian literary legend, activist, raconteur and essayist Frank Moorhouse died at the end of June. It’s a colossal loss because he was a genuine original and any of his books (with ones on ASIO and the Martini among them) are rewarding and stimulating. But his trilogy following a young Australian diplomat at the founding of the League of Nations is a masterpiece. In Edith Campbell Berry, his heroine, he created one of the enduring characters in literature. The trilogy is Grand Days (1993), Dark Palace (2000) and Cold Light (2011). All are must-reads.

The Australian book to read now

If you haven’t already discovered the series of crime novels by Sulari Gentill featuring Rowland Sinclair, there’s a mystery treat awaiting you. But before you go for the series, dive straight into The Woman in the Library, a sensational stand-alone thriller. A novel within a novel about an Australian crime writer trying to craft the perfect murder, this meta-mystery is a delight.

Lachie Thomas

He’s the brains behind the next generation of sustainability that’s unfolding at a winery in north-east Victoria.

“Carbon hunter” has a good ring to it but it’s just not sciency enough to cover what Lachie Thomas does to make Tahbilk (tahbilk.com.au), the oldest family-run winery in Victoria, one of the first naturally net zero wineries in the world. So he’s called an environment and vineyard research analyst.

“Tahbilk is on the front foot with sustainability,” says Thomas. The Purbrick family who owns the winery began revegetating wetlands on the estate – which sits on the Goulburn River 90 minutes from Melbourne – into a native eco trail in the 1990s. The plants have sequestered 97 per cent of the winery’s carbon output but carbon credits were needed to offset the rest. Thomas’s job has been to catch that last three per cent. “This September, we expect an audit to show we’re capturing and storing more carbon onsite than we create. To be certified climate positive without credits is next-generation sustainability.” Extra carbon credits will be donated to other community businesses.

Thomas is excited about the technology that’s changing winemaking. “I could talk all day about these sensors for water efficiency that clip around the vine to measure minute changes in trunk diameter. We can see exactly when vines are drinking so we can irrigate without wastage.”

Ask about the winery’s restaurant and you’ll find out about hyper-local ingredients and the heat-reflective rocket paint on the roof (NASA uses it to keep shuttles cool). “We’re analysing the footprint of everything across the winery, vineyard and business… from the energy it takes to make the glass of every bottle down to the average two days a bottle of white sits in your fridge at home.”

Thomas is still up for getting dirt under his nails. “We’re planting another 20 hectares of grey box, yellow box and red gum eucalyptus – they sequester a lot of carbon for a long time – and 20 acacia species for biodiversity.”

Start your Green Tier journey today

Tahbilk winery (above); Lachie Thomas

Discover Green Tier

Los Angeles

It’s a city that can seem impenetrable to outsiders – all traffic, freeways and urban sprawl. But there’s an easy way to get under LA’s skin: find the right neighbourhood haunts.

WEST ADAMS

“People are calling West Adams the new Silver Lake but we’re adamant that we don’t want to change the feel of this area,” says Sophie Woodard from the 48-room desert-cool Alsace LA hotel (hotel.qantas.com.au/alsacela), one of the businesses giving this South LA district, famous for its jazz, 19th-century architecture and Black and Latino cultures, a new edge.

There are plenty of great dining experiences to dive into: eating the house-made cornbread with honey butter underneath the star jasmine trellis at soul food mecca Alta (altaadams.com) is one, as is the “size of your head” grilled cheese sandwich at Tartine (tartinebakery.com) or the tongue-numbing Szechuan noodles at Mian (miantaste.com). But Woodard says you can’t visit the area without trying the food that’s been here for decades, like the Salvadoran pupusas – a sort of grilled flat bread – from Es Con Sabor (5239 W Adams Boulevard; +1 323 939 1458) or what

she considers to be the best late-night tacos in the city, from the guy who sets up his truck every day at about 4pm on the corner of W Adams and Alsace. “He blasts his Mexican music into the night but no-one cares, it’s all part of the atmosphere.”

But it’s not all about the food. Art and artisans have carved out space here, from handmade jewellery at Antiqua (antiquajewelry. com) and the curated Fair Trade homewares of The Global Trunk (theglobaltrunk.com) to the Band of Vices gallery (bandofvices. com), which showcases art from marginalised and overlooked creative communities.

And once your senses have been tweaked and twanged and stretched to their limits, hop on one of the bikes that are available for guests at the Alsace and cycle to the Peace Awareness Labyrinth & Gardens (peacelabyrinth.org), an unexpected patch of tranquillity in one of the world’s most hectic metropolises.

Urban cool

The lobby at Alsace LA hotel

Bringing the beat back

HOLLYWOOD

Despite its blockbuster name, Hollywood proper hasn’t always had a lot to offer visitors beyond the cheesy tourist box-ticks like the Walk of Fame and Universal Studios. But part of the neighbourhood has slapped a new rockstar name on itself –The Vinyl District, which is bordered by Sunset, Schrader and Hollywood boulevards and Gower Street – and a bit of that La La Land magic dust has returned.

“I think the real Hollywood glamour has started to come back,” says Simone Stack, the restaurant manager at Grandmaster Recorders (grandmasterrecorders.com), the two-storey restaurant and rooftop 71 Studio Bar inside an old recording studio, opened by Australians Monty and Jaci Koludrovic, formerly of Bondi’s Icebergs. But it’s a cooler kind of glamour than the classic Hollywood fever dream; at Grandmaster, patrons are wearing fake fur rather than mink stoles and Harry Styles T-shirts instead of Harry Winston diamonds as they devour Monty’s scampi and basil hand rolls and Jaci’s spectacular record-shaped tiramisu.

The hotels have led the area’s makeover. First there was the helter-skelter Mama Shelter (hotel.qantas.com.au/mamashelterla) with its neon colour scheme. Right next door is Tommie Hollywood (hyatt.com), its Mid-century Modern lobby filled with house music and laptop-glued creatives lounging by the fire on leather sofas. Bar Lis (barlisla.com) at the top of Tommie’s big brother, the Thompson Hollywood hotel, round the corner in Wilcox Avenue, is one of the greatest rooftop bars in a city full of them. Tommie Hollywood’s Yucatan-inspired Ka’Teen restaurant (kateenla.com) takes you out of the urban jungle and into a lush Tulum rainforest. (You half expect a jaguar to drop lazily from a palm.)

You can’t leave without souveniring some tangible evidence of the district’s creativity – after all, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stevie Wonder, the Rolling Stones and countless other artists have recorded music here. Flip through their 12-inches at As The Record Turns (astherecordturnsla.com), Amoeba Music (amoeba.com) or The Record Parlour (6408 Selma Avenue; +1 323 464 7757).

71 Studio Bar (above left) and the tiramisu at Grandmaster Recorders

Corporate goes creative

CULVER CITY

Culver City – not much more than a wedge between two freeways just south of Beverly Hills – is having a moment. Before the pandemic, a number of big entertainment and tech companies, including Apple, Amazon and HBO, announced they’d be moving their LA headquarters to the neighbourhood. Word is it’s aiming to be the next Silicon Valley.

While that side of things is downloading, there’s still plenty to see and do in this small pocket of the city. The 148-room Shay (hotel.qantas.com.au/theshay) is a district centrepiece. Its Etta restaurant (ettarestaurant.com), helmed by Chicago chef Danny Grant, is packed with locals laughing over pizzas and creative cocktails like the Fromage Noir, made with goat’s cheese-washed Hendrick’s gin.

Across the road, the Platform shopping precinct (platform losangeles.com) is home to American sustainable frock shop

Reformation and Monocle, where you can nab travel guides, sleek sunnies and more. A short walk away you’ll find the LA outpost of contemporary art gallery Blum & Poe (blumandpoe.com).

The area also has a surfeit of incredible ice-cream. Coolhaus (cool.haus) – owned by two women who first set up their ice-cream van at the Coachella music festival in 2009 – lays claim to LA’s best ice-cream sandwich, while Van Leeuwen (vanleeuwen icecream.com) makes vegan scoops so good you’d never know they hadn’t been near a cow.

And perhaps most alluring of all in a city that suffers mightily from confusing sprawl, especially for visitors, Culver City prides itself on being a convenient central base to almost everywhere else. Locals brag that they’re all about “business suits to wetsuits” with the Metro E Line dashing you to Downtown in one direction or the Santa Monica Pier in the other, in a matter of minutes.

The Game Room at The Shay hotel

MALIBU

Spoiler alert: The Beach Boys were using a touch of poetic licence when they sang their odes to Californian beaches, at least the ones in LA, such as Malibu. They’re not exactly the vast, sugar-white sands and crystal-blue waters that anyone who’s used to, say, the Whitsundays or Hawaii might expect. The busy Pacific Coast Highway runs a little too close for starters and many of the multi-million-dollar homes that dot the coastline barge their way onto the sand.

But that doesn’t mean you should skip the rarefied Malibu. Forget the Sunset Strip or Rodeo Drive, this is where to come if you’re hoping to star-spot. Look for Bradley Cooper or Taylor Swift trying the oysters with Maui onion dressing, yellowtail sashimi tricked up with jalapeño or signature black miso cod at Nobu Malibu (noburestaurants.com). When you book, make sure you ask for a table on the outdoor terrace where you can see the surf crashing below.

Malibu Country Mart (malibucountrymart.com) has a twee name but it’s actually the place for some of the best shopping

in the city, including contemporary fashion from Vince and surf champ Kelly Slater’s outdoors-wear company Outerknown (its women’s jumpsuits are gaining a cult following).

And despite the beaches not being as beachy as perhaps you’d hope, that Cali surf spirit is still buzzing. Hotel June (hotel. qantas.com.au/hoteljunela) has chilled-out Mid-century motel vibes; Bob Dylan wrote Blood on the Tracks here in 1974, when it was The Malibu Riviera Hotel. Today, Chaka Khan and Jimi Hendrix are on high rotation in the common garden areas. On the pier, Malibu Farm (malibu-farm.com) is where to find freshly squeezed juices and cocktails, as well as cute beach-themed homewares. And there’s no better way to do a Malibu sunrise than takeaway breakfast burritos from Lily’s (lilysmalibu.com). “Call ahead – the wait times can be crazy,” says Hotel June co-owner Sam Shendow. “Ask for extra habanero sauce; it’s the most flavourful we’ve found outside of Mexico.” Then hike up to Point Dume for a dawn snack with ocean (and maybe even seal, whale and dolphin) views.

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WORLD’S BEST CABERNET

The Deep Woods 2020 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon has been named ‘Best in Show’ at the world’s most influential and widely recognised wine show, the Decanter World Wine Awards 2022.

This Margaret River wine was the only Australian Cabernet Sauvignon to be recognised as Best in Show and one of just two Cabernet Sauvignon wines in the world to be given this honour.

This award adds to an already outstanding Reserve Cabernet history. The last ten vintages have accumulated 38 Gold Medals and 17 Trophies, including the esteemed Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy and two Max Schubert Trophies.

Scan the QR code to secure your pre-release allocation of this world-class Cabernet Sauvignon. Limited availability.

The robata grill at Sydney’s Woodcut

HOT SPOTS

Charcoal grills and woodfired ovens are taking centrestage as chefs work with fire to bring bold flavours to the table.

Ross Lusted has vivid memories of mornings spent on the beach, fishing and cooking with his dad. “I grew up on a farm in South Africa,” recalls the chef and owner of Sydney fine-diner Woodcut. “My dad and I used to go fishing on the beach for tailor. We would then make a fire and cook the fish for breakfast. I’ll always remember the smell of it.”

As Lusted travelled, he found himself increasingly drawn to food cooked over charcoal or on a wood fire. “Lamb roasted in the mountains of Croatia, satay cooked on the streets of Jakarta and trout grilled over fire in New Zealand – I just love food like that.”

So it wasn’t surprising that when Lusted and his wife, Sunny, opened Woodcut in Crown Sydney at the end of 2020, they decided to bring fire into the kitchen. The Lusteds went all-out, with not one but three barbecue options: a woodfired oven, a Japanese ash grill and a woodfired grill. “I could never have a restaurant now that didn’t have a huge component based on charcoal cooking,” says Lusted. “There used to be a lot of tweezers and a lot of sous-vide [cooking ingredients in a water bath] but I’m too old for that. That’s not my generation. Give me lamb on a grill. It tastes better.”

Woodcut is one of a growing number of high-end restaurants here and overseas that are eschewing conventional gas or electric appliances for woodfired ovens and charcoal grills. Instead of producing fussy, haute cuisine-style dishes, menus are instead built on smoking, barbecuing, wood-roasting and charring proteins and vegetables. Part of the chef’s quest for barbecue perfection often involves sourcing particular types of wood – from cherry wood to ironbark – to add delicate flavour to the cooking smoke.

Much of the influence on Australia’s charcoal restaurants comes from a handful of top international chefs – notably Victor Arguinzoniz at Spain’s Asador Etxebarri and Aussie expat Dave Pynt, who runs Singapore’s celebrated Burnt Ends – who have taken charcoal cooking to new heights.

Adelaide chef Jake Kellie worked as Pynt’s head chef at Burnt Ends for three years before bringing his knowledge home to open his first restaurant in Adelaide’s Norwood. At Arkhé, Kellie toils over a 2.5 tonne dual-capacity oven that reaches temperatures of 900°C when the fire, stoked on local ironbark, is raging. “It’s pretty hot,” says Kellie with a laugh. “I’ve shed a couple of kilos since we opened.”

Kellie says that working with fire has become an obsession because of the results it produces on the plate. “The style of cooking we do here – really, all of what we do – is about flavour and making delicious food. Working with fire is a challenge. But the reception has been amazing. It’s just a different way of doing things – and it’s worth it.”

STORY BY ELIZABETH MERYMENT

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LAUREN BAMFORD

(Above and opposite) Woodcut restaurant in Crown Sydney

Try these…

Sydney Woodcut

Ross and Sunny Lusted’s luxurious Barangaroo venue (crownsydney.com.au) embraces the theatre of dining in every way. Pots are delivered to the table to be revealed, flames leap in the open kitchen as steaks sizzle on grills and shellfish are lined up coolly on ice waiting for a turn in the oven. Order from the ash grill, the wood oven or the wood grill (some dishes also come from steam kettles), indulging in the likes of a Stone Axe full-blood Wagyu sirloin (from the wood grill) or octopus with potato, whipped anchovy, oregano and ’nduja (from the ash grill). It’s all delicious.

Brisbane Agnes

The scent of woodsmoke hits you between the eyes the moment you enter this sexy Fortitude Valley hotspot (agnesrestaurant.com.au), where chef Ben Williamson creates magic in a kitchen powered entirely by fire. Magnificent whole tuna and slabs of beef and lamb hang from hooks in a cool cabinet, while firewood provides a useful prop against huge black ovens. On the table, the eating is by turns delicate and robust, with plenty of smoky moments and fullthrottle flavour. Try saddleback pork with roasted currant grapes, verjuice and whipped feta or 70-day dry-aged Westholme Wagyu short loin with peppered kombu. You’ll leave with a firey scent in your hair and clothes… but it will be worth it.

Adelaide Arkhé

At this Northwood newcomer (arkhe.com.au), the monster woodfired oven has two sides: “hot” and “cold”. The hot side gets very, very hot – about 900°C – while the cold side basks in its neighbour’s residual heat and stays about 150°C to 160°C. Chefs tend the fire like a pet; every day the focus is rotated so each side has a turn being hot then cold. The result of this dedication is in the eating, with chef/owner Jake Kellie’s menu reading like the barbecue spread of your dreams. Try smoky pork skewers with toasted peanuts and lime, Mayura Station beef rib or the vegetarian-friendly barbecued leek with romesco. Even the desserts, such as an impressive smoked tiramisu, come with a hint of campfire.

Timothy Kaye

Arkhé In Adelaide (top); dry-aged Wagyu beef at Agnes (above)

Brisbane Essa

The philosophy at this soulful Fortitude Valley fine-diner is simply to “showcase the work of farmers, hunters and providores” through dishes that are raw, pickled, smoked and woodfired. But to describe Essa (essa.restaurant) so simply almost belies the complexity and originality of chef and co-owner Phil Marchant’s food. Sup on delicacies such as kohlrabi burned in the fire, pickled and teamed with curd, bay leaf, pistachio and nasturtium. Or try the grilled quail with brown butter, caper leaves and saltbush. The eating is elegant and engrossing, even though the primal sense of the barbecue is never far from the palate.

Sydney Firedoor

When Lennox Hastie opened Firedoor (firedoor.com.au) in Sydney’s Surry Hills in 2015, Australia was new to the woodfired restaurant phenomenon. Hastie landed with pedigree – having spent five years working with Victor Arguinzoniz at Spain’s remote but beloved Asador Extebarri – and set about creating a powerful fire-based experience at his wood-powered Sydney eatery. These days, Firedoor is acknowledged as one of the world’s finest barbecue venues and has an international following courtesy of Hastie’s 2020 star turn in the cult Netflix series Chef’s Table: BBQ. In his compact kitchen, you’ll find two woodfired ovens, three grills and a wood-burning hearth that produce dishes such as Hastie’s famous 200day dry-aged beef rib or, more delicately, bass grouper with onion and finger lime.

Melbourne Matilda 159 Domain

Chef Scott Pickett is everywhere in Victoria at the moment, with restaurants new and established (from Collingwood to the Mornington Peninsula) across cuisines ranging from French to Thai. At this broody South Yarra venue (matilda159.com), Pickett pays homage to the barbecue, with a kitchen fitted with a grill, smoker, firepit, spit roaster and woodfired oven. His protein-rich list features luxe ingredients handled with flair; try Milla Farm duck with sour cherry or a 45-day dry-aged porterhouse on the bone served with smoked marrow. Carnivorous and earthy, Matilda 159 Domain is perfect for a night out with mates.

Saltbush lamb ribs at Matilda 159 Domain (above); Essa chef Phil Marchant (below)

CRAB CURRY AT LANKAN FILLING STATION

The mess, conviviality and all-out deliciousness of Lankan Filling Station’s Crab Curry Sundays make it a beloved Sydney ritual.

There’s only one hard-and-fast rule about Crab Curry Sundays at Lankan Filling Station (lankanfillingstation.com.au) in Sydney’s Darlinghurst: wear white at your peril. Anyone who’s wrestled with one of chef O Tama Carey’s spicy, flavoursome muddies or blue swimmers knows that those feisty crustaceans throw up a fair bit of splatter as you dig into their legs and claws with crackers, fingers and teeth.

The duel, though, is a huge part of the fun and Carey’s rich and pungent gravy – packed with coconut milk, fenugreek, tamarind, chilli, curry leaf and lots more spice and sizzle – is so flavoursome that it’s worth it. Just add her halo of accoutrements (generally a mix of sambals, dhal and kiri hodi). Either type of crab is delicious, she says, though Carey has a personal preference for the blue swimmer. “You get a better meat-to-shell ratio on a blue.”

Best to reward your exertions with a drink. There’ll usually be a traditional Sri Lankan special, like a rhubarb and kithul lassi with a sneaky shot of arrack, on the menu, though anything on the list – from a textural white wine to a Young Henrys lager – will stand up to the curry just as nicely.

Crab curry was a ritual for Carey when she was growing up and her Sri Lankan nan was the gatekeeper of the family recipe. “If it was a special occasion, crab curry was always the thing. So it made sense to do it in my restaurant, to give people that feeling of celebration.” And by siloing it onto a single day during the month – at other times the restaurant serves a broader à la carte menu – Carey knows that everyone who’s booked is ready to do battle with the crab and has worn the right clothes for the moment. That, or they have a very good dry cleaner on speed dial.

Vasse Felix head chef Brendan Pratt

MARGARET RIVER

Best vineyard eatery

Vasse Felix

Superb at every level, Vasse Felix offers an intelligent à la carte menu. The tone is elegant yet relaxed, which is part location, part interior design and part personnel. Brendan Pratt is a chef’s chef; his food is creative, surprising and beautifully sourced. And the service staff excel, always. It’s probably one of the best restaurants in all of WA. And the wine’s pretty damned good, too.

Caves Road (corner Tom Cullity Drive), Cowaramup; (08) 9756 5050; vassefelix.com.au

Best newcomer Frui Momento

Stylish, informed and majestically set on a lake with superb gardens, Frui is a sum-of-the-parts proposition. Seth James (ex-Wills Domain) is a clever chef; Larry Cherubino is a winemaker and entrepreneur with national gravitas. And turning this property over to a restaurant and terrace makes complete sense for the South West. James goes long on coastal produce and his steamed Patagionian toothfish dish along with Japan-inspired “koshihikari” rice have become signatures.

3478 Caves Road, Wilyabrup; (08) 9380 9278; fruimomento.com.au

Best paddock to plate Glenarty Road

This is a city-slicker’s idyll at the Augusta end of the Capes region where the reality matches the rhetoric. Lunch is a hyper-local experience with lamb, vegetables, fruit and herbs – even wine – from the very property you’re enjoying. The cooking is informed but unfussy, the staff delightful and the setting, in a haute shed sort of arrangement, perfectly pitched.

70 Glenarty Road, Karridale; 0475 085 305; glenartyroad.com.au

Best brunch

Alberta’s

What happens when the former head chef at Noma, Copenhagen, opens a café and kitchen in WA? Canadian Ben Ing and Perth-raised Kirsty Marchant (she was head gardener for the one-time “best restaurant in the world”) have created a simple, delightful Scandi-meetsbeach house venue where meticulous attention to detail goes into everything, from a sublime onion and leek tart to the smoky black tea they source from a Perth-based tea fanatic.

3/55 Queen Street, Busselton

Best views Wills Domain

With panoramic views across the vineyards of Yallingup, Wills Domain is the kind of place that could tempt you to chuck it all in to grow grapes. Better just to visit this exciting dining room, have lunch and go home happy. Innovative Perth chef Jed Gerrard consults to Wills and his take on food designed around native WA ingredients remains as impressive as his stints at Wildflower and Hearth. Pretty, seasonal, mannered and always fascinating.

17 Brash Road, Yallingup; (08) 9755 2327; willsdomain.com.au

Best surprise package Chow’s Table

Who’d expect mod Cantonese/Malaysian in a vineyard? At this architecturally impressive space next to House of Cards winery, Mal Chow throws contemporary training into the pool with his culinary heritage to create lovely, light dishes that have made his place a favourite. For something uniquely WA, choose the akoya oysters in white miso: the balance of authenticity to innovation is spot-on.

5 Quininup Road, Yallingup; (08) 9755 2681; chowstable.com.au

Of course, the wine is great. But the restaurants in this pretty region of Western Australia are off the charts, too.

Best off-grid experience Arimia

Arimia is a restaurant that celebrates the land, environmental priorities and the bush-like property that produces its own pork, trout, wine and olive oil. A piece of hot-smoked trout in a tangy tomato broth with avocado purée and fried onion is one of the standout dishes here. Chef and co-owner Evan Hayter serves modern food that showcases the produce, not his ego, in this five-course set-price affair.

242 Quininup Road, Wilyabrup; (08) 9755 2528; arimia.com.au

Best fine-diner Leeuwin Estate

Probably the best-known of all the Margaret River wine labels, Leeuwin’s tranquil restaurant reflects the classic brand values of its famous drops. Chef Dan Gedge’s formative years with Rick Stein in Britain can be seen in his seafood dishes, sauces and approach to plating. The day’s line-caught fish with crab and fennel –in season – is a great barometer of this venue. And its balcony may just be the best place in the world to drink a glass of Art Series chardonnay.

Stevens Road, Margaret River; (08) 9759 0000; leeuwinestate.com.au

Best hipster Beerfarm

It’s like the Inner West of Sydney or Melbourne gone bush. A serious brewery and barn –literally – offers quality beers and surprisingly good tucker of the style we used to call “dude food”, including Mexican-inspired dishes, great burgers, lots of smoke and barbecue. An excellent place for families, it offers heaps for kids to do while their folks relax, as well as a smart “Little Farmers” menu.

177 Gale Road, Metricup; (08) 9755 7177; beerfarm.com.au

Best Of STORY BY JOHN LETHLEAN

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TOM PEARSALL

VICTORIA’S HIGH COUNTRY

A café-turned-wine bar, awardwinning whisky and pizza that impresses. Here’s why Provenance’s Michael Ryan thinks you need to put the Beechworth area on your hit list.

There are restaurants worth travelling for. They immerse you in a region, serve up every fruit, vegetable and farmyard occupant onto your plate and give you a grand time doing it. Then there’s Provenance (theprovenance.com.au) in the goldmining town of Beechworth, which does all of that but paints everything into a Japanese palette, presented in a series of four exquisite bento-style courses. That’s more than destination dining. That’s dining you’ll never forget. At the prow of Provenance is the unassuming Michael Ryan, whose passion for Japanese cuisine is matched only by his deep love for local ingredients, from bergamot to yuzu. These are the places he suggests you try when you’re in town.

Rob Blackburn, Peter Charlesworth, Emily Weaving

Michael Ryan (left) and the town’s historic Camp Street CFA building, built in 1892

Reed & Co Distillery

For next-level snacks

“This distillery in Bright (reedandcodistillery.com) focuses on gin but is also making its own shochu. The owner, Hamish [Nugent], is the opposite of one of those chefs who is full of ego. He downplays his food but it’s very creative, very pared-back and perfectly cooked.”

Tiny

For coffee

“This is a cute little coffee shop in Beechworth (tinyofbeechworth.com) that also does jaffles and a small range of booze so you can pop in and have a drink in the afternoon as well. I’m a double espresso man and the coffee is great. It’s a really common meeting spot for locals.”

Bridge Road Brewers

For hot pepperoni pizza

“The beers are really good and the pizzas are solid (bridgeroadbrewers.com.au).

In fact, I even took [Italian chef] Stefano Manfredi there the other day – risky! – and he said the pizzas were good. They’re not artisanal but they do have a great base. I get either the hot pepperoni or the green vegetable but I add anchovies.”

Backwoods Distilling Co.

For small-batch rye whisky

“Rye is pretty hard to come by in Australia and this one is excellent (backwoodsdistilling. com.au). In fact it was a category winner at the 2022 World Whiskies Awards, which is pretty incredible. They have a distillery door in Yackandandah so you can pop in to taste. There’s also a nice little coffee shop next door called The Guard, which is in an old train carriage.”

Templar Lodge

For housemade pasta

“Emma [Handley] creates honest, delicious Italian-leaning food in an old Masonic hall (templarlodge.com.au). It’s just a really lovely country restaurant serving beautiful pasta in a very pretty setting, with views over the Victorian Alps.”

Backwoods Distilling Co. in Yackandandah (above); share plates and cocktails at Reed & Co Distillery (below)

TEMPRANILLO

Like shiraz? It might be time to give this Spanish red a turn in the glass.

Tempranillo keeps popping up on wine lists. Where does it come from? It’s the key grape of Rioja, Spain’s most visible wine region. Australian tempranillo plantings only date back 30 years. It’s been slowly gaining in popularity but it’s very of-the-moment now. Why do people like it? Tempranillo’s flavour profile is in tune with the tastes of many Australian winelovers. It’s like a mediumbodied savoury/spicy shiraz with an emphasis on red berry fruits, liquorice, sarsaparilla and clove. The Rioja region is on a high plateau in northern Spain with a predominantly continental climate –warm to hot days in summer but much cooler nights. Winters are cold with snow on the ground. Australia has lots of regions with similar growing conditions. The Adelaide Hills, King Valley, Beechworth, Heathcote and the Canberra District all produce great tempranillo. What does it go with? Lamb, lamb and lamb, like they do in Spain. Slow-cooked shoulder, barbecued chops or lamb shanks. Sausages and (lamb) burgers also suit tempranillo’s easygoing, spicy flavours. So, it’s meant for early drinking? Not necessarily. The best Riojas drink well after 10, 20 and more years. Our tempranillo vines are still quite young so it’s a good idea to be cautious about cellaring local drops. How much does it cost? Brown Brothers and Yalumba have value offerings for less than $20. The best Australian drops go for $30 to $60, while wines from Rioja (and nearby Ribera del Duero) can sell for $100 and more.

Hither & Yon Tempranillo

Super value from the gifted Leask brothers. Sourced from 11-year-old vines, this juicy gem is deep purple in colour, indicating its depth of flavour. The tannins are modest, the flavours bold. Try it with grilled chorizo and halloumi.

McLaren Vale / 2021 / $33

Mount Majura Tempranillo

Frank van de Loo is besotted by tempranillo and is arguably the country’s best exponent of it. His wine has an intense bouquet of boysenberry, cherry and plum cake spices. Deep and ethereal, it deserves five years in a cool cellar.

Canberra District / 2021 / $58

Henschke Stone Jar Tempranillo

Prue Henschke loves playing with new varieties and planted tempranillo in an elevated site in 2002. Aged in well-seasoned oak, it displays damson plum, fennel seed and cinnamon with good structure and fine tannins.

Eden Valley / 2019 / $50

Valenciso Rioja Reserva

Veteran winemakers Luis Valentín and Carmen Enciso combined forces in 1998 to create a modern brand with traditional methods. This classic Rioja says it all with aromas of raspberry, liquorice and truffle. Elegant, with gentle tannins to smooth the finale.

Rioja, Spain / 2014 / $67

Wine List STORY BY PETER BOURNE

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CRAIG WALL

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STORIES OF SUSTAINABILITY

The fruit of foresight

For Margaret River winemaker Vanya Cullen, the early adoption of organic practices set her vineyard up for an award-winning future. “It’s been a love story about the earth, nature, great wine, family, friends and colleagues.”

The Cullen name is buried deep in Margaret River’s celebrated loamy sand soils. The Cullens are not only pioneers of the famed Western Australian wine region – you could call them Margaret River royalty – they have also led the way in adopting sustainable practices that ensure the viability and deliciousness of their award-winning wines.

For chef Matt Stone, a Miele ambassador, the family’s history, continued by chief winemaker Vanya Cullen, is emblematic of

Miele’s Stories of Sustainability. “It’s really great to tell stories not just of sustainable food but also of sustainable wine,” he says. “Vanya Cullen is a real inspiration to me. I admire the hard work she does around sustainability while also making some of the world’s best wines.”

Based in the tiny town of Wilyabrup, about three hours drive south of Perth, Cullen Wines is the Margaret River region’s only biodynamic and carbon-positive winery. While these might sound like modern buzzwords, sustainable

practices have been part of the winery’s story since 1971, when Kevin and Diana Cullen planted their first experimental vines with a forward-thinking mindset. They deliberately kept their use of chemicals to a minimum.

For their daughter, Vanya, who was recognised with James Halliday’s prestigious Winemaker of the Year award in 2020, “it’s a very special success story, built on a commitment to sustainability that has been part of the business since the very beginning. The truth of the land,

Matt Stone and Vanya Cullen

the integrity of place… it comes into the wine when it’s poured into your glass.”

The Cullens adopted farming methods that treat the vineyard as its own ecosystem and recognised that healthy soil, when nurtured as nature intended, is a fundamental part of that system. For Vanya and her late mother, Diana, what started out as a focus on minimal chemical inputs became a rigorous pursuit of full organic certification, which was granted in 2003.

Integral to the process was the sowing of cover crops (plants grown specifically to promote the health of the soil) and using compost instead of chemical fertiliser. The results were nothing less than astonishing. “We noticed a great difference in the health of the property immediately,” says Vanya. “The outcomes we’ve had here have been amazing.”

At Cullen Wines, more than 20 species of plants are used as cover crops, each

serving a different purpose. Broad beans, for instance, are grown to add nitrogen to the soil, while brassicas are planted for their flowers, which attract bees and promote pollination.

For chef Stone, cover crops represent something else entirely: delicious food. “The first time I looked at a cover crop, I just thought, ‘This food is edible.’ We can extend the whole garden program by growing food between the rows. It’s got a multipurpose use, which is really amazing.”

As Stone deftly demonstrates with his zesty cover crop salsa served with root vegetables, by using the often overlooked parts of a plant in creative ways, it can help minimise waste. To get the best from the produce, Stone uses a griddle plate to char the greens on a Miele induction cooktop, plus a Miele combi steam oven to steam and grill the root vegetables.

“If you look at a pot of water once you’ve blanched vegetables in it, the water is coloured, which means it’s extracted things out of the veggies,” he says. “By steaming them, we retain the nutrients – and the flavour as well.”

And to drink? There’s nothing better than Cullen Wines’ acclaimed cabernet sauvignon or chardonnay for a true taste of sustainability. They come from vines that, despite their advanced age, are still in rugged health. “It’s quite extraordinary to see that,” says Vanya.

Best of all, she says, these wins will be felt by generations to come. “That whole pursuit of sustainability is the most important thing we can all do as a human race.”

See more Stories of Sustainability

Following the success of Melbourne’s zero-waste Future Food System – a house and restaurant in Federation Square that was fitted out with sustainable, low-energy appliances – Miele is showcasing Australian makers in the Stories of Sustainability video series. Tune in as chefs Matt Stone and Jo Barrett meet producers, growers and creators who do things differently, with sustainability and quality top of mind.

Watch Miele’s Stories of Sustainability at mieleexperience.com.au/sustainability

Photographer: Earl Carter

Take a sensory journey around the

The Ladies Lounge at MONA, Tasmania

SICK OF SITTING ON THE SIDELINES,

L LIYOUR SENSES

JENNIE NOONAN ROPES IN HER TWIN SISTER TO GET SCARED SILLY IN QUEENSTOWN.

Each time I breezily bring up my plan to bungy jump for the first time – to friends, fellow soccer mums and even my husband’s surfer buddies who I know are not risk-averse – the responses are uncannily uniform. “Sounds amazing. I don’t think I could do it.” It gives me pause. I’m no adrenaline junkie but it has recently occurred to me that as a mother of three in my mid-40s, most of my thrills are now second-hand; I’m a passenger to other people’s passions, passively cheering from life’s sidelines.

Determined to blow past my terror and tackle a self-centred long weekend full of heart-pumping firsts in Queenstown, New Zealand, I convince my sister, Erin, to come along for the ride. The bonus? We’re identical twins so if I chicken out, she can step in as a stunt double and I might fool everyone that it’s me in the photos.

EICHARDT’S PRIVATE HOTEL AND MADAM WOO

Our schedule is designed to gradually crank up the fear factor – meaning, we start right in my comfort zone. There are opulent touches everywhere at lakefront Eichardt’s (hotel.qantas.com.au/eichardtsprivatehotel) but it’s also cosy and intimate. “It feels like we’re the houseguests of a fancy friend,” sums up Erin. We head out to lively and lantern-lit Madam Woo (madamwoo.co.nz) for the first dinner in years where it’s just the two of us, without kids, husbands or parents. After the delicious Malaysian street food (sticky pork hawker rolls are a trip-making highlight), we tell the friendly waiter our plans and he responds according to the script. “I’ve told my girlfriend if she ever buys me a bungy jumping voucher I will sell it.”

ODYSSEY SENSORY MAZE

We kick off with the adrenaline amuse bouche that is Odyssey Sensory Maze (odysseysensorymaze.co.nz), a trippy labyrinth of physical obstacles and illusions. We’re given gloves and briefed to walk with our hands out in front of us, keep moving forward and never turn back. As video-game-style music blares in the background, we fumble through rooms filled with balloons, ping-pong balls, wobbly bridges and pitch-black darkness. We’re befuddled by a room of angled mirrors. Shuffling through the maze, I feel completely disoriented as my refracted image is all around me. At one point, I think I’m making progress until I realise that what I thought was my reflection is actually Erin walking towards me. We clasp hands and laugh so hard we hit the floor.

HYDRO ATTACK

From the hotel room window, I’ve been watching a mechanical shark cruise away from Lapsley Butson Wharf, disappear and then splash in the distance. Up close, the Hydro Attack vessel resembles a fighter jet crossed with a submarine (hydroattack. co.nz). I sit behind the pilot, who tells me he’s originally from Finland and underwent about five weeks of training to operate the Seabreacher X watercraft. “It’s tough to have specific qualifications for this,” he says. “Sometimes it’s even harder if you have a lot of boating experience because the controls are so different.” Our bright orange and black torpedo-shaped shark – the Leopard – is one of a fleet of seven and can hit speeds of up to 80km/h. Soon we’re skipping across the top of the water like a stone, making tight turns and stomach-churning side rolls. And then we dive. Crystal-blue water envelops the F-16 fighter-grade glass of the cockpit as we pitch forward like a surfer duck-diving beneath a wave. After 10 seconds or so, we shoot into the sky – apparently up to six metres – landing with a thud on the surface of Lake Wakatipu. The pilot turns off the engine, opens the roof for fresh air and checks in with me. Bobbing on the lake’s surface, encircled by white-capped mountains, it feels like I’m inside a snow globe that’s just been violently shaken. It’s magical.

NEVIS BUNGY

There’s only one other couple on board the 4WD AJ Hackett Bungy Bus and we recognise them from the Queenstown Ice Bar (see overleaf). Driving up the Southern Alps, we chat nervously while Eminem’s Lose Yourself plays over the speakers. At Nevis headquarters (bungy.co.nz), we’re weighed and fitted for harnesses and told to empty our pockets. Our friendly bus banter wanes as we squeeze onto a cable car that feels only slightly larger than a shopping trolley. I keep my eyes trained upwards at the grey skies and falling snow, at the craggy mountains – hey, is that an eagle? – anything to keep from looking down. There’s a bump as we meet a metal platform suspended 134 metres above the rugged canyon below. “How many people get to this point and don’t jump?” I ask

Nevis Catapult (top left); Queenstown Ice Bar (left); Hydro Attack on Lake Wakatipu (previous page)

the young crew member who’s checking and double-checking my rigging. “It happens,” she answers with a shrug. “Maybe one in a hundred. Most of the time, people just need a little encouragement.” Erin, it turns out, requires no pep talk. Earlier, she’d told me that her game plan was to pretend she’s a hero from a Marvel movie. She doesn’t hesitate, gracefully (and somewhat irritatingly) swan-diving off the tiny platform. “Now that’s a dive!” hoots one of the excited crew. “The best launch I’ve seen in ages!” It’s my turn and my new game plan is to pretend I’m Erin. After a quick countdown from five, I leap. Terror mixes with exhilaration during the 8.5-second freefall. I keep my eyes screwed shut and surprise myself by not screaming as the icy wind whistles past my ears and my organs relocate to my ankles. When the cord starts to bounce smoothly, I feel tear-inducing relief.

NEVIS SWING AND NEVIS CATAPULT

“Do you want to put your arms out wide?” we’re asked. “No,” we answer unanimously. “Countdown or surprise?” “Countdown,” we chorus. Erin and I are perched side-by-side on what they keep calling a swing (but looks to me like a slim strip of canvas) when we’re dropped backwards with such force that it feels like a mistake. Laughing hysterically, we soar over the canyon in a 300-metre arc. It’s an ideal warm-up for the Nevis Catapult, which is like something hatched by Wile E. Coyote in a fever dream. The high-speed winch system fires riders out 150 metres, reaching speeds of almost 100km/h in 1.5 seconds. I’m rigged into a flying position and told to keep my eyes on the ravine below, foiling my plan to never look directly down. The ride itself is a blur but as I’m being pulled back up, I take a moment to appreciate this wildly beautiful place. The sun is breaking through the clouds and against the wintry sky the mountains look like they’ve been sprinkled with glitter. Erin is waiting at the top and once again we speak at the same time: “We did it!”

FUEL YOUR ADVENTURE

Queenstown Ice Bar

One of three ice bars in town, this is the new kid on the block (queenstownicebar.com), serving cocktails in a bar built from 25 tonnes of hand-carved ice. While we swap our jackets for matching warm coats and gloves, our attendant explains that the temperature downstairs is minus 10°C so lasting an hour is an achievement. “We had a bartender stay down there for nine hours once,” he tells us. “He was from Toronto.” We’re from Sydney by

way of San Francisco so we spend about 45 minutes admiring the ice sculptures while perched on frozen stools sipping Kiwi Elixir and Tropical Island cocktails out of glasses of ice that we get to gleefully smash on our way out the door.

Margo’s

Keep the good times going at this vibrant spot (margos.co.nz) where soul-filled food with Mexican roots comes out hot and fast. We steady our nerves with a round of Margaritas, while the blue cheese whip that comes with the crunchy beef cheek taco is a thrill in itself.

The Cow Pizza & Spaghetti House

This cool Queenstown institution (thecowpizza.co.nz) has operated from a restored stone barn since 1977. The basic but brilliant green salad with house dressing and the prosciutto pizza – from a menu that’s remained unchanged since opening day – provide comfort after a day of adrenaline spikes.

Halo Forbidden Bite

As long as we’re busting boundaries, this laid-back eatery (haloforbiddenbite.co.nz) offers hearty and healthy breakfast from 7am to 3pm and lunch from 10am to 4pm. The rainbow toast (cherry tomato, avocado, beetroot hummus and dukkah on rye bread) is vegan, different and delicious.

The Penthouse terrace at Eichardt’s Private Hotel (top); Mexican vibes at Margo’s (above)

FEW THINGS CLEAR THE MIND AND SOOTHE THE BODY LIKE SOAKING IN A HOT SPRING. SLIP INTO THE GEOTHERMAL WATERS OF THESE ANCIENT POOLS AND BOUTIQUE STAYS AROUND THE WORLD. BY RACHEL LEES YOUR SENSES

ST I LL

ICELAND

This is the pleasure ground of hot springs and you can’t go to Iceland without plunging into the silica-rich Blue Lagoon (hotel.qantas.com.au/retreatatblue lagoon) at least once. While the 2018 opening of the Retreat – a 62-room luxury hotel with subterranean spa and two restaurants – elevated the experience, the main drawcard hasn’t changed: a float in the geothermal seawater lagoon built on a lava field.

Newcomer Sky Lagoon (skylagoon. com), a 15-minute drive from Reykjavik, is a 70-metre oceanfront infinity pool forged into a cliff top overlooking the North Atlantic Sea. Opened in 2021, created with sustainability in mind and drawing on traditional Icelandic turf house design, it blends seamlessly with its natural surroundings and has become a prime spot to watch blazing sunsets and the Northern Lights.

Off the main motorway and bordered by a forest, Gamla Laugin or the Secret Lagoon (secretlagoon.is) was built in 1891. “The pool has been modified over time but remains in its natural setting next to boiling hot springs and a small geyser,” says manager Isabel de Ridder. A wonderfully rustic experience, there are hot showers and a café onsite.

The Retreat at Blue Lagoon (left); Secret Lagoon (above)

UNITED STATES

Two prospecting brothers struck another type of gold when they opened a hot springs retreat on Alaska’s Chena River in the early 1900s. Back then, a dip in the geothermal waters surrounded by tall spruce trees required a lengthy stagecoach ride from Fairbanks. Today, a day trip to Chena Hot Springs Resort (chenahotsprings.com) is a comfy hourlong shuttle ride from the Alaskan hub. “Locals will tell you the best time to enjoy the hot springs is when it’s at least minus 30 degrees outside,” says Vicktoria Wilcox, who works there. “If you’re lucky, you might catch the aurora borealis.”

In Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, luxury resort Castle Hot Springs (castlehot springs.com) has a unique edge. “There’s no sulphur odour, which is prevalent in many hot springs,” says general manager Kevin Maguire. Enveloped by waterfalls, the resort’s three pools are accessed via a spectacular canyon walk and are rich in lithium, a feel-good mineral.

If you don’t want to venture into the wild, book into Dr. Wilkinson’s Backyard Resort & Mineral Springs (hotel.qantas. com.au/drwilkinsonsresort). The playfully reimagined Mid-century Modern motel in Calistoga, California, has three geothermal pools, eight mineral baths and an array of mudbath treatments and massages.

Alba Thermal Springs & Spa in Victoria (above); QC Terme Grand Hotel Bagni Nuovi in Italy (below)

Castle Hot Springs in Arizona (above)

AUSTRALIA

Next month’s forecast for Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula is looking steamy, as Alba Thermal Springs & Spa (albathermalsprings.com.au) opens. Enveloped by the coastal Moonah woodland, 22 of its 31 pools are modern geothermal springs. Expect special dawn and twilight bathing sessions, along with botanical, cold-plunge, rooftop and rain pools. Plus, a restaurant with an all-day Mediterranean-inspired menu by Melbourne chef Karen Martini.

Although it requires extra planning to get there, your effort is rewarded at Zebedee Springs in the Kimberley, Western Australia. Accessible during the dry season (April to October) within the 28,300-hectare wilderness of El Questro (elquestro.com.au), the easiest way to visit is on a half-day tour from the luxury homestead. “Located in ancient and arid land, it’s such a surprise when this unique hot spring surrounded by palms emerges,” says general manager Geoff Trewin.

Just as remote and special is Dalhousie Springs in South Australia’s Witjira National Park (parks.sa.gov.au) near the Simpson Desert, about 500 kilometres south of Alice Springs. “They were used by the Lower Southern Arrernte and Wangkangurru peoples for thousands of years as a source of food, shelter and medicine,” says National Parks and Wildlife Service district ranger Travis Gotch. “They’ve been flowing for about two million years and are home to flora and fauna found nowhere else on the planet.”

JAPAN

ITALY

A waterfall plunges down the side of an old stone mill, tumbling into a series of terraced limestone pools in southern Tuscany… Sigh. Enriched with sulphur and thermal plankton, the waters of Cascate del Mulino or Saturnia Hot Springs (cascate-del-mulino.info) were used by the ancient Romans and are said to treat everything from high blood pressure to skin and respiratory issues.

Balneotherapy buffs should head further north to QC Terme Grand Hotel Bagni Nuovi (hotel.qantas.com.au/grandhotelbagninuovi) in Lombardy’s Bormio. Built in 1836 as a palace for the Queen of Austria, the opulent hotel and spa is now a wellness haven. Its pink Art Nouveau façade is only outshone by the panoramic views of the Alps seen from its outdoor thermal pools, including a stone “bath” once used by shepherds to wash sheep fleece.

In nearby South Tyrol, day spa Terme Merano (termemerano.it) is another must-visit. After undergoing an expansion in 2018-2019, the 52,000-squaremetre facility has 15 indoor pools housed in a four-storey glass cube, plus 10 outdoor pools surrounded by manicured lawns and rose bushes. “Water is pumped from Monte San Vigilio and its moderate radon content soothes osteoarthritis and allergies,” says marketing manager Tanja Pruenster.

Once a summer retreat of the Japanese Imperial family, Gora Kadan (gorakadan. com) in Hakone near Mount Fuji now welcomes all-comers. The Relais & Chateaux hotel has a public onsen and family bath framed by manicured Japanese gardens, plus select rooms and suites have their own outdoor stone tubs fed by hot springs. The mild alkaline waters are said to soften skin, making spa treatments more effective (so book in for a few).

Craving the coast? Head to Amanemu (hotel.qantas.com.au/amanemu) in the forested hills of Ise-Shima on Japan’s east coast. The centrepiece of the Aman group’s first hot spring resort is an outdoor onsen pool lined with daybeds, where you can “bask in the healing waters while enjoying the view of serene Ago Bay”, according to general manager Takao Kadota. The hideaway also has a 2000-square-metre spa offering thermal-spring therapy and each of the resort’s 24 suites and four villas has its own basalt-clad hot spring bath.

An hour’s train ride south of Osaka, Saki-no-Yu (town.shirahama.wakayama. jp) in Shirahama is a rotenburo (open-air bath) built into the rocks next to the Pacific Ocean – you’ll be close enough to feel the spray from the waves as they hit the shore.

Amanemu (above)

INDU

THESE IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES DON’T JUST FEED YOU, THEY NOURISH YOU. BUSY YOUR HANDS, CALM YOUR MIND AND EAT DELICIOUS THINGS WHILE YOU’RE AT IT, WRITES MYFFY RIGBY

Where are we?

In the foothills of South East Queensland, on some of the most fertile soil in the southern hemisphere. Surrounded by 4850 hectares of possibility, Homage Restaurant (homagerestaurant.com.au) at Spicers Hidden Vale – the star attraction of sleepy Grandchester – is fueled by an 89-bed market garden, orchards, mango trees and beehives. There’s also a native wildlife refuge (the largest of its kind in Australia) on the property and somehow, despite the lush environment, this is all only an hour’s drive from Brisbane.

Prepare to get your hands dirty. The aim of the game here is to leave a light footprint. “Homage prides itself

HOMAGE

on connection with the land and our local producers,” says general manager Cam Brooksby. “We work with [food waste collection experts] Mallow Sustainability to create a closed loop system onsite, ensuring all biodegradable waste from the restaurant is captured and returned to our garden. We continue to build strong relationships with local producers to ensure the best-quality ingredients for our guests with the least food miles.”

Whatever the 10-strong gardening team can’t grow onsite is sourced from farms in the area and used in dishes such as “mushrooms from just down the road” with sheep’s cheese and bone marrow, and a white chocolate dessert using honey harvested on the property.

Here, food miles are more like food minutes and Homage offers regular market garden tours so you can see exactly where your lunch comes from.

What else is there to do in the area?

Pack a pair of sturdy hiking boots. The Scenic Rim Trail follows the Great Dividing Range through the World Heritage-listed Gondwana Rainforests, where protected flora and fauna thrive. Sign up for the six-day challenge, taking in Cunninghams Gap and Mount Mathieson, or opt for a twoday hike with glamping at Spicers Canopy. Back at Spicers Hidden Vale, take a tour of the wildlife refuge in an ATV – just like in Jurassic Park, only more furry and gentle.

ULGE

YOUR SENSES

TEDESCA OSTERIA

Head to Italy – via regional Victoria. The brainchild of chef Brigitte Hafner (co-owner of Melbourne’s now-closed Gertrude Street Enoteca), this agriturismo-style restaurant, biodynamic garden and homestead has been 10 years in the making. Forget fine dining, this is a monument to good dining. Warmth and a strong sense of hospitality are as essential to the menu as ingredients sourced from the extensive gardens and friends nearby. “My approach is built around a dinner party in my home – what I would like to eat and cook for a group of people, driven by what’s growing in our garden and what amazing produce I can source from the sea and pastures,” says Hafner. “It’s food that goes with wine and my emotional state at the time.”

But where exactly is it?

About an hour’s drive south of central Melbourne in Red Hill, a strange and wonderful mix of winegrowing country and surf beaches, ideal for a relaxing weekend getaway or an easy overnighter.

What to expect.

Dining here means a set menu cooked on the enormous woodfired oven and grill. Pasta is made here, meat and fish are ethically sourced and in winter, the potbelly stove takes pride of place, keeping everyone toasty. The whole show changes with the seasons but there’ll be snacks to start, housemade pasta, perhaps some local beef or wild-caught fish and maybe a seasonal fruit tart to end. Conviviality is the call of the day above

all else, be it another amaro or an extra splash of wine – anything to keep the good vibes going.

The good times don't have to end, either. If you’ve come this far and enjoyed that much of everything, getting back in the car might sound devastating. But there’s a wonderful solution: a Tedesca Osteria sleepover. Stay in the beautiful Graceburn House, with three double bedrooms, plus bunks (bunks!). It's an attractive proposition for a group birthday weekend. Breakfast includes eggs from the farm, local bread, butter and condiments. Just you or two? Book the Glasshouse, a renovated cabin with an open fire. Wake up with the chooks, go for a surf and don’t leave unless you have to.

THIRTY THREE DEGREES

What’s so wonderful about these oysters? They thrive in just 41 locations, including the pristine waters of Wallis Lake, and are grown by Sydney rock oyster collective East 33 (east33.sydney), a group of farmers that holds some of the oldest, most established oyster leases in the country. The flesh of these bivalves is sweet and firm with beautiful clarity of flavour, chased by the briny taste of the sea. They’re in a class of their own.

Take a punt. Yes, an actual punt. All aboard The Oyster Catcher, which sets off from and returns to Thirty Three Degrees, the collective’s restaurant HQ

at Tuncurry. On this new tour, you’ll meet local farmers who have been growing oysters for four generations. One of them will even act as tour guide, showing you the waterways of Wallis Lake (some of the calmest, clearest water on the NSW coast) and working farms, and explaining just how an oyster is grown and harvested. The boat ride alone is worth the price of admission.

What’s the deal?

The $500 Shellar Door Experience takes two hours and includes an indulgent three-course lunch with matching wines at Thirty Three Degrees. Not only do you get to spend a couple of hours

messing about on the punt, you’ll also learn to shuck oysters (and get to wash them down with a glass of bubbly). Plus, you’ll discover handy oystering terms such as “seed” and “spat” – excellent lingo to regale your friends with when you whip out a dozen oysters at your next dinner party.

How to get there.

It’s a 3.5-hour drive from the Sydney CBD or you can arrange to arrive via seaplane from Sydney’s Rose Bay in an hour. Make a weekend of it at Swell at Blueys (swellatblueys.com.au), a luxury beachfront stay 30 minutes from Tuncurry.

LADIES LOUNGE, MONA

So it’s a high tea but at MONA. Which means… it must be out there.

You bet. And the fun is in not knowing what you’re in for. What we can tell you is that it’s a very decadent, women-only high tea, held in the Ladies Lounge that was created by American artist Kirsha Kaechele (who’s married to MONA founder David Walsh). It’s an exclusive gathering for two for the princely sum of $500 – and you’ll be part of the artwork.

What actually happens?

Dress up in your finest green, gold, black and white (to complement the furnishings in the lounge). You’ll be met at the museum’s entrance by one of two butlers who’ll spend the next two hours attending to your every need. Although

the lounge is only for women, the butlers are men. Why? “Because it’s fun to be waited on by men,” says Kaechele.

We can tell you there’s food.

Lots of it, actually. Expect canapé trees, caviar and spinning petit fours, all prepared by MONA’s executive chef, Vince Trim. There’s also alcohol on tap. Is that to encourage the “art” to get lively? “Absolutely,” says Kaechele. “In ancient times, witches would meet for a secret night-time ritual: they would rub hallucinogenic salve on their broomsticks and then ‘ride’ the broomsticks nude, absorbing the hallucinogen through their delicate skin. Things don’t get that wild in the Ladies Lounge but we do encourage women to cut loose!”

But not too loose as there’s significant art in the room…

The Ladies Lounge is a celebration of Kaechele’s great-grandmother, Tootsie, who hosted Pablo Picasso at her family’s estate in Switzerland. According to Kaechele, Picasso became obsessed by Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass, which Tootsie had just bought, and went on to create 27 paintings and 150 drawings inspired by the scandalous artwork. One of those paintings – Picasso’s Luncheon on the Grass, After Manet – hangs on the wall alongside Picasso’s Reclining Nude

What else do women get up to in there? “Ask the butler!” says Kaechele. “But he’ll never tell.” KIRSTEN GALLIOTT

NEVER NEVER DISTILLING CO.

What’s it all about?

Three industry veterans were keen to escape the trappings of London and Sydney to chase something a little more meaningful. So head distiller Tim Boast (2022 Master Distiller of the Year and a descendant of the Gilbey’s spirits family), brand director Sean Baxter and managing director George Georgiadis ended up in bucolic McLaren Vale, about 40 minutes from central Adelaide, to create Never Never.

What makes it so special?

McLaren Vale is a world-renowned wine destination so Never Never is part of a community renowned for good taste

and great palates. Part of the Chalk Hill Collective, alongside Chalk Hill wines, Never Never offers the opportunity to drop in for a gin tasting as well as a slice of pizza from neighbouring Cucina Di Strada (they call themselves the opposite of a restaurant – you book in for a gin or wine flight with Italianstyle street food served alongside). Lunch can also be taken outside on the lawn.

What can you expect?

Soak it all in with a gin masterclass and a tour of the production facility, led by Baxter, to learn about the brand’s award-winning gins. There’s even a take-home goodie bag.

You have to try…

The special-release Dark Series Oyster Shell gin, made to reflect the flavours and feel of the Australian coastline. It was originally designed to be mixed into a Martini and matched with seafood dishes at much-talked-about Melbourne restaurant Society. There’s the flinty austerity you might expect from a gin in this style, along with floral notes thanks to waxflower, saltbush and native mint. But here’s the fun bit: to make it, Never Never hosts an Oyster Palooza festival every July. After guests eat the oysters, the shells are cleaned and stored to be used in the next batch of Oyster Shell gin.

PHOTOGRAPHYBY CEDRIC ANGELES

YOUR AWAYSENSES

The Preservation Hall Jazz Band belt it out in the French Quarter, New Orleans

IIn the fantasy New Orleans that lives in my head, Bourbon Street is all grandiose and glorious iniquity: chaos and carnival, a whirling Mardi Gras, centuries of rich and earthy Creole culture, life and death doing a ghoulish, hypercoloured dance to the wild parps of trombones and trumpets.

In reality, when you’re here on a Friday night during the opening stanzas of Jazz Fest – which has run every year in April or May since its beginnings in 1970 – it seems like it’s mostly a ton of tourists with lurid green Hand Grenade cocktails in one hand and buckets of beignets, the traditional deep-fried donut of New Orleans, in the other, barrelling sloppily in and out of strip clubs.

There are flashes of the city’s true mad charms; a six-foot wildman in a top hat peers at me from a darkened doorway and flashes a silver-toothed grin and a few street performers are blaring out some spectacular jazz (of course they are – it’s baked into the blood here). But overall, this bit of the city is New Orleans Disneyland.

And that’s the trap of the Big Easy, if you don’t push yourself beyond the “easy” bits – such as the tourist-centric French Quarter, particularly if you’re there during the large festivals (and there’s always a festival – the city hosts more than 130 every year). You could, if you like, spend a weekend on Bourbon, hopping from the flashiest neon-lit bars and jazz clubs to shops peddling cheap po’ boys, fried oysters and voodoo tarot card tat and go home saying you’ve seen New Orleans. Really, all you’ve seen is a drinking town with a jazz problem. There’s much more.

So I set out to dig a little deeper, beginning at my base of the NOPSI Hotel in the CBD (hotel.qantas.com.au/nopsineworleans), which is close enough to walk to the French Quarter if I wanted to but far enough away that I don’t feel like I’m living inside a Baz Luhrmann movie. I head for the Bywater district on the curve of the nut-brown Mississippi.

I join the queue to get into Bacchanal Wine (bacchanalwine. com), which locals call a “weird little wine bar” turned restaurant and outdoor jazz club opposite the graffiti-strewn former Navy depot. They don’t take bookings and everyone waiting to get in seems to be a diehard fan. “I come here for my birthday every year,” says Katie. It’s her 40th this weekend and she’s dressed for it – and Jazz Fest and living in this city generally – wearing pink fishnets with playing cards and dollar bills pinned to her pork pie hat.

“You on your own, mama? You come on through,” hollers the maître d’, ushering me ahead of a larger group he can’t yet find room for in the fairy-light-flecked courtyard. “You happy to go upstairs?” I’m happy to go anywhere, I tell him as my eyes take in the sultry prettiness of people gathered in groups picking from cheese platters to the sound of a smooth live double bass and saxophone in the descending dusk. I take a spot on the balcony and order smoked Gulf shrimp dip and a glass of wine and let the warm-breathed Louisiana evening wash over me.

U-turning back to Bourbon Street, this time I leave the heaving debauchery above ground and shuffle onto a wooden bench of the low-ceiling, cavernous 19th-century building that houses the iconic Preservation Hall (preservationhall.com), decked out with peeling posters and portraits of the city’s jazz legends.

The club was founded in the early 1960s as a place to preserve the spirit of authentic New Orleans jazz and its house band, led by Mark Braud, grandson of one of the city’s finest, trumpeter John “Picket” Brunious Sr, is playing tonight. Braud and his five-piece whirl out an hour of pure musical precision as the crowd stomps and claps. There are ghosts floating round the creaking timber boards of this building, you can feel them.

(From opposite) Preservation Hall; a marching jazz band in the French Quarter; Bacchanal Wine in the Bywater neighbourhood

I could swear my jazz pianist grandma is right there beside me. This place would light up her soul.

The next day, the French Quarter’s streets are lined with zombies, a few too many Hand Grenade and Hurricane cocktails having turned everyone grey-eyed and grim. But not when I step inside one of its more genteel brunch addresses: the charming and historic Brennan’s (brennansneworleans.com), an avowed institution that doesn’t compromise its traditions for cheap tourist thrills. The two-storey mansion was built in 1795 by the great-grandfather of the French artist Edgar Degas and was once the Banque de la Louisiane – the first bank in Louisiana. The Brennan family took it over in the 1950s and turned it into a restaurant in 1956, painting it in the trademark candy-pink façade it has today.

If you want to try a genuine New Orleans brunch this is where you head. I order a procession of the classics: thick, dark chicory coffee, eggs Sardou – a local invention of poached eggs, fried artichokes, spinach and choron sauce – a bowl of unctuous gumbo studded with shrimp and andouille, and an escalope of rabbit with remoulade. In this town, you eat with gusto and recklessness, like death is going to come knocking for you tomorrow (and if you eat sauces like this every day it probably will).

From there I head south to what is, conversely, called Uptown – or the Garden District – to let the city show me more of its history. Here, along Prytania and Third streets, Washington and St Charles avenues, are the extraordinary 19th-century Italianate and Greek Revival mansions that were once plantations keeping enslaved people. They became the over-the-top residences of postCivil War carpetbaggers and feature imposing colonnades, grand staircases, moss-draped myrtles, cabbage palms and rocking chairs on porches. Astonishing. And then little touches of New Orleans mischief that you won’t find anywhere else: jester masks on front doors, street signs draped with rainbow-coloured beads.

Lunch is a po’ boy, that great Southern classic of a wedge of French bread filled with anything from shrimp and oyster to beef debris. You have to have it, even though, as New Orleans food writer Brett Martin once said, “You make a decision to torpedo your day” on the food front if you eat a shrimp po’ boy for lunch. They’re that enormous, rich and appetite-ending. I get mine from Domilise’s (domilisespoboys.com) on Annunciation Street and I choose shrimp. But as I watch a couple of lifesavers from the local rec centre who look like they know what they’re doing order a half-and-half oyster and a roast beef and Swiss, I wonder if I should go back for seconds. You can’t decide to torpedo your day twice though and the shrimp are fried hot and crisp, lined up like soldiers on mayo and hot sauce on that beautiful crunch-andcloud combination that is the city’s famous Leidenheimer bread.

I ease out of the day browsing the racks at Peaches Records (peachesrecordsandtapes.com) on Magazine Street to the beat of the thud-thud-thud of a freestyle basketball game across the road. Then a languid dinner at a neighbourhood Louisianan bistro, La Petite Grocery (lapetitegrocery.com) – just a cocktail and a few light beignets with blue crab, thanks to my po’ boy-scuppered appetite. The bathrooms here smell like cinnamon, I notice. There’s always some scent in the air in New Orleans, whether it’s the old Hollywood perfume of the magnolia trees, the cayenne and garlic of gumbos and jambalayas and that red shrimp stew known as étouffée or the fresh gasp of wet earth after a short, sharp burst of rain.

On my last morning in the city, Bourbon Street finally seems to be sleeping off its big few days. A grey-haired gentleman strolls down its centre, past the discarded straws and streamers. He wears white pants and winklepickers and has an enormous sousaphone hooked casually across his body. After the tourists go home, the jazz starts to reclaim the city.

Brennan's restaurant (above); the kitchen crew at La Petite Grocery on Magazine Street (below)

O WLSYOUR SENSES

IN A REGION KNOWN AS THE CORAL TRIANGLE – INDONESIA’S RAJA AMPAT ARCHIPELAGO – STEPHANIE WOOD LETS THE DAYS STRETCH BEFORE HER ON A LUXURY CRUISE.

II open the curtains and am almost thrown backwards by the light. After flying for four hours through the night from Jakarta to the port town of Sorong I had boarded a boat, dazed and groggy, before collapsing into sleep for two hours of sea travel.

Now the only sound is waves gently slapping the hull. The boat is anchored in the remote Raja Ampat Marine Park, off the northwestern tip of Indonesia’s West Papua Province, an archipelago of about 1500 islands in one of the world’s most pristine diving and marine conservation areas.

I tear my eyes away from the view, take in the loveliness of my suite on the top deck of the luxury Prana by Atzaró (pranabyatzaro. com), a 55-metre timber phinisi motor sailboat, and tie on a sarong. Dress code: sultry casual, bare feet compulsory. Kim Kardashian has trod these same polished boards.

On the main deck I meet my international shipmates and our Australian cruise director, Mick, before sitting down for the first exceptional meal of many. Lunch is served under a white sail, the sea beside us like a bolt of blue-green velvet. A waiter pours wine as a witty Scottish writer observes, “This is our new life. It’s like Lost.” An American former male model opposite me says, “I could handle that.” We have five days of slow bliss ahead of us.

Raja Ampat translates as “the Four Kings” and the experience matches the name. The boat is in the portfolio of the Atzaró group, which owns high-end properties on land, including a hotel set amid Ibiza’s orange groves. Prana , based on the traditional design of phinisi trading ships but with added contemporary opulence, can host 18 guests in nine air-conditioned suites: two on the top deck (one with an outdoor terrace) and seven with portholes below deck. A crew of 20 includes two spa staff.

I book a massage and consider what other decadent avenues to pursue: do I curl up on a daybed, stretch out with yoga or ask for a drink? Or should I retire to my suite, an elegant white-andtimber space featuring black-and-white photography of life in West Papua? The correct answer here seems to be all of the above.

At dusk we assemble on the top deck for cocktails, the light softens and the sky blushes with orange, yellow and pink hues over the sea.

These 4.6 million hectares of ocean are some of the world’s most biodiverse, home to more than 1600 types of fish and 550 coral species. “People call Raja Ampat a species factory,” says Mick. From our first snorkel near Mios Kon (Bat Island), we enter an other-worldly realm: the sun’s rays beam through the water as we hover above undersea gardens, flipper through waters tinselled with fish and pass soft and hard corals in jewel colours.

Prana is a fully equipped dive vessel and I want to go deeper. On our second day, four of us assemble for Mick’s safety briefing. When I ask about the health of the reef he explains that the presence of reef sharks is a good indicator and there are plenty of those here. “It’s doing okay.”

October to April are considered the best diving months in Raja Ampat, which has been protected from the ravages of development by its remoteness. Over two days we dive at three incredible sites, descending to modest depths in waters crowded with Napoleon wrasse, batfish and unicornfish. At Cape Kri, south-west of Waigeo, the largest of the four main islands in the archipelago, a barracuda flashes past; at another site, my dive-instructor-buddy Ana points out green turtles and three gliding blacktip reef sharks.

Every day at breakfast Mick outlines the activities on offer. Most days, the crew lowers kayaks off the afterdeck and one or more of us paddle off to small islands and come ashore on arcs of white-sand beach. Sadly, despite Raja Ampat’s lack of development, the currents still deliver plastic debris; more than once we collect what we can and take it back to the boat for proper disposal.

On one occasion the tenders take us to Arborek Island and although there is washing on lines and an occasional peeking child, we stroll through what seems to be a deserted village.

Another time, some guests are dragged through the sea on an inflatable “donut” behind a tender then recover enough to go on a fast, bumpy ride through open water to a reef-fringed lagoon. We stand ankle-deep in water while blacktip reef sharks hurl themselves around our feet, competing for the raw chicken Ana tosses in the water. Towards the end of our journey, we’re whisked away to a manta ray conservation area near Aborek. We circle the area but there are no signs of rays. We go snorkelling again, which is not at all a poor second choice.

On the third night, we cross the Equator and arrive in the Raja Ampat of postcards. After a brunch of sweet papaya, pastries and char kway teow noodles, the tenders drop us at a jetty on one of the Piaynemo islands and we hike through the jungle. As we climb, I scan the trees for evidence of Raja Ampat’s terrestrial biodiversity, which includes the fabulous but elusive Wilson’s bird of paradise, the red bird of paradise and the Papuan hornbill.

At the lookout, Bintang beers are handed around. We’re only about 120 kilometres from Sorong but looking down over junglecovered limestone karst islands erupting out of shifting shades of blue I feel as though I’m in a lost world.

Further north, we anchor near the famed Wayag Islands and their central Blue Lagoon. Later, as dusk falls we cruise through a series of lagoons and those lush karst atolls are all around us. Where the limestone is too sheer for tree roots to take hold, I see craggy faces in the bare rock.

Suddenly we’re upon something magic: a beach fringed by palms, with a row of beanbags, music and a long cloth-covered dining table lit with twinkling lights. Cocktails at the ready, lobster on the barbecue, dinner is served.

From the heart

Find off-grid islands hidden near a buzzing city. Drink off the tourist trail in the home of craft beer. Discover small wonders beyond the epic peaks. When it’s the real New Zealand you seek, you ask the locals...

Seek big moments

Auckland

“This city does food like nowhere else.”

– Elle Armon-Jones from The Big Foody Food Tours (thebigfoody.com).

“I moved here from London nearly 20 years ago and think the food scene is as exciting as any of the bigger cities. Partly because the volcanic soil creates incredible produce but also because Aucklanders will give anything a go.

I love Culprit restaurant on Wyndham Street for its quirky, fun approach. Chef and co-owner Kyle Street can rethink anything: there’s an ‘Ugly Carrot’ dish made with carrot from the stock he uses to make a delicious duck tortellini. It’s spectacular. And his wine bar on the corner, Little Culprit, is a real hidden gem.

On my tours I’ll always take people to Miller’s Coffee roastery on Cross Street. Craig Miller only does one roast but he does it right.

There’s a whole new side of the city in the Commercial Bay precinct that’s opened up. You’ve got Britomart’s hip vibe, street art, the waterfront and an eclectic range of eateries like Miann, with its chocolate and artisan desserts. It’s a feast for the senses.”

Rotorua

“Bike through giant trees to soak in nature’s hot tub.”

– Takurua Mutu from Mountain Bike Rotorua (mtbrotorua.co.nz).

“My favourite place to take people has to be the Whakarewarewa Forest (Redwoods Forest), which has some of the best mountain bike trails on the planet. Combined with the strong Māori culture, it’s a pretty special experience.

I’d start with a mountain bike ride in the forest, using private 4WD shuttles to take you to the top of the tracks and pick you up from the bottom so you don’t have to pedal up the big hills. A 15-minute drive away from here you can raft the epic Okere River.

No day is complete in Rotorua without a soak in natural hot pools – we have a heap in the region. A beer and a soak at Secret Spot Hot Tubs is a great way to chill after a ride. Hire a private tub with friends – drinks are delivered to you.

Eastwood café is a fave for families. It has a beautiful setting in amongst the redwoods and awesome woodfired pizzas and fried chicken. Back in town, hit either Atticus Finch or Poco for tapas and cocktails or The Fainting Goat for huge shared platters and a cheeky gin or two.”

Fly to Auckland

Waipoua Forest

Rotorua

Great Barrier Island

The 'Ugly Carrot' dish at Culprit, Auckland

Cover: Scott Howes

Waipoua Forest

“Some people have never heard silence like it.” – Billy Boy Thompson from Footprints Waipoua (footprintswaipoua.co.nz).

“During our twilight tours of the Waipoua Forest, the best part is just watching people stand in the presence of te matua ngahere [‘father of the forest’] and tāne mahuta [‘lord of the forest’]. It’s a very special part of my job. The sheer size of these trees often renders visitors speechless – and sometimes brings them to tears.

Some of the trees are more than 2000 years old. I grew up here learning the legends of the atua [forest Gods] and being taught the rongoā [traditional Māori medicine] that can be tapped from the kauri [tree]. It’s why every story I get to share comes from a personal place, passed down from my elders and those before them.

After a tour I tell people to taste the flavours of the region at Opononi Beach Takeaways – some of the best fish and chips around – or grab a drink with harbour views at the Opononi Hotel. It’s the perfect place to slide back into modern life after forest-bathing.”

Great Barrier Island

“Everything here is off the grid. No streetlights. That’s the joy of it.” – Brad Taylor, owner and guide of Walking Legends Guided Walks (walkinglegends.co.nz).

“You fly on a small plane over the Hauraki Gulf and all of a sudden this island appears. It’s only 30 minutes and 90-ish kilometres from central Auckland but you step off into another world, back in time. The landscape is a mix of volcanic peaks,

podocarp and kauri forest, all the colours of green you can imagine. But the beaches surprise everyone. Most visitors go to Medlands Beach but we like to explore Whangapoua, where you get pristine white sand and a cluster of rockpools.

Our tours are about what you find while walking but bring your snorkel, too. The lodge we stay at is on Whangaparapara Harbour – you can pretty much walk out of the door into clear blue water and be swimming with all kinds of fish. Just magical.”

Medlands Beach, Great Barrier Island

Waipoua Forest, Northland

Hawke’s Bay

“Craggy Range is one of my favourite wineries on the coast.” – Arsel Aslam from Air Napier (airnapier.co.nz).

“They’ve got this perfect fireplace inside a plush luxury lodge where you can sip on the unbelievably delicious Sophia red. It’s this perfect blend of New Zealand beauty with European flair. We can fly you out there from Napier Airport for the most scenic winery lunch you’ll ever experience.

Autumn is an incredible time to visit, when the leaves are turning. Or come during the Art Deco Festival in summertime; it’s a themed week of about 100 different events hosted by wineries and restaurants, with many staff dressed in 1930s attire. Touring around in a classic car is an epic way to experience the region.”

Fly to Wellington

Hawke’s Bay Kapiti Island

Craggy Range, Hawke's Bay

Kapiti Island

“There’s a whole world that only opens up after dark.” – Manaaki Barrett, environmental manager and guide at Kapiti Island Nature Tours (kapitiisland.com).

“The kiwi is really not at all like a bird. It has this stealthy and elusive existence – often it looks like nothing more than a fuzzy little shadow on the forest floor. But our guides are attuned to every little sound they make. Sometimes we find them just from

Wellington

“Wellington has some of the best beer in the country.”

– Mike Henderson from Craft Beer Tours NZ (craftbeertoursnz.co.nz).

“My top three? Pernicious Weed is a double IPA by Garage Project. It has a tropical rich malt base and two flavourful New Zealand hops – Rakau and Nelson Sauvin. We visit their Wild Workshop in the centre of Wellington on our tours – they give us exclusive access to their crazy open fermentation and barrelling areas. Then there’s the Mā Is White by Fork & Brewer, which has two native spices –horopito and kawakawa – as well as fresh New Zealand navel orange. And finally, Van Da Tsar from Baylands Brewery, which is like Tia Maria meets beer – it’s so sweet and creamy.

You won’t get better beer snacks than the barbecue brisket burger from Boneface Brewing or the T-rex toastie from Heyday Beer Co. The waffle chips at Fork & Brewer are delicious – buy a bowl for the table and it will be gone in about six seconds.”

a little sniff or snuffle, almost like a hedgehog. Although we’re there to find kiwi, people also really enjoy the chance to be quiet and conscious of the world going on around them.

It’s quite humbling, to put yourself into a night-time forest environment as an almost invisible observer. It’s a true sensory experience – especially if you spend the night in our luxury glamping tents where you’ll fall asleep to the sounds of the kiwi, kaka and ruru birds.”

Wāhine Toa at Hiakai, Wellington

Wellington

“Hiakai isn’t like simply going somewhere for dinner.” – Katie Monteith, general manager of the threehatted restaurant (hiakai.co.nz).

“First, you enter this old building that many people don’t even know is a restaurant. We have no signs, just a light at night. Then they have no idea what they’re going to eat. We specialise in Māori cuisine but our menu is not available anywhere, which is so different to how most of us live day to day, with every bit of information at our fingertips.

Our food follows a story, a Māori myth, legend or even

a contemporary tale. One of our menus was based on a famous children’s book by the incredible Māori writer Patricia Grace. There was a dessert called Wāhine Toa, which means ‘warrior women’, made from rhubarb, hibiscus, apple and kawakawa in the shape of a flower. People gasped when they saw it. For some, Hiakai is a journey of nostalgia. For others it’s about firsts, things they’ve never tried before. But for everyone, we want it to be a playful experience, not overly earnest. We want to take people out of their ordinary world and look after them. In Māori culture that’s called manaakitanga and it’s the heartbeat of what we do.”

Seek wild surprises

Christchurch-Greymouth

“The best discovery is in the middle of nowhere.” – Natallia Mitchell from The Great Journeys of New Zealand (greatjourneysofnz.co.nz).

“On the TranzAlpine Railway journey between Christchurch and Greymouth, people know to expect miles of native beech forest and panoramic views across the Southern Alps. But there are secrets along the way, too.

Cass Station is blink-and-you’ll-miss-it with a population of one but is among the most fascinating stations along the route. It was made famous by New Zealand artist Rita Angus, who painted the modest train station in 1936. The work was voted the country’s greatest painting and is currently part of the Christchurch Art Gallery collection.

My other highlight comes just before you reach Arthur’s Pass, approximately halfway through the trip, when the train passes close to the Main Divide of the Southern Alps. The highest peak is Aoraki/Mt Cook – it used to be 3,754 metres high until 20-odd years ago when a bit fell off the top but the peak is still comfortably the highest in New Zealand. Otira Tunnel is also a big experience – at more than eight kilometres, it used to be the longest rail tunnel in the world and takes 13 minutes to get through.”

Fly to Christchurch

Kaikōura

Marlborough Sounds Greymouth

Lake Tekapo

Cass, Canterbury

Lake Tekapo “Hot pool stargazing has a way of making you feel very small but very special.”

– Astronomy guide Sam Blair from Tekapo Star Gazing (tekapostargazing.co.nz).

“It’s a very humbling experience. It’s like having your soul recharged as you stare up and spot the great constellations, such as Scorpius, also known as ‘Māui’s fishhook’, which has deep

spiritual significance to the Māori people.

The record for the most shooting stars I’ve seen in one night is 26 and if you’re very, very lucky you might see the incredibly rare auroras. From May to August, the Milky Way is directly above us and its core is especially bright. And during the warmer months, the spectacular constellation of Orion is starting to rise in the sky. It’s at its highest during December and January.”

Marlborough Sounds

“Havelock is the green shell mussel capital of the world.”

– Maegen Blom, operations manager from Mills Bay Mussels (millsbaymussels.co.nz).

“We eat them a little bit differently around here. We shuck the mussels raw, like an oyster, and then cook them for only a couple of minutes. That way they just melt and taste so juicy and tender.

In our tasting room at the marina we serve them six or seven different ways; grilled on the half shell with garlic butter or a coconut curry sauce, beerbattered, crumbed or rolled into a Dutch croquette – and a few other surprises depending on the day.

If you’re staying nearby I suggest you buy some fresh mussels, put them in a big pot and steam them with Marlborough white wine and garlic. Delicious. Then sit back and enjoy them with whatever wine is leftover.”

Kaikōura

“When a whale comes so close to the boat that you can hear it breathe, that’s life-changing.”

– Thomas Kahu, director of Whale Watch Kaikōura (whalewatch.co.nz).

“It happens from time to time and it blows your mind. The local Ngāti Kurī People are Kaitiaki or guardians and we’ve been watching over this region for more than 1000 years. I’m a direct descendant of those people who established us here and over that time we’ve built up an amazing connection to the sea. There’s a secret that attracts whales to this area: a massive underwater canyon network that starts here in Kaikōura. This underwater canyon network captures and drives nutrientrich waters from the deep right up to the surface. So we get humpback whales, blue whales, killer whales and minke whales all passing through. And then the sperm whales, which live here all year round. It’s an interstate highway for whales.”

Lake Tekapo, Mackenzie

Kaikōura

Wānaka

“We start our tours with the hongi, a traditional Māori greeting. Then it’s on to the wine.”

– Joe Waide, owner and guide from WanaHaka Wine Tours & Māori Culture (wanahaka.co.nz).

“With the hongi, we take time to exchange each other’s mana or spirit by gently touching noses. As we journey between the vineyards, I share the Māori footprint of the region – it connects with the wineries through respect for the land and for each other.

There are more than 128 varietals of pinot noir to be enjoyed from wineries in the Wānaka, Tarras, Cromwell and Queenstown regions and the winemakers are more than happy to talk you through what makes them unique.

My favourites? The Māori Point riesling. I also love the Aitken’s Folly rosé with salmon from the barbecue or the Rippon pinot noir with a slow-cooked lamb shoulder. And you can’t go past a glass of bubbles from Maude because every day’s festive when you live in Wānaka.”

Te Anau

“It’s

more than just your average rainforests, thundering waterfalls and massive glaciers.”

– Andy Cunningham from Fiordland Lodge (fiordlandlodge.co.nz).

“The lodge is in Te Anau, the gateway to the Fiordland National Park. Book one of our private guides and take the scenic alpine drive up to Milford Sound, stopping at any of the 30 or 40 stops along the way to walk to waterfalls and cascades. Cruise Milford Sound with a specialist nature guide or take a helicopter flight to Tūtoko Glacier.

You’ll return to the lodge in time for a soak in the hot tub, canapés in front of the roaring fire and a dinner of local venison with Central Otago pinot noir as you take in views across to the Kepler Mountains and Lake Te Anau. Sounds like the ultimate day out to me.”

Fly to Queenstown

Wānaka

Ulva Island

Te Anau

Fiordland National Park

Ulva Island

“There’s untouched and then there’s Ulva Island, New Zealand’s most protected bird sanctuary and secret escape.” – Nature guide Nicky Johnstone from Real NZ (realnz.com).

“Ulva Island is the lesser-known neighbour of Stewart Island, which sits in the Southern Ocean off New Zealand’s southernmost tip. Here, the birds are fearless – zero predators will do that! – and often start appearing before we even reach

the island. Albatross think we’re a fishing boat and tend to do some fairly dramatic fly-bys. Then we reach Ulva Island and that’s when people are really amazed.

Occasionally we have sea lions coming up on the beach, sometimes we see little blue penguins and, very rarely, the yellow-eyed penguin and the Fiordland crested penguin – two of the rarest species of penguin in the world. It doesn’t happen often but every so often you’ll be out on the boat and pop, a little head will come up and it’s always absolutely amazing.”

Wānaka

“Go off track and you’ll discover scenery that 99 per cent of locals haven’t even seen.”

– Mark Orbell from Ridgeline (ridgelinenz.com).

“In this case, you take the backroads and trails of one of Wānaka’s most historic farms,

West Wānaka Station, which is closed to the public but we’re lucky to be able to hike into. We’re all about walking deserted trails far from the crowds.

This is proper high country: 1000 metres above sea level. What can you see from up here? The Southern Alps, glaciers and snow-capped peaks, sparkling lakes, wild rivers, rolling alpine

meadows and raw natural beauty, all in one six- or seven-hour journey. We stop for lunch on a mountain top, what we call the finest alpine café in the world – everyone gets a window seat and there’s free airconditioning. There’s no café, of course – just a bit of Kiwi humour! – but it’s certainly the finest view you’ll ever see and we enjoy delicious treats from a local café.”

Walking through alpine meadows with views of Lake Wānaka

After a rocky two years, touring is back and on the rise. From the hard-to-reach destinations that are having their moment to travelling with the whole troupe, here are the five breakout trends and who is doing them best.

Story by Kendall Hill

Group therapy

Tours that break new ground

Along with an uptick in travellers revisiting the classic destinations – according to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office, as early as 2021, countries such as Greece and Spain saw a boost of more than 70 per cent in the number of nights spent at tourist accommodation – people are also seeking out places that have been hard to reach or off the table entirely.

In the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, a 500-year-old pilgrim route has opened to outsiders for the first time. The 400-kilometre-long Trans Bhutan Trail was once the sole route connecting the country’s various fortress dzongs , the centres of political and religious power. The trail fell into disuse when the national highway opened in the 1960s – and foreigners weren’t permitted into the erstwhile hermit kingdom until 1974 – so its revival opens up a part of the world not previously accessible.

G Adventures (gadventures.com) has launched two guided tours of the trail, which was once used by pilgrims, royals and official envoys or garps, who ran messages between provinces. “We wanted to positively impact as many rural locations on the trail as possible so we could provide

economic opportunities to local people,” says G Adventures’ Yves Marceau. Both tours include hikes to lofty Paro Taktsang (Tiger’s Nest) monastery.

Closer to home, the 200-plus idyllic islands of the Torres Strait have long been tricky to explore – until now. Just-launched tours from Cairns capture the ailan kastom culture of the Torres Strait on day or multiday trips to the tip of Australia with Strait Experience (straitexperience.com.au). On a day trip it’s possible to pack in a tour of the World War II history of Ngurupai (Horn) Island and spend several languid hours on Waiben (Thursday) Island feasting on island cuisine – including the piquant cured-fish dish namas – and enjoying a performance of traditional dance at the Gab Titui Cultural Centre. On multi-day itineraries there’s the option of a helicopter flight across the archipelago to the continent’s northernmost point, a visit to a Friday Island pearl farm with a sashimi lunch, and expeditions to outer islands such as the coral cay of Masig (Yorke) Island. “We’re telling our stories to the world, sharing our rich culture,” says Strait Experience co-founder Fraser Nai.

Paro Taktsang (Tiger’s Nest) monastery in Bhutan

True South

Other-worldly landscapes, gourmet charm and a picture-perfect coast that promises wild rides. Adventure awaits in South Australia.

Kangaroo Island

It’s the Australian holiday children dream of: kangaroos lounge on shores that are the colour of icing sugar, fur seals twirl in rock pools and koalas doze in trees as if zonked on the mix of eucalyptus and salt in the air. For adults, the island’s gourmet charms are just as enticing. Sip a glass of nectareous Honey Mead at Island Beehive or craft beer made from shed-roof-collected rainwater at Kangaroo Island Brewery. Or take in the restful gum trees from the deck of The Islander Estate Vineyards while sipping the elegant cool-climate drops of French winemaker Jacques Lurton. Can’t decide where to start? Hit these highlights and discover local secrets on the AAT Kings Remarkable Adelaide to Kangaroo Island tour.

Eyre Peninsula

Tucked into an inlet on the Eyre Peninsula, the coastal town of Streaky Bay is fringed by scenic beaches and granite rock formations. Spot whales from the Head of the Bight lookout or visit the striking Yanerbie Sandhills. While the shores of the Eyre Peninsula make for wild rides, the waters beyond are rich with exquisite seafood, including oysters, scallops and tuna. Book AAT Kings’ new South Australian Eyre Peninsula Escape to explore the region and its surrounds with ease.

Coober Pedy

It’s a place you have to experience at least once. The opal capital of the world, Coober Pedy is lined with underground tunnels that glisten with iridescent rainbow-hued gems.

Above ground, the landscape is so lunar-like it was used as a set for the sci-fi film Pitch Black (you can see the movie’s spaceship next to the Umoona Opal Mine). Escape the baking heat by hunkering down – way down – at an underground stay, like the Desert Cave Hotel. To unearth this hidden treasure of a town with a local guide, check out AAT Kings’ new tour, Outback Explorer: Uluru to Adelaide.

Visit aatkings.com to book your next adventure

Photography: South Australian Tourism Commission, Adam Bruzzone, Josie Withers

Immersive touring

It’s no longer enough to say that you’ve been there, done that. Now, travellers want to get under the skin of a destination. According to the 2022 Global Travel Trends Report by American Express, 81 per cent of respondents said they want to visit destinations where they can immerse themselves in the local culture.

Trafalgar (trafalgar.com) was one of the early tour operators to realise that travellers crave more than ticking off sites. It pioneered deeper connections more than a decade ago by taking guests inside the lives of local families to experience their culture first-hand. The company’s inaugural offering was a visit to the Esposito family farm in Sorrento, Italy, for homemade pasta, limoncello and real interactions with real people.

On Be My Guest options across Italy, Trafalgar guests can, for example, dine with a count at his 15th-century olive oil estate or learn the ancient art of making balsamic vinegar, as well as taste lambrusco, prosciutto and parmigiano in EmiliaRomagna. Chef Giada Landi, whose family has lived in and farmed from their Tuscan villa for 300 years, says, “Since

Trafalgar has been coming here it has changed our life. It’s really helped us to save this place and also share our history.”

In India, Banyan Tours (banyantours.com) has all the right connections to ensure a visit to the Subcontinent is as enlightening as you could wish for. Banyan can arrange access to the magnificent sandstone palace of the Amber Fort near Jaipur before it opens to the crowds, as well as to the majestic city palaces of Jaipur and Udaipur

and Jodhpur’s imposing Mehrangarh Fort. In Delhi, you can experience a private Sufi performance, the meditative dance of the city’s mystic Muslim sect, in a small tomb in the Nizamuddin area, or a private tour of Humayun’s Tomb – the inspiration for the Taj Mahal – led by writer and historian William Dalrymple. And while it can’t wrangle exclusive entry to the Taj Mahal, Banyan can arrange for Giles Tillotson, author of one of the definitive books on the love monument, to give you a tour.

The Amber Fort near Jaipur, India

If the Amazon is on your wish list, it’s reassuring to know that your actions can help support the health of the region. Cultural adventure specialists World Expeditions (worldexpeditions.com) offsets carbon emissions on all its tours.

Sustainable touring

On this topic, it’s almost unanimous: according to a recent survey by Expedia, a massive 90 per cent of people look for sustainable options when they travel. Whether we’re visiting fragile communities or threatened ecosystems, we want to leave the smallest footprint possible.

“We’re confident that people booking with us will approve of the fact that their trip will have a positive impact,” says the company’s responsible travel manager, Donna Lawrence. If, for example, you’re in Peru and about to spend four days trekking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, you can gratefully accept the fact that you’re accompanied by cooks, porters and camp staff because your entire entourage’s carbon footprint is being offset. World Expeditions’ 16-day Best of Peru trip also explores the Sacred Valley, Lake Titicaca and the ancient Inca capital of Cusco, as well as spending two nights in the Amazon jungle, where naturalists lead captivating treks into the world’s largest rainforest.

Prefer to criss-cross Europe? You can shun cars and trains on Ride & Seek ’s epic trans-European odyssey (rideandseek. com); participants travel from Barcelona to Rome using pedal power. The full route traverses 2700 kilometres, though riders can opt to do only one leg –either Barcelona to Alba or Alba to Rome. You’ll cover an average of 100 kilometres per day and be rewarded with Michelinstarred restaurants and stays at an 11th-century castle and a historic palazzo in Reggio Emilia. There’s also expert commentary from historical fiction writer Ben Kane, author of Hannibal , and former SBS cycling commentator Mike Tomalaris, who’ll be along for part of the ride in 2023. The scenery’s quite something, too. “Cycling the Chianti Way in Tuscany is always stunning and riding alongside the Tiber on a bike path all the way into the centre of Rome is very cool,” says the founder of Ride & Seek, Dylan Reynolds.

Machu Picchu in Peru

Flavours of Tasmania

Sip wine at one of Tassie’s oldest vineyards and discover restaurants that impress. Here’s the best way to see –and taste – Australia’s most delicious state.

Dine in one of Tassie’s best venues

History meets seasonality at The Agrarian Kitchen, a local paddock-to-plate lunchtime eatery in New Norfolk, a charming town 40 minutes north of Hobart along the River Derwent.

“It’s such a unique dining experience,” says Delma Coulson, journey director at Inspiring Journeys.

“The converted space is in New Norfolk’s Willow Court, the town’s old mental asylum!” Expect unassuming but artful house-made dishes like smoked pork loin with guanciale and green garlic and sourdough with kefir butter, burrata and dried tomato.

Visit the East Coast’s oldest vineyard

John Austwick, a Hobart-based dentist-turnedwinemaker, planted Craigie Knowe’s first grapes in 1979, making it the oldest vineyard on

Tasmania’s East Coast. Meet the family behind the winery and learn about its signature drops, like full-bodied cabernet sauvignon and bright French oak-fermented chardonnay. “Take a stroll through the vineyard and indulge in a lunch of cured meats and cheeses, all paired with wines from the cellar,” says Carolyn Tipper, journey director at Inspiring Journeys.

Discover the coolest new distillery

Western Tiers Distillery is built around a room of gleaming copper pot stills and is the newcomer on Tasmania’s happening spirits scene. The distillery uses pristine water from the Great Western Tiers highland lakes to produce spirits such as vodka, poitín (aka Irish moonshine) and a range of gins, including a berry-hued variety.

On the Inspiring Journeys seven-day Tastes of Tasmania tour, you’ll meet producers of some of Australia’s finest food and wine. Hear secrets from local experts as you travel along the east coast from Hobart to Launceston, staying in scenic hotels like Peppers Silo Launceston, located on the banks of the Tamar River.

For more information, visit inspiringjourneys.com

Photography:

Puddlehub,

Stu Gibson

Tours that maximise your time

As we emerge from years of lockdowns, “revenge travel” is in – not only are people prepared to increase the money they spend on exploring the world, they also want to get bang for their buck and their time. Got a weekend? Do something iconic. A week? Strike two things off your bucket list.

Journey Beyond is one travel company tapping into this demand, with a six-night Sail & Snorkel Ningaloo experience (salsalis.com.au). The tour covers Cape Range National Park as well as the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Reef, which lies off the coast of Western Australia. Extending about 300 kilometres north from Carnarvon, this biodiversity hotspot is home to more than 700 fish species – including hundreds of migratory whale sharks – and is also rich in whales, turtles, dugongs and kaleidoscopic corals. Guests take in these wonders with three nights in the luxury Indian Ocean tented camp Sal Salis, followed by a scenic flight along the reef to Coral Bay. There, they board the Shore Thing, a 15.5-metre, 10-berth catamaran, for three nights and days, calling in at dive and snorkel sites, deserted beaches, kayaking reef lagoons and communing with the marine life. The epic sunsets come at no extra charge.

But what can you tick off in just two days? Turns out AAT Kings (aatkings.com) can help you dip your toe into two of our most remote regions, Kakadu and Arnhem Land. Departing from Darwin, the tour heads to Kakadu, Australia’s largest national park and homeland of the Bininj/Mungguy people for more than 60,000 years. Rock art galleries at Burrungkuy (Nourlangie) and Ubirr record their timeless existence via panels depicting Dreaming stories and natural history. Kakadu is home to one-fifth of Australia’s mammal species and a third of its birds – and a cruise around the Yellow Water billabong takes guests close to some of them, as well as massive salties. Day two is a 4WD expedition into Arnhem Land and the Country of the Yolngu people with its dramatic escarpments, lilyrich wetlands and more immortal stories in the rock art of Mikinj Valley. “It packs a lot into just two days,” says Ben Hall, CEO of AAT Kings.

Yellow Water Billabong in Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory

Family travel is another breakout in the American Express report – 79 per cent of respondents said they were most looking forward to travelling with family in 2022, while 58 per cent said they were more interested in multi-generational family trips than ever before.

Small and multigenerational tours

Globus’s (globus.com.au) small-group “discoveries” are the right size for an extended family – or band of friends –looking to mark a significant event (20 to 24 is the average group size). Itineraries are experience-rich and cover all the bigticket attractions – like the 10-day Discover Japan tour that visits Tokyo, Kyoto, Takayama, Matsumoto, Kanazawa and the Mount Fuji region. Guests can learn calligraphy and local cooking, drop in for a drink at a sake brewery, visit traditional markets and stroll through serene gardens, sacred shrines and temples.

It’s one thing to tour the great archaeological sites of ancient Egypt but a different matter

to do so with a dedicated Egyptologist on hand to lend context to every occasion. Abercrombie & Kent ’s private Nile In Style tour is an expert-led, luxury escape that can be tailor-made to suit your troupe (abercrombiekent.com.au). “It’s an unforgettable way to create memories for all family members as you discover the history and culture of this fascinating country together,” says Debra Fox, A&K’s managing director of tour operations. The nine-day itinerary kicks off in Cairo to marvel at the treasures of Tutankhamen’s tomb and the Mummy Room at the Egyptian Museum and walk through the markets and mosques of Old Cairo. Fly to Luxor and board a boat – perhaps the Sanctuary Sun Boat IV with rooftop deck and pool or a dahabiya sailboat for smaller gatherings. Then sail down the Nile, with lavish catering and guided tours of royal tombs in Luxor’s Valley of the Kings and the colossal temples of Ramses II and his queen, Nefertari, at Abu Simbel.

The Abu Simbel Temples at Aswan, Egypt

Land of wonder

It’s one of Australia’s least-explored regions, open to only an exclusive few. Travel through the stunning landscape of Arnhem Land, finding rock art, vibrant wildlife and rich culture along the way.

Arnhem Land has captured imaginations since it was effectively closed off to outsiders almost a century ago. It’s hard to describe until you walk on Country yourself – and even then the most poetic words and vivid photographs won’t do justice to its beauty and mystery.

This dramatic wilderness stretches across almost 100,000 square kilometres of the Top End, the pristine and ever-changing landscape crisscrossed with songlines and Dreaming paths, sacred sites, ancestral beings and the spirit of the world’s oldest living culture.

Today, Aboriginal people from different clan and language groups live in Arnhem Land on homelands or in communities, close to Country and culture. Sharing it by opening up is key to keeping their traditional way of life vibrant, while fostering connections across Australia.

“From a Westerner’s perspective, we’re in a part of the world that we can’t fully imagine,” says Brian Worsley, general manager of safari camps and lodges for Outback Spirit (outbackspirittours.com.au), which will run a luxury 13-day Arnhem Land Wilderness Adventure here from May to September in 2023. “You can read brochures and look at pictures but once you get out here, it’s really just ‘wow’. The landscape is seriously wild

and visitors are blown away by the care that we get from the people.”

For travellers on this Outback Spirit tour, the experience begins with a Welcome to Country on Wirrwawuy Beach just outside Nhulunbuy. “When you learn what the ceremony actually means and you’re here on the beach experiencing a Yolngu Welcome to Country – with a woman putting two soft hands on your forehead and whispering in your ear, ‘Welcome, you will be well looked after here’ – it really gets to you.”

The journey

With its small-group tours of Arnhem Land capped at 22 guests, Outback Spirit is the only tour operator with permission from Traditional Owners and the Northern Land Council to travel right across this extraordinary region. The nearly two-week-long itinerary kicks off on the lands of the Yolngu people in the east, before traversing the spectacular landscape westwards and finishing in the Garig Gunak Barlu National Park and Cobourg Peninsula, home to stunning Seven Spirit Bay wilderness lodge.

As the tour crosses Arnhem Land, the wonders are all around you, whether it’s seeing

Mount Borradaile (top); cruising on the Arafura Swamp (above)

the awe-inspiring rainbow serpent among the ancient rock art at Mount Borradaile, spending a thrilling afternoon bird- or croc-watching on the Arafura Swamp or landing a silvery fish during a lazy afternoon cruise along the Tomkinson River.

A scenic flight takes your group from Seven Spirit Bay across Van Diemen Gulf to your final destination, Darwin, but travelling across Arnhem Land is in customised allterrain Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Outback Spirit has invested more than $20 million in its fleet of touring vehicles.

“They are kitted out for comfort, with leather seats and the latest AV equipment,” says Worsley. “For the longer stretches on the road, we’ll put on selected films to give guests an insight into where they’re going or where they’ve been – [the film] Ten Canoes was shot on location near Murwangi Safari Camp.”

“

The landscape is crisscrossed with songlines and Dreaming paths, sacred sites, ancestral beings and the spirit of the world’s oldest living culture. ”

And because respect for culture means caring for Country, Outback Spirit is an Eco Certified Nature Tourism operator. “It’s not easy to qualify,” says Worsley. “The Eco Certification program is a powerful benchmark and I’m very proud that we’ve achieved it.”

The people

A complex system of kinship is explained and thousands of years of history are brought to life while touring the lands of different language and clan groups. “The people up here are very proud of their culture and they really want to share it,” says Worsley.

Traditional Owner guides join the tour to share the stories of their ancestors, show bush foods and medicines and answer guests’ many questions. “They crack a lot of jokes, too,” says Worsley. The tour’s driver has indepth knowledge to impart from a Western perspective, including about the local ecology, wildlife and the history of white people who tried to settle here, which the British did twice at Victoria Settlement on the Cobourg Peninsula. The ruins that remain tell an eerie story all their own.

As well as employing local guides, Outback Spirit works with Aboriginal corporations to contract staff, equipment and expertise, including for cultural experiences and to build the company’s exclusive Arnhem Land accommodation, Murwangi Safari Camp and Barramundi Lodge. The tour visits renowned

Welcome to Country (left); 4WD safari at Seven Spirit Bay (below); ancient rock art at Mount Borradaile (bottom)

art centres, giving guests an opportunity to support local businesses and artists, as well as take home a precious memento from this remote world. In Yirrkala, at the beginning of the tour, the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka art centre has a wealth of bark paintings, sculptures, memorial poles and weavings and is also home to historical artefacts. In the community of Maningrida, guests visit the Bábbarra Women’s Centre (whose artists have taken their fabrics to shows in Paris), as well as the Aboriginalowned and -operated Maningrida Arts & Culture and the cultural keeping place, Djómi Museum.

The stays

Outback Spirit’s exclusive lodgings mean guests experience this wild region in luxury, including at the newly built Murwangi Safari Camp and recently redeveloped Barramundi Lodge. “They’re both similar in design in terms of the accommodation but their locations are vastly different,” says Worsley.

“Murwangi is right on the edge of the Arafura Swamp, the largest freshwater ecosystem in Arnhem Land.” In the wet, it can extend up to 1300 square kilometres across the inland floodplain. During the dry, it shrinks so that

by the time tours are able to reach the camp around April, the wildlife that is normally dispersed across that vast area has moved into “one giant permanent billabong right in front of the camp”. Worsley, a keen birder, says the abundance of birdlife is “incredible”, as is the reptile population. “At the end of the dry season there’s an extraordinarily high density of crocodiles and the camp overlooks all that.” He finds it difficult to nominate a favourite bird but the pygmy geese come close. “They are gorgeous little birds with bright green flashes on their wings.”

Barramundi Lodge is Outback Spirit’s other private deluxe stay. “It sits up on an escarpment overlooking the Tomkinson River,” says Worsley. “It’s a river floodplain that late in the season turns into dry savanna – there are the most amazing sunsets, lots of trees and the scenery is quite different. It’s a beautiful and peaceful place.” Guests can fish for barramundi during a scenic cruise on the lodge’s Ocean Master adventure boats, which have shade canopies and bathrooms. Catch one of the barras and the in-house chefs will turn it into dinner.

The last stop before Darwin? Seven Spirit Bay. One of Australia’s first luxury lodges when it was built in 1990, it was given a multi-milliondollar renovation by Outback Spirit in 2016. Now “it’s a world-class resort”, says Worsley of the property overlooking Cobourg Marine Park Sanctuary.

From that first Welcome to Country to the final goodbyes, with the tour navigating Arnhem Land from east to west, “something very special flows through every contact that we have with the people and this land”.

Safari Suite at Barramundi Lodge (below); Habitat Villa at Seven Spirit Bay (above)

The only way to

Pātea Doubtful Sound

Whakatipu Waimāori Queenstown

118 The SudaneseAustralian artist reconfiguring photography

122 This ’60s table takes Modernism to pieces

128 The dress that gave Calvin Klein street cred

Photographer Atong Atem

MILL CABIN SNOWY MOUNTAINS, NSW

A granite cabin in sub-alpine bushland provides a lesson in sustainability.

RACHEL LEES

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LEAN TIMMS

For centuries, people have retreated to the mountains for quiet contemplation. In the Snowy Mountains, in NSW’s High Country, hikers breathe in cool, eucalyptusscented air as they navigate dramatic summits and breathtaking ravines. Illustrator Niki Fisher and her partner, Trent Lowe, a carpenter, are among those who’ve spent countless hours trekking through the bush, admiring the old stockmen’s cottages that were built in the late 1800s and early 1900s as they go.

“What we both love about hiking the High Country is that when you’re out there, you don’t need much,” says Fisher. It was their shared devotion for this singular location and the simple life, along with a desire to combine their individual skill

sets, that inspired the pair to buy a parcel of land in Thredbo Valley in 2019 and build an off-the-grid cabin (airbnb.com.au).

“We tried to keep it harmonious with the surrounding landscape, to be in sync with nature,” says Fisher. This meant sourcing local blackbutt timber, handselecting 26 tonnes of granite rock from their home in Jindabyne and transporting it up to the 1340-metre-elevation property on the site of a former timber mill. The pair did everything but the most specialised work themselves, including the joinery, making much of the furniture and a concrete basin.

The result is a cosy one-bedroom, 56-square-metre cabin that’s completely sustainable. Solar panels provide the

electricity, rainwater is collected in a large tank and a wood stove heats both the water and the interior. “You feel immersed in the alpine bush,” says Fisher. “At the same time, you’re just a 15-minute drive from Jindabyne.”

But what’s most memorable about Mill Cabin is the view. “It’s roughly the same elevation as Thredbo Village so you look over the main range to Mount Perisher. It’s spectacular, especially when it’s snowcapped. It almost feels fake, like you’re looking at a backdrop.”

Lowe agrees. “What sets it apart is the wildlife. There’s a resident wombat, along with wallabies, wallaroos, emus, kangaroos and deer. It’s like being in a native zoo.”

Creative Process

ATONG ATEM

This Sudanese-Australian artist draws as much inspiration from African photographers as she does from Western fashion and beauty imagery.

STORY BY NOELLE FAULKNER

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KRISTOFFER PAULSEN

“I studied art history and was so aware of how my family’s history was excluded,” says Atong Atem. “I was only ever presented with Western art, which is beautiful, but I felt there was so much more to art than what these people from Europe were making.”

Born in Ethiopia and raised in South Sudan before arriving in Australia at the age of six, the Melbourne-based artist’s blurring of identity, fashion, joy and culture in her photography has caught the attention of some of Australia’s biggest players, including the Art Gallery of NSW and La Prairie, which awarded her this year’s prestigious La Prairie Art Award for her self-portrait, A yellow dress, a bouquet

“Photography felt like a good place to start. I wanted to look at [early] African photographers. But, of course, the images that came up were deeply colonial, ethnographic, dehumanising photographs. That started everything for me.” When Atem finally found artists such as Malian photographers Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keïta, who used the camera as a tool of subversion and documentation, it changed her. “To see how these artists depicted people in their own communities in an authentic way that wasn’t imposing colonial ideals, it blew my mind. And I’ve been making work like that ever since.”

Though her recent photographs parody 1980s and ’90s Western fashion shoots and she describes her art as “science fiction and history combined”, Atem says her work is produced through the lens of identity and intimacy – and fun. “I’m lucky I have such a connection with the work I make that it can just be about finding the joy in creating. And that’s what I seek – joy. I want my work to sit in my world, which is informed by politics and history but isn’t just about politics and history.”

Exhibited at:

Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Mars Gallery, Melbourne; Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne; Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Red Hook Labs, New York; Unseen Amsterdam.

Breakthrough moment:

“A group show at Gertrude Contemporary in 2016, curated by Léuli Eshrāghi. Prior to that, I didn’t believe in myself. It was the first time I showed my work publicly. From there, so much happened. And it was all because this one person believed in me.”

What the critics say:

“Atem’s joyous, subversive self-portraits employ riotous cosmetic and costume devices to deliver a visually pleasurable and intellectually uncomfortable punch.” Kelly Burke, The Guardian

A yellow dress, a bouquet (2022) by Atong Atem, winner of the inaugural La Prairie Art Award (above); the artist (opposite)

SHOKIN-TEI, KYOTO, JAPAN

A traditional teahouse built at the dawn of the Edo period captures the imagination of architect Brit Andresen, an emeritus professor at the University of Queensland.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LEOPOLD VON UNGERN

The Shokin-tei is one of four tearooms set in a meticulous garden at the Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto. Prince Toshihito built the main structure, the mountain villa, in 1615. By 1662, his son, Prince Toshitada, had restored and expanded the villa, constructed teahouses and made improvements to the ponds and gardens that you can see today. The grounds are about seven hectares but it’s the inner garden that makes it one of the top cultural works of art in Japan.

I’ve been to the Shokin-tei at least nine times . I was interested in architecture students experiencing architecture, rather than only seeing images of it, and was lucky enough to get funding to set up a study tour. Once a year for nine years, I took 10 to 12 students to Japan. One week was spent with Japanese architecture students in Tokyo and the next week was spent showing them extraordinary places outside the capital. Shokin-tei was always on the itinerary.

In the teahouse, there’s a series of choreographed surprises. There’s been so much thought put in to what we see and hear and what the framing does to amplify a particular feature or a metaphor because the design tends to be linked to literature and painting. The word shokin means the sound of the Japanese harp and the whistle of the wind passing through pine trees and you hear that sound here from time to time, amplified by the water.

They say the Shokin-tei is exactly the same form as it was in the 17th century. What also inspires me is that it’s built of timber, which is a renewable resource and a beautiful material to work with. The Japanese have long built with timber and in such a way that the structures can resist earthquakes. They have a practice with timber buildings where you can disassemble them and take out and repair or substitute a piece that hasn’t worn well.

The Shokin-tei is another world. While Kyoto is a traditional city in parts, it’s still a big modern city with normal traffic and so forth. But here you don’t have any of that. If you’re lucky, there’s not even the sound of a whipper snipper! One time, there were gardeners with white gloves and tweezers pruning the pine needles off trees. It’s wonderful to be in a country where there’s such modernity and up-to-the-minute technology, yet some of the most elemental practices of caring for things.

Brit Andresen is a Norwegian-born Australian architect and the first woman to receive the Australian Institute of Architects Gold Medal, in 2002, for her contribution to architecture through teaching, scholarship and practice.

RIO LOW TABLE

As a precocious furniture design graduate, 24-year-old Charlotte Perriand set her sights on working for the great Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier. “We don’t embroider cushions here,” he famously told her. But after seeing the apartment interior she showcased at the 1927 Salon d’Automne, Le Corbusier invited Perriand to join his Paris studio. Modelled on her own attic-home upgrade, the spare, gleaming aluminium bar with nickel-plated swivel stools relied on shiny automotive metals and the tubular steel components of bicycles. Shaking off the heavily timbered, decorative Beaux-Arts style, Perriand had shifted gears and would spend the rest of her long career ahead of the curve.

She tested new methods and materials with a “spirit of enquiry” she credited to Modernism. The tubular steel furniture collection presented by the Le Corbusier studio in 1929 included “machines for sitting” – reading, reclining and sleeping – a club chair, lounger and chaise now regarded as 20th-century icons.

While working and living in Japan, Perriand became enamoured with simple Asian rituals and materials; stranded in Vietnam when

Created in the 1960s, Charlotte Perriand’s geometric design became a coveted chameleon.

the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, she learnt to weave. Returning to France, clever storage (with sliding cupboard doors) and organic materials became a feature of her work, alongside a desire to make furniture more accessible.

The utterly original Rio low table was part of a suite Perriand designed in 1962 for her second husband’s apartment in Brazil. It’s an imaginative reconstruction of a circular table, sliced into wedges and reassembled to set up a jagged hole at the centre and an irregular edge. Six narrow elliptical timber legs form the base.

“It’s one of those rare pieces, so clever in its geometry but effortless in execution,” says Melbourne interior designer Chelsea Hing. “A chameleon, it’s able to shift personality from über-cool in black to a true classic in wicker or white. A timeless design.”

The Rio low table was relaunched by Cassina in 2020, a year after Perriand’s life and work were celebrated with an exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. Models available through Mobilia (from $19,795; mobilia.com.au) come in natural or darkstained oak, the fanned sections in marble or rattan.

Flooring design for a better environment

FLOOR

1. Bally jacket, $1880, and bag, $1800, bally.com.au. Cos trousers, $175, cos.com. Ralph Lauren sneakers, $200, ralphlauren.com.au. 2. Venroy polo shirt, $160, venroy.com.au. Chopard Alpine Eagle watch, $32,900, (02) 8197 6007. 3. Tod’s sneakers, $1120, tods.com. 4. Emporio Armani jacket, $410, armani.com. Smythson bag, $648, theoutnet.com.

Style tip Tailored trousers teamed with relaxed weekend pieces give polish to a casual look.

SPORTY ACCENTS

Off-duty favourites get a smart lift when paired with tailored classics. Subtle stripes and pops of colour bring zest while leather and suede take it from casual cool to sharp chic.

STYLING BY LUCY WOOD PHOTOGRAPHY BY LAUREN BAMFORD

HAIR, GROOMING AND MAKE-UP BY JOEL PHILLIPS

1. Maggie Marilyn blazer, $770, and pants, $410, maggiemarilyn.com. Caes shirt, $415, incu.com. Prada heels, $1730, prada.com. Gucci bag, $4040, gucci.com. McMullin & Co. armchair, $929, mcmullinandco.com. 2. Roger Vivier loafers, $1920, rogervivier.com. 3. Esse Studios coat, $1600, and shoes, $550, essestudios.com. Arnsdorf blazer, $850, and trousers, $490, arnsdorf.com.au. Ray Ban spectacles, $275, sunglasshut.com. Sportmax bag, $1660, world.sportmax.com. 4. Anna Quan blazer, $650, and top, $495, annaquan.com. Bulgari ring, $4620, and bracelet, $7800, bulgari.com.au. Cartier Santos de Cartier watch, $16,000, cartier.com.au. Oroton bag, $649, oroton.com.

Layer your jewellery in mixed metals. Timeless pieces such as watches and bracelets work best when worn on the same arm.

TONE IT DOWN

Everyday pieces are given new life in lighter shades. A versatile blazer, well-cut trousers and pointed heels are reimagined in refined hues of white, beige and taupe.

Style tip

Calvin Klein’s Slip Dress

The American designer took a sliver of fabric from undergarment to icon. And the legacy lives on.

Good jeans

Just months after launching his eponymous label in 1968, littleknown designer Calvin Klein was celebrating $1 million in sales. It was an early sign of the success ahead. In the mid-’70s came his signature jeans, which later reached phenomenal sales on the back of controversial ads featuring teenage actress Brooke Shields – “Nothing gets between me and my Calvins.” Underwear and fragrance lines followed, with a new breed of model, including Kate Moss and Christy Turlington.

A fresh, raw sexuality was in, as was a garment that captured this generation-altering mood better than any other: the slip dress.

Then and now

Traditionally cut on the bias with spaghetti straps and made of a lightweight slinky fabric such as silk, the slip was only widely worn as outerwear in the last decade of the 20th century. What had previously been termed a petticoat became a true fashion item in its own right. Popularised by ’90s grunge star Courtney

Love, who favoured vintage slips, the item came to represent the subversive and counter-culture cool. There were many takes: Cindy Crawford got married in one (by John Galliano) and Carrie Bradshaw wore one on her first date with Big (the “naked dress” by DKNY). But it was Calvin Klein who became synonymous with the piece.

Clean cut

Klein believed that the ’90s were, as he told Vogue, “about the personal, about staying in and

being alone and not flaunting what you have on your back”. His spring 1994 runway show, dedicated to slip dressing and featuring a waif-like Moss, made an argument for clean, modern and feminine sportswear that left 1980s power dressing for dead. Fast forward three decades and his words, as with his designs, still ring true.

On the screen

Pop culture was drawn to the brand, whether it was Sofia Coppola in a black slip at the premiere of Unzipped in 1995 or Jennifer Aniston championing the piece on Friends. In a scene in 1995’s Clueless, Cher Horowitz, played by Alicia Silverstone, is preparing to go out in a supershort white slip when her dad asks what she’s wearing. “A dress,” she says. “Says who?” her father asks. “Calvin Klein.” The dress proved so popular that the label reissued the style in 2010. Rihanna wore a red one to the GQ Men of the Year party in LA two years later.

And the award goes to…

It didn’t take long for the slip dress to make it to the Academy Awards. In 1996, Gwyneth Paltrow wore a white, full-length Calvin Klein slip down the red carpet (alongside Brad Pitt); it was such a hit that the Goop founder donned a black version for the premiere of Emma later that year. More than 20 years on, Zoë Kravitz wore an updated, sheer version to an Oscars party. Today the label offers multiple takes on the classic slip – such as printed and recycled crêpe. With the no-effort approach to postpandemic fashion, it’s not hard to see the appeal.

Jeffrey Mayer, Kevin Mazur

(Above from left) Rihanna in 2012; Alicia Silverstone in Clueless ; Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt at the Oscars in 1996

Bucket list experiences at unbelievable prices.

What’s on your bucket list? Would you rather taste your way around the Mediterranean or get lost among pastel clouds of cherry blossoms in Kyoto? Do you want to be dwarfed by the pyramids or the Taj Mahal – or take an epic voyage to the edge of the earth?

A new partnership between Qantas and TripADeal is making it even easier to take off on the adventure of a lifetime. With TripADeal, you can book multi-destination and all-inclusive

itineraries with ease – and at unbelievable prices! Plus, you’ll also earn 3 Qantas Points per $1 spent (or use your points to pay for some – or all – of your trip).

Here, we’ve gathered 12 incredible deals – from The Maldives to Lapland – but there are hundreds more online at tripadeal.com.au. So why wait? Your next bucket list adventure is just one click away.

TheTripADeal&QantasFrequentFlyerteams

10 DAY TOUR: BEAUTY OF JAPAN

WHERE THE OLD WORLD MEETS THE NEW

At once serene and electrifying, ancient and modern, Japan reveals its glory.

Tokyo

Includes return flights to Tokyo with Qantas

Ride the bullet train from Kyoto to Osaka

Visit the icons – Mt Fuji, Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Nara

Sept 2022 – Nov 2023

TIP: Join a March tour to witness the ephemeral beauty of cherry blossom season.

8,397

This trip takes in Japan’s most iconic highlights so you can be immersed in the humming, neon-bright energy of Tokyo then disappear into pristine nature.

Heading west from the capital, you’ll feel dwarfed by the 13-metre-high Great Buddha of Kamakura and learn centuries-old tea-making techniques before boarding the exhilarating high-speed train to Osaka. While not included in the itinerary, a kaiseki dinner is one thing you don’t want to miss during your free time. An elegant multi-course meal made from seasonal produce in a traditional inn or ryokan, it’s your chance to taste Japan’s celebrated cuisine with locals.

On day four, you’ll have an option to explore Hiroshima and sail to Miyajima, the UNESCO World Heritage-listed island renowned for its giant torii gate, which, at high tide, appears to float on water.

In Osaka, after meandering the grounds of the city’s 16th-century shogunate castle, it’s time for some retail therapy in the department stores and quirky

boutiques of the Shinsaibashi district.

Trading glitz for greenery, you’ll then see free-roaming deer grazing in Nara Park near the city of Nara before a day visiting villages restored in homage to the Edo period (1603-1868).

Back in Tokyo, take in the sights including Tsukiji Outer Market, Meiji Shrine and Tokyo Tower on an optional half-day tour. Or while away the morning practising hanami, the Japanese pastime of admiring flowers, at Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, people-watching in eccentric Harajuku or getting acquainted with Shibuya’s booming craft beer scene.

TOUR HIGHLIGHT

Staring up at snow-capped Mt. Fuji from the 5th Station lookout, 2300 metres above sea level, is a true pinch-yourself moment. Discover the many different perspectives of the sacred mountain from a cruise on beautiful Lake Ashi, which was formed by the eruption of Mount Hakone more than 3000 years ago.

10 DAY TOUR:

5 STAR AFRICAN SAFARI

Includes return flights to Johannesburg with Qantas

Go on up to four game drives in Sebatana Private Reserve, plus one game drive in Welgevonden Game Reserve

In addition to the Big Five wildlife, you’ll see Johannesburg and Pretoria. Cape Town available on an optional extension

Jan 2023 – Sep 2023

As you watch giraffes grazing on treetops, zebras drinking at waterholes and elephants trundling through savannah grass, it feels like the animals barely know you’re there. But the big cats? They come heart-poundingly close on this adventure that ticks off the Big Five – lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo – plus South Africa’s most fascinating cities.

After a night in Johannesburg and a morning tour of Pretoria, set off across the countryside to Sebatana Lion Lodge, your five-star base for the next seven nights. Here, there are only 14 bungalows, each designed to make you feel at home with all the mod cons, whether you’re a couple or travelling with family.

the Big Five on a thrilling safari inside Welgevonden Game Reserve. Between game drives, soothe tired muscles in the hot tub, cool off in the pool or gather for wine tasting around the Lion Lodge’s massive fire pit. Along with hearty meals at the restaurant, you’ll indulge in a luxe bush brunch and sip champagne at Sunset Rock. Opt in for extras such as traditional dance and feasting or a night safari with a three-course dinner inside “Flintstone Cave”. Spend your last day in South Africa exploring Johannesburg’s Apartheid Museum and the vibrant Soweto district. If time is on your side, tack on a five-day extension to exciting Cape Town.

+ EARN 11,397 QANTAS POINTS OR USE QANTAS POINTS^ OR POINTS PLUS PAY~ $3799 PER PERSON TWIN SHARE* FROM

Set on more than 40,000 hectares of valleys and native bushland, Sebatana Private Reserve is teeming with wildlife. You’re likely to spot wildebeest, antelopes, crocodiles and meerkats poking out from their burrows, not to mention 300 species of birds and 370 types of native flowers and trees. You’ll check off lions, cheetahs and the rest of

WILD AT HEART

TOUR HIGHLIGHTS

Sebatana’s guides make all the difference in capturing moments with the wildlife. Not only are their tracking skills second to none – you’ll soon be able to spot signs leopards are near, too – but they will introduce you to local customs and initiatives that make this experience of Africa truly unique.

Walk alongside lions, leopards and the rest of the Big Five on an epic safari adventure in South Africa.

South Africa

Taj Mahal of Agra

9 DAY TOUR:

5 STAR GOLDEN TRIANGLE

Includes return flights to Delhi with Qantas

Stay in five-star hotels

See Jaipur’s palaces, the Taj Mahal of Agra and explore Delhi

Oct 2022 – Oct 2023

FEEL THE HEARTBEAT

From lavish palaces to spirited bazaars, India’s Golden Triangle buzzes with history and soul.

An intoxicating mix of culture and colour, this luxury tour connects the North Indian cities of Delhi, Jaipur and Agra, tracking the legendary Golden Triangle. Your first stop is Delhi, where historical highlights include Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque, and the Red Fort, built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in the 17th century. Take a rickshaw ride through chaotic Chandni Chowk, one of India’s oldest markets, where you’ll be dazzled by stalls brimming with fragrant spices and a 200-year-old perfumery, before returning to your five-star hotel.

Breakfast on masala dosa (a crispy crepe filled with zingy potato) then travel to Jaipur, Rajasthan’s resplendent capital. Known as the pink city, you’ll find rose-hued architectural wonders like the five-storey Hawa Mahal, carved from pastel sandstone, and City Palace, the former home of the maharaja. Be awed

by Amber Fort, which glistens with mirror mosaics, learn the art of tying a turban or sari and take a quiet moment to stroll the neatly landscaped grounds of Lakshmi Narayan Temple, dedicated to the Hindu goddess of prosperity and good fortune. The way to India’s heart is through its food. At Gurudwara Guru Ka Taal, a Sikh temple in Agra, all are welcome to join the langar (free communal kitchen). Volunteers dish out traditional food as people sit on the floor and eat together in a display of community and hospitality.

TOUR HIGHLIGHTS

Agra’s white-marble mausoleum, the Taj Mahal, has the power to transform even the most travelled. Nearly eight million people visit each year, most on guided day trips, so join a sunrise expedition (additional) for a fresh and relatively uncrowded perspective.

18 DAY TOUR & CRUISE: ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION

Includes return flights to Buenos Aires

Journey to Antarctica via the Drake Passage on a 9 night Albatros Expedition Cruise

Spend four days in Antarctica with small group landings to see penguins, giant blue whales, Antarctic fur seals and more. You’ll also see Buenos Aires and conquer the Drake Passage

Those seeking ultimate adventure – and serious bragging rights – can’t do better than Antarctica. Standing amid out-of-this-world icescapes and seeing rare creatures that survive in a wilderness untouched by humans is a feeling like no other. But experiencing the extreme environment needn’t mean sacrificing comfort; on this epic tour, you’ll cruise the Great White Continent in style.

Spend the three nights acclimatising in Buenos Aires, Argentina, soaking up colourful culture and architecture of the neoclassical Metropolitan Cathedral and French-style palaces and practising your dance moves in the hometown of the tango.

heated infinity pool, refuel in one of the three incredible restaurants or simply stare out at the breathtaking South Shetland Islands as you sail to the Antarctic Circle.

Once you reach your destination, it’s time to begin a thrilling polar exploration. Head out into the icy wilderness on daily Zodiac landings, each with under 20 people, gliding past giant glaciers and, depending on the season, getting close to magnificent humpback whales and fur seals. Feeling intrepid?

You can book optional kayaking, snowshoeing and even overnight camping experiences.

+ EARN 38,997 QANTAS POINTS OR USE QANTAS POINTS^ OR POINTS PLUS PAY~ $12999 PER PERSON TWIN SHARE* FROM

Oct 2023 – Feb 2024 Antarctica

Departing from Ushuaia (one of the southernmost cities in the world), you’ll then set sail on a brand-new Albatros Expedition ship. Take full advantage of the ship’s luxuries and amenities as you cross the wildly remote Drake Passage: peer down a microscope at extraordinary sea organisms on-board, take a dip in the

TOUR HIGHLIGHTS

Go ashore to see thousands of penguins waddle, squawk and toboggan across the ice. You’ll want to immortalise the moment – luckily there’s an expedition photographer to get you in the frame and show you how to take the best landscape shots.

TO THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

No journey is more intriguing – or remote – than the last continent on earth.

17 DAY TOUR & CRUISE: BEST OF ITALY & THE MED

Includes return flights to Rome

Explore the big hits of Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome and Sicily

This trip includes a 7 night Mediterranean cruise departing from Rome

Feb 2023 – Oct 2023

$3999 PER PERSON TWIN SHARE* FROM

+ EARN 11,997 QANTAS POINTS OR USE QANTAS POINTS^ OR POINTS PLUS PAY~

Postcard-perfect coastlines. Cities of bougainvillea-covered stone. Historical and cultural riches. It’s impossible not to fall for Italy’s charms. Especially as this journey lets you feel the local heartbeat behind the iconic destinations as you voyage from Rome to the jewels of the Mediterranean, tasting vibrant food and cultural flavours all the way.

Guided tours will give you the historical story at each major stop: see Roman monuments like the Trevi Fountain; admire gilded Byzantine mosaics at St Mark’s Basilica in Venice; pick up style cues at Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, one of the world’s oldest shopping emporiums; and wander Piazza del Duomo in the glorious centre of Florence. You’ll eat the icons, too, ordering pizza al taglio and handmade gelato in Rome and sipping Aperol spritz like a Venetian (the Spritz Veneziano was invented in 1800s Venice). Join optional four-course dinners in Florence and Trastevere, a cobblestoned Roman

MEDITERRANEAN MAGIC

An authentic taste of la dolce vita in Italy, with scenic stops in France, Malta and Spain.

neighbourhood bursting with lively trattorias and artisan boutiques. After touring mainland Italy, you’ll spend seven nights cruising the Mediterranean aboard the MSC Grandiosa, which is outfitted with a bowling alley, artworks by Damien Hirst and a Balinese-style spa. You’ll see Palermo, Sicily’s romantic capital, try Marseille’s acclaimed bouillabaisse, get lost in the maze-like streets of Genoa and choose between itineraries that include side trips to Malta and Barcelona or Ibiza and Valencia. Either way, don’t skip any of the ship’s 11 dining venues, from share plates at HOLA! Tapas Bar to foie gras at Atelier Bistrot.

TOUR HIGHLIGHTS

The best way to see Venice? On a gondola ride traversing the city’s iconic canals, of course. Recline in a plush love seat as the narrow, flat-bottomed boat drifts past opulent churches and elegant palazzos.

Venice

Explore TripADeal’s range of bucket-list tours, hotel stays and cruise packages. SELECT YOUR PREFERRED DEAL

Choose your package and proceed to checkout online or call 1300 261 684.

PAY WITH POINTS OR EARN THEM FOR YOUR NEXT TRIP

Provide your Qantas Frequent Flyer number and earn 3 Qantas Points per $1 spent.^ Want to save cash? Choose Qantas Points or Points Plus Pay as your payment option.~

17 DAY TOUR & CRUISE: ALASKA, YELLOWSTONE & THE ROCKIES

Includes return Qantas flights to North America

Set sail on a 7 night Glacier Experience Cruise with Royal Caribbean International

Explore Yellowstone National Park, Inside Passage in Alaska, as well as Banff and Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies

Apr 2023 – Sep 2023

PER PERSON TWIN SHARE* FROM

+ EARN 14,997 QANTAS POINTS OR USE QANTAS POINTS^ OR POINTS PLUS PAY~ $4999

Dramatic, wide-open plains, glaciercarved valleys and electric-blue icebergs: North America boasts some of the world’s greatest expanses of wilderness. This epic expedition kicks off in the western United States’ Yellowstone National Park, famous for its steaming geysers, colossal mountains and rainbow-hued prismatic pools. Touching Idaho and Montana, this is true cowboy country so keep your eyes peeled for buffalo, elk and even grizzlies.

More incredible moments await across the Canadian border. Shadowed by the Rocky Mountains, the resort town of Banff offers great shopping and dining. You can also walk the tree-ringed shores of the turquoise Lake Louise and travel the Icefields Parkway – a spectacular stretch of road that winds past soaring peaks and more than 100 ancient glaciers.

You’ve got a day to absorb all the food and culture you can in Vancouver before setting sail on a seven-night cruise of Alaska’s Inside Passage aboard Royal Caribbean’s Enchantment of the Seas.

As you count towering glaciers, icy cliffs, bald eagles and frolicking humpback whales, the ship will stop along the coast so you can explore historic towns, kayak alongside sea otters, fly-fish for the world’s biggest halibut and learn about local Indigenous cultures at the Haines Sheldon Museum.

There’s plenty to keep you busy on board, too: join a Latin dance class or have a facial at the Vitality Spa. There are 13 restaurants, cafes and bars to taste your way around – and you’ll probably want to do Chef’s Table, where the five-course menu culminates with a dessert of Valrhona chocolate mousse, peanut butter ganache and salted caramel gelato.

TOUR HIGHLIGHTS

Adventurous types will love Juneau, Alaska’s remote state capital. On day 11, be lured ashore by outdoor thrills such as tundra trekking over Mendenhall Glacier or hiking to Nugget Falls, where icy water thunders down a 115-metre rock face.

WONDERS OF THE WILDERNESS

A unique action-packed adventure through Alaska, Yellowstone and the Canadian Rockies.

Lake Louise

EUROPEAN CLASSICS

Dine your way through London, Paris and Burgundy. Soak up sunsets in Santorini and Mykonos. This is ultimate Europe.

20 DAY TOUR & CRUISE: TASTE OF EUROPE & UK

Includes return flights

7 night MSC Cruise through the Mediterranean and Greek Islands Apr 2023 – Oct 2023

Experience the European highlights you’ve been dreaming of – and discover the secrets you never knew about – in one ultimate trip through grand cities to the continent’s legendary coastlines.

+ EARN 16,197 QANTAS POINTS OR USE QANTAS POINTS^ OR POINTS PLUS PAY~ $5399 PER PERSON TWIN SHARE* FROM

Tick off all the big hits in London, Paris, Dijon, Lucerne, Lake Como, Verona and Venice EARN or USE QANTAS POINTS when you book a TripADeal

Roam London’s green parks, cool markets and galleries and see Paris change from grand boulevards and jardins to cobbled streets and churches on a city tour. Find your favourite flavours in the wine and cheese country of Burgundy, including a tasting at Fromagerie Gaugry, a family run producer specialising in soft, washed-rind varieties. You’ll also see historic Mulhouse and Basel en route to Lucerne, Switzerland, where you’ll walk the 14th-century Chapel Bridge that straddles the river Reuss. From here it’s on to the cinematic shores of Italy’s Lake Como, Juliet’s Balcony in Verona and the fabled canals of Venice. After a whirlwind two weeks, it’s time to recharge on a seven-night dream cruise of the Greek Islands. Aboard the MSC Armonia, you can do as little or as much as you fancy, from indulging at the expansive day spa to hitting the water slides. Your four-star 13-deck ship will make four stops – in medieval Kotor on Montenegro’s Adriatic coast, glitzy Mykonos, photogenic Santorini and Bari in southern Italy’s Puglia.

TOUR HIGHLIGHTS

In the Greek Island village of Oia in Santorini, go to the Agios Nikolaos Castle for the much-photographed view of whitewashed houses on volcanic cliffs. Be sure to have a quiet moment like a local, too. Head to a taverna in Amoudi Bay for local fish baked in rock salt and loukoumades (doughnuts drizzled with honey).

Paris

Santorini

9 DAY ALL-INCLUSIVE MALDIVES ESCAPE

Includes return flights to the Maldives

Stay in a plush resort room or upgrade to an overwater bungalow

Drink and eat at five restaurants, snorkel through stunning reefs or enjoy a sunset cruise

Nov 2022 – Oct 2023

Seeking an all-inclusive escape in paradise? It takes a 30-minute speedboat ride to reach Adaaran Select Hudhuran Fushi island resort on the convenient North Male Atoll. And then it’s undisturbed bliss.

A Beach Villa, set into lush gardens with unbelievable views of the Indian Ocean, is all yours for the week. Of course, if staying in an overwater bungalow has always been on your wishlist, booking an upgrade is easy.

+ EARN 9,897 QANTAS POINTS OR USE QANTAS POINTS^ OR POINTS PLUS PAY~ $3299 PER PERSON TWIN SHARE* FROM

This Maldives escape takes “allinclusive” to a whole new level. Flights, airport transfers and seven nights accommodation are all covered. Food (you’ll have five restaurants to choose from) and drinks (piña colada, anyone?) are all part of the experience. When you feel you’ve clocked enough time by the pool or on a canopied day bed by the sea, adventures lay just beyond the shoreline. A laid-back cruise to watch the setting sun dip beneath the

endless horizon? Done. Wildlife-watching expeditions that can see hundreds of dolphins swimming and showing off around your boat? Add it to your itinerary. And if you’re feeling energetic, you can tick your way through a line-up of water sports from windsurfing to stand-up paddleboarding. Pick up some island skills from the experts, whether it’s perfecting your signature drink at a cocktail-mixing class or signing on for daily excursions to snorkel with brightly coloured fish, turtles and friendly reef sharks. But come golden hour, the open-air Hiyala Bar is the only place to be.

ESCAPE HIGHLIGHTS

In the Chavana Spa, a blissful sanctuary surrounded by tropical greenery, soak up the island vibe with a frangipani-scented body wrap and a massage that draws on Balinese, Thai or Ayurvedic techniques.

A TRANQUIL OASIS

Find bliss in the Maldives, an archipelago beloved for its sun, sand and sophisticated serenity.

The Maldives

HIDDEN TREASURES

Voyage through thousands of years of history in Egypt, Jordan and Turkey.

27 DAY TOUR & CRUISE: EGYPT, JORDAN & TURKEY

Includes return flights

Cruise the Nile from Luxor to Aswan via the Valley of the Kings

See the Egyptian pyramids and the Sphinx, Troy, Petra, Istanbul, Cappadocia and the Dead Sea

Mar 2023 – Nov 2023

Cappadocia

This journey immerses you in some of the Middle East’s most captivating scenes, including the splendour of the ancient pyramids and epic golden desertscapes.

+ EARN 23,997 QANTAS POINTS OR USE QANTAS POINTS^ OR POINTS PLUS PAY~ $7999 PER PERSON TWIN SHARE* FROM

In Istanbul, wander inside enigmatic landmarks including the Blue Mosque. Leave the city behind for the stirring battlefields of Anzac Cove and Gallipoli, the history-steeped ruins of Troy, Ephesus and Hierapolis, top-notch vineyards in Sirince and Cappadocia’s surreal underground architecture. An early morning hot-air balloon ride over the rock-hewn landscape is optional but not to be missed.

Egypt’s frenetic capital, Cairo, is your base for trips to the Sphinx and Great Pyramids of Giza. But, of course, no visit to ancient Egypt is complete without a cruise along the Nile, so on a four-night trip aboard a five-star ship you’ll wonder at the magnificent Valley of the Kings and the Temple of Horus at Edfu, which was preserved under sand for about 2000 years.

Next up is an incredible overnight stay in Jordan’s Wadi Rum (also known as the Valley of the Moon) where Lawrence of Arabia was filmed. Traverse the red dunes by jeep – and camel! – before glamping under the stars in a Bedouin-style tent. As the end of the journey draws near, a thrilling excursion to the Lost City of Petra, the blush-coloured city lost for more than a millennium, is matched with downtime floating in the Dead Sea.

TOUR HIGHLIGHTS

The culture of three countries comes to life in the 58 vibrant local meals you’ll enjoy. Taste Istanbul’s imam bayildi (eggplant stuffed with grilled lamb), sip sweet green tea while cruising the Nile and feast on zarb, a traditional Bedouin dinner in Jordan.

Giza

15 DAY TOUR: BEST OF VIETNAM & CAMBODIA

Includes return flights to Hanoi, plus flights from Hanoi to Da Nang and Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City

Cruise iconic Halong Bay on a traditional junk boat

Visit the giant temples of Angkor Wat and explore Hoi An, considered Vietnam’s most beautiful city

Feb 2023 – Nov 2023

+ EARN 6,597 QANTAS POINTS OR USE QANTAS POINTS^ OR POINTS PLUS PAY~ $2199 PER PERSON TWIN SHARE* FROM

Vietnam and Cambodia offer an incredible diversity of landscapes, cultures and regional food. After landing in Hanoi and taking a scenic drive through verdant rice fields, you’ll spend the night aboard a traditional junk boat. Sailing UNESCOlisted Halong Bay is a highlight and you’ll have the luxury of time so do it all. Marvel at the limestone karsts towering above blue waters, swim out to a hidden beach, visit a floating pearl farm and stretch out in a sunrise tai chi session. Sung Sot (Surprise) Cave lives up to its name: nestled into a cliff face 25 metres above sea level, this colourfully lit grotto opens up into two vast chambers punctuated by huge stalactites and stalagmites. You can choose your own adventure when calling back into Hanoi, as well as in the cities of Hoi An, Ho Chi Minh City and Phnom Penh. Enjoy free time exploring the lively neighbourhoods or join optional excursions such as motoring the Mekong River or walking the Golden Bridge at Ba Na Hills, which appears to be held up by

a pair of giant stone hands. Regroup for tours of must-sees including the hidden network of Viet Cong tunnels at Cu Chi and the temples of Angkor Wat, one of South-East Asia’s most important, and beautiful, archaeological sites. You’ll be fuelled by authentic flavours at every turn. Start the day with coffee and lashings of condensed milk. Create perfect rice-paper rolls at a cooking class. And taste your way around street-food markets in search of your favourite pho (a word of advice: those with a taste for spice should start off ordering it mediumhot – locals do chilli on a whole new level!).

Discover the culture, crafts and culinary traditions of Vietnam and Cambodia.

TOUR HIGHLIGHTS

Even on the buzzing city days, you’ll find time to relax in style with a premium accommodation upgrade. You’ll stay in spacious rooms with many of the hotels including pools and traditional Khmer-style massages available on request.

Choose your package and proceed to checkout online or call 1300 261 684.

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Halong Bay

NORTHERN LIGHTS ODYSSEY

Experience one of the world’s most spectacular – and elusive – natural phenomena in snowy Scandinavia.

Includes return flights

This trip features a 6 night ‘Follow the Lights’ Hurtigruten Cruise from Bergen to Kirkenes

Visit Lapland, Tallinn and see fjords aboard the Flam Railway as you hunt the lights around the Arctic Circle

Sept 2023 – Mar 2024

+ EARN 29,997 QANTAS POINTS

There are few travel moments more magical than when you catch the aurora borealis (Northern Lights) swaying in the sky. On this Scandinavian epic, you’ll chase the swirls of neon green, yellow and purple – a result of charged solar particles colliding with atmospheric gases as they enter the earth’s magnetic field – across glittering white mountains, through snow-quilted forests and beyond surreal arctic waters. Don’t forget your DSLR camera and lots of warm layers!

Begin with a few days in Oslo – Norway’s cool capital and home to a glacier-like harbourside opera house – before settling into a vintage carriage aboard a scenic train to watch epic fjords, waterfalls and lush greenery slide by on your way to the quiet waterfront town of Flåm.

On a six-night cruise, you’ll stop at Ålesund, a hub of Art Nouveau architecture, and former Viking capital Trondheim. Then as you cross the Arctic Circle to the Lofoten Islands and Tromsø, you’re in renowned aurora-hunting territory. Top tip: the ship’s

on-deck hot tub has excellent views. You’ll have more chances to spot the light show after disembarking in Finland, including on an evening safari from Rovaniemi, a charming Lapland town known as the “official” home of St. Nick.

Other inclusions range from husky sledding and touring a reindeer farm to learning about the region’s Indigenous peoples at the Siida Sami Museum and indulging your inner child at Santa Claus Village. Pretty Helsinki and Estonia’s fairytale-esque town of Tallinn end the adventure on a high.

TOUR HIGHLIGHTS

An overnight stay at Arctic SnowHotel near Rovaniemi feels as though you’re sleeping inside a snow globe. Dine on local delicacies like slow-roasted elk or woodfired salmon, sizzle in the sauna and then retire to a cosy igloo with once-in-a-lifetime views of the aurora borealis through its all-glass roof.

Lofoten Islands

10 DAY TOUR & CRUISE: 2 FOR 1 BORNEO

Includes return flights to Borneo for two people

Enjoy three cruises on the Kinabatangan River to see rainforest wildlife

Visit Kota Kinabalu, Sandakan and snorkel on Manukan Island

Oct 2022 – Nov 2023

are about a fifth smaller than their mainland cousins in India.

More animal encounters await at the Labuk Bay Proboscis Sanctuary, home to hundreds of the endangered, big-nosed monkeys, and at the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre, where the world’s smallest bears climb 40-metre-tall trees to forage for honey. From the suspended walkways and observation tower at the Rainforest Discovery Centre in Sepilok, you’ll have 360-degree views over the canopy – Instagrammers and birdwatchers, this is your moment.

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On the world’s third-largest island, the star attraction is an ancient rainforest brimming with birds, butterflies and ginger-haired orangutans that swing gymnastically from branch to branch. Wildlife lovers, this is your paradise. Before delving into the jungle, you’ll begin in northern Borneo, snorkelling the warm, turquoise waters of Manukan Island, meeting descendants of diverse tribes at Mari Mari Cultural Village, hiking through Kinabalu National Park in search of wild orchids and visiting the poignant Kundasang War Memorial Park, which commemorates the Australian, British and local lives lost during World War II. Then you go deep: a two-night stay at a rustic eco lodge on the banks of the Kinabatangan River puts you right in the heart of the rainforest. Here, the cast of wildlife shifts as the seasons change but you’ll spend much of your time out on the water, keeping your eyes peeled for proboscis monkeys, crocodiles, gibbons and even endangered pygmy elephants, which

THE JEWELS OF THE JUNGLE

TOUR HIGHLIGHTS

Founded in 1964, the Sepilok Orangutan Centre rehabilitates baby orangutan orphans so they can return to the wild. Seeing the young primates learn to forage and climb elicits plenty of oohs and aahs but the conservation work is inspiring – and by visiting it, you will be helping the organisation.

Gorgeous beaches, rushing rivers, rainforests where rare animals roam free: Borneo is the world’s secret garden.

Borneo

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Bucket list experiences at unbelievable prices.

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Innovation

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International

146 Fortescue’s outgoing CEO on her career path

148 How AI took bias out of hiring

From MBAs to microcredentials, executive education is emerging from the disruption of the past two years with new learnings and ways of teaching. Jane Nicholls unearths the trends.

Illustrations by Steven Moore

Class action

A hybrid world – or is it?

The scramble to move executive education courses online saw business schools improving their existing technology and adapting programs. Professor Patrick Butler, director of the Global Executive MBA at Monash Business School, thinks most schools “were heading in the direction” of online versions of their programs “but COVID accelerated it”. As well as classes, Monash had to turn its MBA’s real-life business strategy project virtual. “We had to convert what we’d always done in the field –student teams consulting with clients – to online engagement.”

Now that virtual meetings have become part of working life, these MBA client projects are today a mixture of onsite and online meetings. “We’re still understanding what hybrid models look like,” says Butler. “There are some situations where remote is more efficient but there are definitely times when face-to-face is required.”

Professor Yvonne Breyer, deputy dean at Macquarie Business School (MQBS), says the hybrid classes it now offers for its MBA are a blend of students in the classroom and virtual participants. She says it’s a challenge – a point echoed by academics at other schools. “It’s a new model of teaching. With the right technical equipment, which is very expensive, it can

be done.” She says MQBS has run pilots to work out what set-ups and methods work best. As with other schools offering hybrid, MQBS has a moderator or facilitator on hand to assist the teacher with the tech and engage the classroom’s mix of present and remote students. “It’s so important that everyone in the class can hear and see each other and has the ability to participate equally.”

As well as the extra staff to facilitate hybrid settings, all the schools interviewed reported investing heavily in tech upgrades to enable them to offer a seamless experience of hybrid classes. The ability to attend class remotely is definitely an expectation, though some schools mandate a certain level of in-person attendance.

“All courses are now offered in hybrid mode,” says Sven Feldmann, associate professor of economics and associate dean at Melbourne Business School (MBS). “It means more flexibility and allows students to better manage their work, life and study balance. But the interaction is not quite the same as if you were in the classroom – if too many students are remote, the classroom experience begins to decay.” MBS aims to have most students in the room and only a few online and expects each student to attend at least 70 per cent of classes in person. “We want that lively classroom – that’s where sparks fly. That’s what ignites the fire and deepens the learning.”

Professor Guy Ford, director of the MBA program at The University of Sydney

Business School, is passionate about the superiority of face-to-face teaching. “An MBA is about skills building and learning from the network. You can learn to read a balance sheet online – that’s just knowledge transfer – but if you want to build skills you have to be together. We have coaches who show you skills, such as how to have a confrontation. You do it, you get instant feedback – and repeat. That’s hard to do online.”

His school does not offer a completely online MBA. “There’s scope for online products, for knowledge transfer, but not to compromise the face-to-face MBA, for which we have a waiting list.”

He estimates that 75 per cent of the students are back in the classroom, with

hybrid still offered to cater for others. “When we take a break, there’s chatter and noise in the room and they’re all talking together. The people online are not getting that ability to talk to others and form those relationships.”

Equally importantly, Ford says he’s noticed knowledge gaps in the online cohort. “I’ve recently been marking work and many people who have opted to be online have missed critical things. I think when you’re viewing at home, you’re easily distracted. It’s a three-hour class and even if you’re listening or asking questions, it’s passive. In the room, I can read the body language and pick up the pace or slow down depending on what I’m seeing in front of me.”

What’s expected of future leaders?

In an uncertain world, executives must be open to all possibilities. Here, a top leadership development expert shares three tips for fast-tracking success.

Modern leaders must navigate complexity before they’re in the hot seat.

Leadership development used to be about setting talent on a path through a hierarchy of management roles, with an understanding that impact and complexity grew as people rose to the top. “This order to progression no longer exists,” says Vanessa Gavan, founder and joint managing director of leadership consultancy firm Maximus International. “The post-pandemic work

environment is so multi-faceted and more complex than ever before. Today, there’s increasing collaboration with stakeholders outside of organisations, who influence how things work.” Gavan says new kinds of creative collaboration skills with complex stakeholder groups are now core executive skills that need to be built earlier on in careers. “Leadership centred on purpose and community has also become important. We’re finding that executives who can harness this kind of insight have more success navigating growth and uncertainty.”

Vanessa Gavan, founder and joint managing director, Maximus International

Future leaders need transformation capabilities as a starter skill.

Future leaders are the team members of today who actively seek the skills to not just run a business but transform it for tomorrow. “People don’t activate change just through opening up their mind. They often need to expose themselves to parts of the business that aren’t working, trip over the truth for themselves, seek exposure and insight from leaders who have found ways to turn challenges into opportunities.” Gavan gives the example of a large global institution whose leaders needed to transform the customer experience and sought Maximus out. “We went into their offshore operations. We met with people throughout the customer value chain to see what was causing challenges. It gave the executives the insights and connections to make real changes where they would have the most effect.”

Future leaders need to have a digital mindset.

When Maximus works with clients, it focuses on qualities commonly found within fast-growth companies. “Leaders in these businesses are willing to question everything.” Maximus helps to develop these skills by building a founder’s mindset and know-how through learned experiences. For instance, they will connect with heads of industry who are able to provide examples of lessons they have learnt throughout their career. “Every leader needs to have part of themselves that is technology-led. It’s about spending time in digital arenas to understand the opportunities for their business.”

To learn about services that can sharpen your skills, visit maximus.com.au

A short-course revolution

“We’ve turned 180 degrees in the way we deliver our short courses,” says Professor Nick Wailes, director of the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) at UNSW Sydney. Prior to the pandemic, it had small face-toface classes, which were modified for virtual delivery. “A whole day sitting on Zoom would kill most normal humans,” says Wailes. Now short courses are “a two-week learning journey – a combination of self-directed activities, webinars and online discussions to tease out the themes and apply them. It’s been a revolution.”

AGSM and other schools offer customised courses for corporate clients. Wailes says those clients are “incredibly happy with the virtual delivery model”. Remote gives big companies the opportunity to connect people from across the organisation and spreading the course out gives students the opportunity to apply their learnings at work. “Then you come back and discuss it and get feedback. It’s a great learning circle – we always emphasise the importance of putting theory into practice in management education and this virtual model works even better than the traditional one.”

Pre-pandemic, the Crawford School of Public Policy at Canberra’s Australian National University only offered face-toface training, with most participants coming from the government sector. With no virtual option, lockdown meant courses simply stopped so it began building resources to take courses online.

“The feedback has been amazing,” says Kali Madden, manager of executive education, who led the change. “In the first few months after we went online in late 2020, we already had participants from 14 countries. These were people who could never have come to Canberra to do a one- or two-day executive education course. Now 95 per cent of our customers are requesting fully online courses – it’s transformed our business.”

Commercialising innovation

Entrepreneurship is a huge part of an MBA. “Monash now has Commercialisation of Technology as a subject in our Global Executive MBA (GEMBA),” says Butler. “We undertake projects on behalf of companies who have genius boffins and add tremendous value by developing business models and go-to-market strategies.” When GEMBA students take their core learnings to their final global business project, they choose from digital transformation, advanced manufacturing or life sciences. “Students undertake live projects for businesses – from global corporations to early-stage startups – off the back of studying design thinking, strategy, commercialisation and entrepreneurship.”

The University of Sydney Business School’s Ford says he’s seeing more executives doing MBAs hungry to get

access to discoveries in science, health and engineering that are happening inside universities. “I run workshops, for example, in nanoscience. We pair groups of MBAs with scientific or research teams and the MBAs jump at that.” He says MBA students go on to sit on advisory boards or even become investors and co-founders. He believes the pandemic escalated breaking down the silos between academia and industry. “There’s a perception that universities have walls around them. Business schools can facilitate bringing together researchers and scientists. When scientists and researchers are going for government medical research grants, half of it has to be a business plan and they don’t know how to do that and they don’t have the time. That’s where collaborations are forming with our MBA students.”

Supporting lifelong learning

Schools are going out of their way to maintain strong connections with their MBA alumni long after graduation, often by way of free courses.

At The University of Western Australia (UWA), MBA graduates can return and take one unit a year at no cost. “It might be a new elective that didn’t exist when they did their MBA – and they don’t have to do the assessments,” says Professor Allan Trench, director of MBA programs at the UWA Business School. “It’s taken us a couple of years to fine-tune the system but it’s proving very

International is back

After the COVID pause, MBAs that offer overseas exchange programs are back in full swing. “We have exchange relationships with some of the best business schools around the world,” says AGSM’s Wailes, adding that participants do two terms in Australia “and then one on exchange”. The school changed the start date of its full-time MBA to May. “That timing works better for our Northern Hemisphere partners so we can offer more exchange programs. The response has been great.”

While nothing beats actual travel, the rise of virtual appearances has broadened the opportunity to bring in experts from around the world, says MQBS’s Breyer. “We do it on a regular basis and it’s become acceptable to do it via Zoom.”

Online learning has opened up international companies for Monash MBA students to do their real-life client strategy project, says Butler. “When we got used to working in a Zoom environment, we started finding new opportunities,” he says, pointing to a partnership with a medical devices company in Singapore. “We’re working on using AR and VR to train surgeons in robotic surgery. It allows us to access practice-based projects overseas and we’ve done them in a number of countries – it’s opened up the world.”

popular.” He says there are some new online units that are easy fits as capacity isn’t a problem. “Leadership in Maintenance is a really phenomenal new one, which we produced in partnership with support from BHP.”

The UQ Business School at The University of Queensland is also offering its MBA community complimentary courses. “We’ve devised a couple of short

programs to help students and alumni look at how they might transition their careers,” says Dr Nicole Hartley, MBA director at the school. After the pandemic, the number of students looking to move into other sectors has risen from 60 to 85 per cent, she says. “Our online course, Accelerate Your Career, has been really successful and will run two or three times a year.”

Self-paced learning

Breyer says MQBS is working on accommodating different learning styles, paces and levels of prior knowledge. “We’re trying to crack that nut to help people study in a much more personalised way,” she says. “We have intensive modes and so forth but we’re doing a lot of work on finding ways to help people accelerate their studies or slow them down.”

Privately owned Torrens University Australia introduced on-demand classes and assessments during COVID, with regional support hubs to take care of its many offshore students. “We will stay on-demand forever,” says Linda Brown, president and CEO of Torrens. “When students believe they are ready to take the assessment, they don’t have to wait for everybody else. It’s much more about being designed around you.”

Try before you buy

Taster courses – either for free or certificate subjects that can be counted towards an MBA – are popular across business schools. This year, MBS introduced Business Essentials, a core MBA subject that can also be taken alone. “It’s a whirlwind tour through the different areas of business study,” says Feldmann. “It lets students dip their toe into strategy, operations management, marketing and organisational behaviour. It gives them a sense of what will be covered if they complete an entire MBA and also gives them skills they can apply in their job right away.” He says a lot of students who sign up for the taster also sign up for the MBA, with credits already on board.

Introducing hyper specialisation

In September this year, the first cohort of students will begin their MBA Health at UCL (University College London) Global Business School for Health. The notion was floated by a London strategy consultant in 2016. “The idea of a specialist business school is quite daunting – it might be the university’s cash cow and the idea that you’d exclude some areas was very uncomfortable,” says the new school’s director, Professor Nora Ann Colton. “UCL is very interdisciplinary and more than half the research here is in the areas of health, life sciences and medical sciences.”

Colton says the drivers underpinning the school include the high percentage of countries’ GDP that goes to fund healthcare, the world’s ageing population and supporting the UN’s sustainable development goal’s aspiration of universal healthcare coverage. As well as the MBA,

there’s a suite of executive education courses on the business side of healthcare, such as commercialising startups and advancing digital health. “The ability to innovate and think differently and reimagine healthcare is really challenging in systems that have lots of rigidity and barriers to entry.”

The school has built its MBA course from the ground up. “Other MBAs don’t cut it for the health sector,” says Colton. “We cannot go in and teach our students about Netflix and expect them to interpret that for healthcare. I asked myself questions like, ‘Can we use Porter’s Five Forces in a healthcare setting?’ No. So what does that mean? Who are they competing with in the public health sector? These are important questions to get the buy-in from health professionals and make substantive change.”

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Would you pay a ransom?

In the event of a cyber attack, business leaders need to make critical decisions under extreme pressure. Sharpening your crisis decision-making skills could be the difference between success and failure.

As the leader of CyberCX’s incident response team, Nick Klein (left) advises boards and executives across many industries on how to prevent a cyber assault and how to be prepared for when the attackers get through your defences. With more than 20 years of experience tackling cybercrime and major data breaches, including as a federal agent, Klein has clear insights on how to make good decisions in bad situations.

When you talk to executives and board directors about cybersecurity, what’s keeping them up at night?

Without a doubt, it’s the threat of ransomware. Just about every senior business leader has seen the headlines about cyber attacks and ransomware and thought: could that happen to us? Would we survive a cyber incident? Would we pay a ransom? These are important questions

that leaders should consider before an attack occurs, with experienced professional guidance.

Is there any way for a business to be completely safe from a cyber attack?

Unfortunately, there is no “silver bullet” that can protect against all forms of cyber risk. Cyber threats are continually evolving. More of our work and personal lives are becoming reliant on connected technology so there will always be risk. But that risk can certainly be managed.

What are the most effective ways to reduce cyber risk?

Building resilience into your organisation is crucial. A big part of that is understanding the sorts of critical decisions you will face if an attacker manages to breach your defences. Improving your cyber maturity and having a framework for decision-making can go a long way to mitigating the risk of a worst-case scenario.

When an organisation does experience a cyber incident, what factors make them more likely to successfully recover?

Businesses that invest time and effort in preparing for a cyber incident invariably manage real-life crises much better, recover quicker and generally have more successful outcomes. Regular attack simulation exercises, based on real-life threat intelligence, provide both technical teams and senior executives with excellent learning experiences but without the destructive consequences of a real-life attack. And they’re far more cost-effective than paying a ransom.

Hamdi Ulukaya

He’s a self-described Turkish nomad and an “anti-CEO”. The founder of Chobani built a fortune from an abandoned factory and has used his power to challenge what leadership looks like.

CURRENT ROLE Founder, chairman and CEO, Chobani TENURE 15 years

AGE 49

PREVIOUS ROLES Founder of Euphrates feta cheese business; sheep, goat and dairy farmer

How do you define good leadership?

I’ve never studied leadership but I’ve observed who is a leader and why it’s important. To me, leadership is about the one who serves and that comes from a moral centre. It’s not about the self; it’s about the greater cause or the greater good. For me, that means the people and the community.

In your 2019 TED talk, which has had more than four million views, you spoke about the need to have anti-CEOs. What do you mean by that? I grew up in Turkey [in the small village of Íliç] and I wanted to look at business from that perspective, from that village. When I drove to the factory [in upstate New York that he’d go on to buy after it had been closed by Kraft], it reminded me that even though I’m thousands of miles away from Turkey, I see another selfish act of business in this town – another village with a factory and factory workers. That is the business or CEO that I do not like. What I wanted to do was not be the one I grew up hating so I had to follow a different playbook. I’d never seen a boardroom. I’d never met anyone who had done this before. So I had to come up with my own style of running a business. When people are committed to their job and the environments they live in, if you have those people – these stakeholders – as your pure purpose, that isn’t against profit, growth, innovations and cost savings. That to me was the anti-CEO.

Do you see business shifting and really focusing on employees? The sole purpose of business is not just for the benefit of the shareholders but the responsibility of the stakeholders – this

line has been used in the past few years in World Economic Forum conversations. People are having conversations about this, I think, because they’re very much convinced that we want more from business. The global challenge that we’re facing is the responsibility of business. Young people who are coming into the workforce want to join companies that have a purpose. There is a conscious pursuit. I celebrate this but I also worry that it’s check-the-box language. But I respect that it’s a complete transformation of business, with this process coming into play in the next five, 10 or 20 years.

I hope you’re right...

We don’t have any other choices. When I started my journey I acted this way because I thought, “This is the only way I can operate; this is the only way I can run a business.”

If I can go back to that time, Hamdi. In 2005, you bought a $700,000 factory to start Chobani, with four workers. As you said, you had no business skills. Chobani now has revenue of $2 billion every year and you’re preparing to list the company. Has your success surprised you or did you always believe in yourself?

When I bought the factory, I interacted with the people in that factory and some of them are still here. I trust my gut because I like to think that I really see people. I have that closeness. I had no doubt Chobani would work… It’s magical to see, of course, but I’m never surprised. There’s a lot of work behind it but clearly it’s a joy to work at and what ties into it is the purpose. It becomes a joyful experience.

You’ve described Chobani as a people-first business. Is that why you chose to give your employees a share of the business in 2016 and double the minimum wage in 2020?

I never thought it was justice that people who work the hardest make this [a lesser amount]. But at the end of the day, it’s not, “Look at how they are living.” It’s the right thing to do and the right thing to do for the business also. It’s good for business. These people are thinking about their future, their families. If their families are healthy, if their children are healthy, that contributes to how they work. They’ll be there for a long time and if the people love the place they’re going to make sure that every single cup of yoghurt they make is made with love. You have to start with your own people.

Thirty per cent of your workforce are immigrants and refugees. That was a deliberate decision on your part and has had a huge impact, hasn’t it?

Yes. I had one simple line. If I can make everyone feel at home, it would be a magical place. If I can create a culture where they can come as who they are – they don’t have to pretend to be something they are not in the workplace. I wanted to connect people from different places around the world, who have had difficult times in their life and had difficulty finding jobs, to be part of a community. And when they come to our plant and our places and are part of a community, everyone can benefit from it. I’ve seen with my own eyes what it means to be a refugee and I thought if I can get a collection of companies to give them a chance – language, transportation, training, all that support – they can join these companies and contribute for the purpose of society. That was in 2016 [when he set up Tent,

a not-for-profit organisation that encourages businesses to integrate refugees] and today we have 250 companies and hundreds and thousands of jobs. I would call a CEO month after month to convince them to come and be a part of this. It became a movement.

It’s about so much more than KPIs, isn’t it?

I went into the [Melbourne] factory yesterday and they had a big lunch. Australia is a place where people come to work – we have 40 countries in our company and almost 50 per cent of our people were born outside of Australia. Fifteen languages are spoken. It’s not a huge company [in Australia]. It’s mind-blowing that people come from different backgrounds and are together and celebrate their diversity and differences.

You’ve remained outspoken on social issues at a time when many CEOs, particularly in the United States, are starting to pull their heads in. Why is that?

The whole reason of existence is making a difference in people’s lives. A company is a collection of people, not just some buildings. As a person I will not be quiet and I don’t want the company to be quiet.

I read an article where you said you’d been angry all your life. How have you managed to take that anger and channel it into something positive?

I really think that we are shepherds and warriors. Sometimes we fight and sometimes the fight could come out as angry [laughs]. As long as it comes from the right place. Sometimes anger is channelled into love – the love for what we do every single day.

How important is humility in leadership? I know you once asked your factory workers to punch you if you got too big for your boots. Of course, you have to be more strict about leaving your ego behind. It’s extremely important to be grounded. My mother used to say to me when I was growing up, “You are never less than anyone but you are never more than anyone.”

That’s just life really. You don’t want anyone to look down on you and you don’t want to look down on anybody else. But you also have to let people know what you’re made of and you have to let people know what you have is special. You have the right to share and to make statements. I tell my team and I tell myself that you shouldn’t hold onto those things in the name of humility.

How did you balance scaling your business and keeping the culture intact? It seems to be something that many startups struggle with. I always say that the strongest cultures are built in the toughest times. How you interact with your people and how your people interact with each other is the most critical time of culture building. When startups go to the next level, the leader has to protect the culture. When the culture starts being changed, it is the saddest thing I see. And it means that the culture really wasn’t that strong to begin with.

What’s the one piece of advice you would give a brand-new CEO? Be with your people, be on the floor with your people and be yourself.

The sweet taste of success

The world’s largest kiwifruit producer will continue to kick goals with the help of new technology.

Zespri has had a bumper year. The New Zealand-based grower-owned kiwifruit business sold 201.5 million trays of the fruit into 60 countries in the 2021/2022 financial year and, for the first time, it exceeded NZ$4 billion in revenue.

This success came despite everything the company was up against: ongoing supply chain disruption and international trade challenges, labour shortages, cost increases, changing regulations and weather patterns. “The industry faced considerable headwinds throughout the supply chain and on-orchard as well,” says Zespri’s chair Bruce Cameron. “Yet collectively we’ve found a way to tackle the challenges and to continue to succeed.”

Zespri will streamline its IT processes –many of which were designed 20 years ago –to help deal with the roadblocks. “Quite frankly, the outdated IT systems were holding us back,” says chief digital officer David Scullin. The business has chosen the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition to move its legacy systems quickly and easily to the cloud.

With its dedication to delivering excellent service and products to its customers, Zespri will be able to collect and analyse more data and track all stages of a crop’s evolution. It will be able to more accurately plan a complex supply chain governed by variables including

weather, consumer trends and pandemic-era border and import restrictions. Machine learning will also improve decision-making around shipping and market allocation and allow for longer-term predictions. This commitment to the right technologies will ensure a resilient supply chain so customers’ needs will be met even during testing times.

Zespri also plans to increase global supply of kiwifruit to 280 million trays by 2030. “We are transforming our ability to grow and sustain returns to the industry for decades to come,” says Scullin.

Run your personal best with SAP. Find out more at sap.com

SALE AWAY

When AirPhysio began direct marketing its pocket-sized apparatus for improving people’s breathing on Facebook, happy early adopters of the device answered hesitant buyers’ queries about it on the company’s behalf and advocated for its positive effects. At that moment Paul O’Brien, co-founder and CEO of the business, decided to bypass the more traditional routes for promoting an approved medical device and sell B2C globally to people who wanted to breathe

easier. “When we saw the success we were having with online sales in Australia, we started thinking about world domination – in a good way!”

The company, based in NSW’s Tweed Heads, had a roller-coaster ride as a firsttime exporter, beginning with its 2017 application for certification by the Federal Drug Administration in the United States, which took three years.

O’Brien and his wife, Ann, assembled the product and fulfilled orders from their

Want to put your product out there on the export market? Detailed planning will smooth your path.

Ensure the design of your product is seamless because if demand from overseas markets ramps up quickly, quality control of production at pace starts with a good design that dovetails with your manufacturing and packing methods.

Research laws and regulations governing exporting from Australia, as well as international trade laws and agreements, and the sale and distribution of your product in the chosen market.

Assess your company’s ability to increase production and train new staff. AirPhysio had simple training methods based on a buddy system in place before its orders began skyrocketing.

Be prepared to modify your product for a different market, whether that’s new packaging or instructions in other languages.

Polish your website for clarity and appeal in English in the first instance. Potential customers and partners will verify your credentials according to this online storefront.

AirPhysio is only now engaging overseas online specialists to translate its proposition and marketing into other languages.

living room at first but have consistently expanded their premises, now employ 60 staff and are steadily manufacturing 20,000 to 30,000 devices a month for sale in 100 countries.

His advice for Australian enterprises looking to export? Apply for assistance from Austrade and engage with a state body (such as Investment NSW), both of which are set up with contacts, training and funding schemes to boost Australian exports. He also suggests the following:

Model the financials to equitably price your product in each market from the start. “Make sure it’s commercially viable for distributors and retailers,” says O’Brien. Identical pricing across all markets deters customers who shop across borders and undermine the profits of your in-country partners.

Research the best way to fulfil orders. Direct from Australia or via an in-country storage facility? Some countries require you to have a locally registered company to receive bulk orders.

Leading a culture of success

Whether you’re running a startup, multinational or not-for-profit, keeping your thinking fresh and your skills up-to-date is critical in today’s accelerating world. Effective leadership has evolved – it now demands the capacity to lead with purpose, align outcomes to values and communicate across intergenerational teams. To enhance these strengths, the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM @ UNSW Business School) has developed a new Leadership Immersion program in collaboration with Aboriginal business and community leaders in central NSW as part of its renowned MBA Executive course. The oldest continuous culture on earth has a lot to teach leaders of the future.

Modern executive learning is about asking candidates what kind of leader they want to be and how they want to impact the world. In the increasingly socially aware and climateconscious business environment, creating meaningful change is a metric of success.

Professor Nick Wailes, director of AGSM and deputy dean at UNSW Business School, says this calls for a broader approach to learning: “MBA education should be about more than ticking off a curriculum – it’s also about challenging yourself with new experiences. When you are put in a situation that’s different to what you’re used to, the experiential learning helps accelerate knowledge transfer.”

AGSM’s new Leadership Immersion program starts in November and will take participants inside Aboriginal communities, tapping into 60,000 years of continuous culture to help a new generation of leaders build skills in responsible and sustainable management. MBA students will

work closely with an Aboriginal-owned and -run organisation to help the business solve a strategic issue. In the process, they’ll be spending time on Country, learning from Aboriginal perspectives and observing different models of leadership.

“There are so many things we can learn from First Nations Australians that are incredibly relevant for global leadership,” says Wailes. “This is the oldest living culture in the world and it’s survived by managing resources, dealing with the complexity of more than 250 language groups and navigating a network of close personal relationships. It’s also a rich oral culture, in which storytelling, narrative and vision are the way information is spread and knowledge is preserved, bringing people to a shared understanding. Modern leaders have similar challenges to overcome.”

Unique wisdom for modern leaders

The immersion experience has been developed in close collaboration with Aboriginal elders, faculty members, alumni and community members. It builds upon the insight acquired through the development of other learning modules, such as the award-winning AGSM Emerging Indigenous Executive Leader Program (EIELP). Developed by AGSM and Professor Mark Rose in collaboration with Reconciliation Australia and the Elevate RAP Working Group – which includes National Australia Bank, Richmond Football Club, Crown Resorts, Australian Football League, Broadspectrum, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and Services Australia – the EIELP is designed to cultivate the next generation of Aboriginal senior business leaders.

Since it was launched in 2016, more than 125 Aboriginal leaders from private, public and for-purpose sectors have graduated from the EIELP. And in 2020, the course received the European Foundation for Management Development’s Excellence in Practice Silver award for talent development.

“Part of the success of small-cohort cultural programs is that you form incredibly strong bonds with your group,” says Wailes. “This has given emerging First Nations leaders the space and support to make a significant contribution in shaping not only the future of Aboriginal Australia but Australia as a whole.”

Moving forward in two worlds

The first new leadership immersion will take place in Wiradjuri Country, on a property outside

Dubbo in NSW. “We’ve partnered with Cherie and Phil Thompson, an Aboriginal couple and the owners of local business Native Secrets,” says Wailes (read the story, right). In the beginning of the immersion, students will spend a day with the Thompsons and local elder Peter Peckham, learning how they have rehabilitated land while developing cosmetics from local plants.

AGSM aims for the experience to benefit both students and communities. “This is not cultural tourism; it’s about forming a long-term relationship between AGSM and the communities,” says Wailes. Students gain insights and powerful new perspectives on leadership and, in return, will share skills – some freshly acquired from the MBA – to positively contribute to the local businesses. Each year, the immersion will be open to three cohorts, giving the businesses continuity. “The first group comes out with ideas and starts implementing strategies, then each cohort picks up where the last left off to keep building on it,” adds Wailes. Students will also be tasked with looking into their own organisations and taking real action in a range of ways, including by reviewing Reconciliation Action Plans and procurement systems that improve supplier diversity. “We all know it can be challenging for small businesses to sell into big businesses but when you go beyond just having a policy to actively seeking out Aboriginal businesses to partner with, that’s when things start to change,” says Wailes. “We believe that AGSM students and our alumni can make a significant contribution to improving economic opportunities for Aboriginal Australians – we all have a role to play.”

Learnings for our times

“We have wanted to do this for a long time,” says Associate Professor Michele Roberts, AGSM academic director. “Australia is finally about to have a national conversation about the Uluru Statement from the Heart. This is our moment as a nation to embrace our First Nations leadership and all the things they will do to help make Australia a better country.”

AGSM believes a personal connection to First Nations culture is key to a leader’s commitment to making meaningful change throughout their career. “We’ll be spending time in traditional yarning circles, sharing knowledge,” says Wailes. “On the last night, we’ll bring everyone together around a fire under the stars so students can talk about their learnings, sharing their ideas with each other and the local businesses. It’s an amazing opportunity to reflect on how they’re going to take the experience forward and make a positive impact in the world.”

Caring for Country is better business

A connection to culture underpins the success of this AGSM student’s skincare brand

Cherie Thompson, a Wailwan woman from the Dubbo region of NSW, is passionate about raising up her community. While teaching at a local primary school, she – along with husband Phil, a Bidjara/Kara Kara man from central Queensland – founded locally made and sourced skincare and essential oils business Native Secrets in 2013. Since then, she has worked through an Executive MBA at AGSM, which she will complete next year, and had two daughters – Airley, eight, and Romee, five. And she’s still working as a teacher three days a week.

The juggle has been worth it.

“An MBA was a natural next step for growing Native Secrets, and for me personally,” says Cherie. “Over the past four years, I’ve gained an understanding of the complexities of businesses and the strategies and frameworks for success. Phil comes up with ideas all the time and I love the fact that now I can take an idea, research and evaluate it and come up with a strategy for how to implement it and bring it to life.”

Phil helps manage the biodiversity offset area for a local mining company and that’s where he came up with the concept of turning some of the invasive species he’s clearing into products. They began with white cypress, a native tree that becomes a problem when not managed properly.

“Traditionally we used white cypress leaves, heated up, to put on our sores,” says Phil. “It’s a natural anti-inflammatory. The cypress would have been managed by traditional owners by fire but when

it was just left for a couple of hundred years, it became invasive so we’re thinning it out to restore the ecosystem. Since 2015, we’ve been turning the white cypress we’re taking out into essential oil.”

Buddha wood is another native that’s become invasive in the offset area. Used in smoking ceremonies, it also produces an oil that makes an excellent base for cosmetics. “We’re trying some new technologies to find the best extraction method,” says Phil. “Our aim is to wholesale it to cosmetic manufacturers around the world.”

Cherie has flexed her MBA skills to access export markets for Native Secrets products. “I’ve been able to do several MBA projects on Native Secrets, and when I was

working with my teammates we did an export strategy focused on South Korea, which I’m implementing right now. There’s a massive skincare market there – if we crack that, we’ve made it.”

Cherie and Phil have also been working with AGSM faculty to help develop the on-Country cultural immersion program, some of which will take place on their farm. “We’ve been in several workshops with Nick and his team to make sure we have grassroots involvement from our communities,” says Cherie. “There are real co-benefit opportunities. The students will come out and immerse themselves in our culture and learn from our local elders, and the local Indigenous companies

will gain from working with these MBA students, who bring the highest level of knowledge around business strategy.”

Students start their learning with a Welcome to Country. “If I was coming into Wiradjuri Country, I would sit on the boundary – generally a river, hill or mountain – and light a fire to let people know I was there,” says Phil. “I could wait for days or even weeks but finally the warriors would come across to find out why I’m coming through Wiradjuri Country. People need to understand this process wasn’t just about standing up and saying, ‘Welcome to my Country’. You had to learn about our lores, our men’s business, our women’s business,

our sacred sites. There’s a whole process of understanding, which we will share with the MBA students who visit us.”

The key features of this process – including tolerance, understanding and communication – reflect the skills required for leading teams, networking and achieving shared goals.

Cherie believes the immersion can also promote real change in the way the world recognises Aboriginal culture. “This process is very powerful – it takes people on a deep spiritual journey and it can be life-changing. These MBA students are the next leaders, some working for large multinational companies, so a greater awareness of First Nations culture will be driven from the top.”

Cherie Thompson

Do well and do good

AGSM’s environmental, social and governance ethos is built to support the bottom line. “We are not saying that companies need to forego their profits and their growth and just start behaving better,” says Associate Professor Michele Roberts, AGSM academic director. “When you do things more responsibly, you secure the future of your organisation.”

Ethos in action

For the past three years, AGSM has been working to embed the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) across all its programs. In a structure that Roberts believes is unique within Australia, every core course available through the UNSW Business School now integrates ethics, sustainability and corporate responsibility aligned to the SDGs. Every AGSM MBA begins with a compulsory Responsible Management Foundations module. “It’s an introduction to the science and the evidence – and the strong business case –so that students truly understand how critical sustainable development is,” says Roberts. “They see the urgent need to do more to do better.”

There’s a focus on proven success stories. Throughout the course, students meet, either via video stories or in-person lectures, alumni who are putting the SDGs into action in their own businesses. “It’s important that it’s not overwhelming – we want to inspire excitement around making a more sustainable world full of opportunity, where all people are thriving.”

It’s this type of practical inspiration that drives action. “Some students who arrived with limited interest in sustainability have become completely engaged,” says Roberts. “We’ve seen students move into roles that allow them to leverage their new understanding of how they can have an impact.”

evolving business landscape. “Partnerships are one of the Sustainable Development Goals, and you can only achieve the SDGs when you work in partnerships,” says Roberts. The Ethics Centre is a key partner in the delivery of the AGSM MBA and the organisation’s longstanding executive director, Simon Longstaff, has written a substantial portion of the new curriculum. “We also partnered with Giselle Weybrecht, author of The Sustainable MBA ,” says Roberts. “Giselle and Simon have helped us develop a lot of our content, in-class activities and assessments.” Weybrecht was a special advisor to the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education and Longstaff is an adjunct professor with AGSM.

The power of short courses

Beyond the MBA, the school offers a full suite of executive education courses, from graduate certificate programs nested into the MBA program (which can also be taken individually) to short courses that can run for a single hour or across one or several days. “We’re building the same sustainability curriculum into all our short courses, too,” says Roberts.

“We want to inspire excitement around making a more sustainable world full of opportunity, where

people

are thriving.”

Partnerships for the future

AGSM teaches students the importance of true collaboration for success in a rapidly

all

With hierarchical leadership structures a thing of the past, many organisations are turning to AGSM to create tailored courses for their entire workforce.

Roberts says companies of any size can benefit. “We can upskill the whole workforce to develop a more sustainable mindset. We have moved into an era where you need every leader in every function to understand the implications for sustainability in their daily decisions. We need to give them the knowledge to ensure they’re making the best choices.”

Invest in futureyour

INTERVIEW BY KIRSTEN GALLIOTT

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JANE DEMPSTER

ELIZABETH GAINES

The Macquarie Business School graduate is stepping down as CEO of Fortescue this month but will take her career lessons into her next role with the mining behemoth.

Ask questions and be prepared to listen to the answers

2018-August 2022

CEO, Fortescue Metals Group

“The values and culture of Fortescue were founded by [chairman] Andrew Forrest but they’ve had an enormous impact on me and my leadership. Maybe it’s because Andrew and I both grew up in the outback of Western Australia but there’s a very strong alignment. Rather than sitting in Perth saying, ‘Well, we know all the answers and we’ll tell everybody what they’re going to do’, we ask people in the Pilbara, working on site, what they think. By asking questions and listening, we’ve been able to put in place the changes that we needed and that’s been critically important. I’m in a fortunate position where I’m going to stay on the board and transition to a global ambassador role for our renewable energy. The business is changing – we’re transitioning from a resources company to a renewable energy and resources company – and I’m really excited about what that means. I genuinely believe that this decade is critical to our planet, our kids, our grandkids and their future. We’re working with government but business is leading the way. We’ve got a lot of heavy lifting to do to decarbonise and eliminate fossil fuels but we’re making real inroads into achieving that.”

Get under the hood of the business

2016-2017

Non-executive director, Nine Entertainment

2015-2017

Non-executive director, NextDC

“Being a good board member means bringing all of your experience to the table – we all have different skills and experiences. If you leave a boardroom and think, ‘Oh, I really wanted to know something but I didn’t think I should ask the question’, then I don’t think you’re making the full contribution you can. The job of directors is to ask those questions and to get to know the business and to understand and drive strategy. You have to be curious and you have to invest in getting to know the business. It’s not just about the board meeting. If I think about the non-executive directors at Fortescue, often they’ll visit our Pilbara site because they want to understand our operations. Good board directors make a broader contribution than what happens in the boardroom.”

Say yes more than you say no 2002-2008

Finance director, Entertainment Rights Ltd

Sponsored by

“I really embraced this opportunity because it gave me a global perspective and exposure to doing business in Europe and the United States. We acquired a couple of companies in the US and I spent a lot of time working there and across Europe. It’s about embracing change. My learning from that time – and I often say this – is to say yes more often than you say no. By doing that, opportunities come along, a bit like this role, which was very important to my subsequent career. You still have to use judgement about what you can and can’t do but by the same token there are some people who get to a certain job and become comfortable with it. Then when opportunities come along, they question themselves. Say yes more often than you say no – you have to back yourself.”

Don’t give in to the doubt

2014-2015

CEO, Helloworld

Collaborate to transform

2008-2014

Global CFO, Stella Group and Jetset Travelworld Group)

“Leadership takes enormous courage. When I was thrust into the CEO role of what was a large business that had thousands of stakeholders, I had that moment of ‘Can I really do this? Can I back myself?’ All eyes were on me and because it was a franchise model, everybody was invested and had an opinion. But it’s at those moments that you find how much you can dig – and you dig deep. I take a moment to reflect and think about why I can do something as opposed to telling myself why I can’t. And setting up a strong team is the best thing you can do as a leader so that they’re there to share in the importance of engagement. I find the focus on one individual quite interesting. It’s not just about the CEO, it’s about the team and the success of the CEO depends on the strength of the team.”

“I found the travel and hospitality industry fascinating. I joined the group about the same time as the GFC really hit and like a lot of private equity-backed businesses, it was a highly geared, highly leveraged company that required restructuring. People think transformation is something that can be thought about in a boardroom and implemented and everybody will just go along with it. The reality is that true transformation requires engagement and buy-in from the people who are out there doing the work. We had to take thousands of franchisees on that journey and it required enormous stakeholder engagement. You can’t say it once, you can’t say it twice – you have to keep engaging and repeating the messages. Thinking you can sit somewhere and dictate outcomes means that you’ll fail.”

Understand the power of business

2000-2002

CEO, Heytesbury

Be curious at all times

1984-1988

Graduate program and audit services, EY

“You learn the most when you’re faced with challenges. We had to sell some parts of the company and that required strong support across a group of shareholders who were first and foremost family but also had their own individual views about how the business should function and operate. I certainly learnt the importance of problem-solving – because there were plenty of challenges and finding solutions to complex problems – but I always think it’s about the collective team finding their way through those solutions. I also learnt how business can support philanthropy and the arts. Business doesn’t operate only for the benefit of shareholders. Successful businesses can add so much more to the community. I was privileged to see that in action through Janet Holmes à Court at Heytesbury and again at Fortescue.”

“I gained a lot of discipline and learnings from the chartered accountant program but there was also a strong team culture. EY made sure that the graduates coming into the firm felt as though they were part of a team. That’s where I learnt the importance of the culture of an organisation – how people can come together and feel a sense of belonging. I also worked across diverse industries. I could be auditing a regional shire council one day and big mining the next. That meant I had to understand businesses – the cash-flow analysis, balance sheets and the drivers of profitability. That was formative for me because I’ve worked in a number of different industries and have a real curiosity about what makes an organisation function and operate and thrive. That really came from those early days.”

SAPIA

Need to know

Founder and CEO

Barb Hyman (below), 52

First customer Qantas, 2019

Headquarters Melbourne, with offices in Sydney, Chicago and London

Number of employees

60

Investors and market valuation

Not disclosed

An AI-driven chatbot removes CVs and bias from job applications and turns around recommendations for companies in less than a day.

What is it? Sapia is an AI tool for HR in which job applicants interact with Phai, a chatbot. “It’s a whole new capability: the ability to understand people through a short conversation,” says founder and CEO Barb Hyman. “Our smart chatbot asks five questions via text and from there we can figure out things about you that organisations crave to discover when they’re hiring.” The AI algorithm crunches the answers to assess such qualities as communication skills, ability to work in or lead a team and learning agility. “The CV is redundant in decisions about people and it brings in bias. We do it with AI – it’s a scalable, bias-free solution to help companies determine the best people for roles, in under 24 hours. Our technology solves for hiring efficiency but also diversity and talent, intelligence and leadership capability.”

Where did the idea come from? Hyman was a lawyer who switched to strategy consulting with Boston Consulting Group, taking on HR roles when her three children were small. “I could see the incredible invisible cost of hiring – and the bias,” she says. In 2018, when PredictiveHire was an early-stage startup, she came in as CEO. It rebranded as Sapia this year. Hyman says the product and messaging wasn’t right back then and, as the original founder departed, she set about hiring a new team and raising money.

“My key brilliance was hiring brilliant people, starting with Dr Buddhi Jayatilleke, our chief data scientist.” Jayatilleke was the first lead data scientist at employee-engagement platform Culture Amp. “We wanted to deliver a solution that worked for companies and was also fair for people,” says Hyman. All applicants receive a personalised profile and a coaching tip. “We’re creating dignity for the forgotten group – the semi-skilled or unskilled. CEOs get loads of feedback. Imagine if you’re a 15-year-old or a primary carer returning to work – you’ve never had coaching. These people don’t have high self-awareness about their strengths or how to articulate them.” She says candidates report that getting these data-driven insights boosts their confidence and makes them more favourably disposed to the company that advertised.

How did it get off the ground? “We had to prove we could build something that people trusted, in a world where there are lots of myths and fears about AI.” Hyman says transparency is key. “We’re the only vendor in this space to have peer-reviewed and published science on language and personality.”

What’s next? “Sapia has now been used for more than two million candidates in 47 countries. We’re used by a lot of Australia’s top brands, including Bunnings, Woolworths and Suncorp, and the United States is next.” She says consumer brands are Sapia’s sweet spot, particularly those whose public championing of diversity is not reflected in their workforce. “The opportunity for us to really make a difference there, very fast, is significant.”

sapia.ai

Upstart STORY BY JANE NICHOLLS

Presented by Macquarie University Business School

Fast-track your finance knowledge

Keeping up with the ever-changing financial landscape is vital for your next career step – but how do time-poor leaders make room for study?

“I’d come back to Perth from London, where I worked in investment banking, and I was looking for something to study. The Master’s degree was perfect for me because I love maths and problem solving,” says Elizabeth Gaines, outgoing CEO of Fortescue Metals, who did her Master of Applied Finance at Macquarie University Business School (MQBS) over two years in the mid-1990s. “If they say an MBA is an inch deep and a mile wide, the Master’s degree is an inch wide and a mile deep. It’s a fantastic course – and I learned an awful lot that I’ve used throughout my career.”

Once upon a time, it was only finance specialists signing up for the MAppFin, as it’s known at MQBS. “These days, many people coming to study are not in finance roles but they realise it’s essential knowledge, particularly as they move up to the next level in their career,” says Lindesay Brine, who did the degree himself in 2006 and is now director of the Postgraduate Applied Finance Program at MQBS.

How we study has also changed. The demand these days is for shorter postgraduate courses – those that students can take individually as stepping stones or to complete a Master’s over time. Past graduates can also add on new short courses to upskill in areas such as Digital Finance and Sustainable Finance.

“Some students will take a Graduate Certificate in Applied Finance and it will be all they need right now, particularly if they’re at a life stage that makes it difficult to fit in a full-on degree,” says Professor Yvonne Breyer, deputy dean of education and employability at MQBS.

“In the past, grad certs have been off-ramps for students who’ve found they can’t complete the Master’s because of work or family commitments. Increasingly, they’re now entry points, which students use as a pathway to return to further study later, when they’ll have those credits recognised.”

Brine and Breyer emphasise the importance of the word “applied” in both the degree and short-course programs. Up-to-the minute real-world corporate finance problems are identified for students to work on and discuss in class. “We take topical financial problems and conundrums from the news and ask students to come up with advice for a company as to how they should tackle that particular issue,” says Brine. “Applied solutions are the name of the game.”

Learn more about Macquarie University Business School and the Master of Applied Finance at mq.edu.au

Seattle-based Brain Rules for Work author John Medina helps organisations understand what neuroscience and evolutionary biology tell us about power, productivity and what he calls “the afternoon sleepies”.

05:30

I’m a lark so I get up at about 5:30 and go at it. A chronotype is simply: when are you best cognitively? Larks are morning people who like to go to bed at 9:30pm. Owls – late chronotypes – would not go to bed until 3am if they could. Their best cognition is between about 9pm and midnight. We think you’re born with it.

06:00

I have a to-do list that I rarely don’t accomplish. I have seven active projects so I make sure tasks are small enough that I have a sense of pushing the ball forward throughout the day. Project one is political: what does power do to the brain that screws so many people up? It’s horrible. Almost immediately you lose the ability to read emotional information. Given enough power for a longer period, you lose the ability to empathise then to understand the consequences of your actions. “Self-perceived mating value” increases; a politician thinks they’re sexually hotter than they are! Research literature shows it helps to warn officials, particularly folks starting out. It’s called “prophylactic education”.

Clock Wise

INTERVIEW BY ALISON BOLEYN

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CARL BOWER

07:30

Legal and mental health consulting. I break every 90 minutes, based on Nathaniel Kleitman’s basic rest-activity cycle. If a subject’s intense, I’ll break every 45 minutes.

09:00

Architecture project. If you were to build the emergency room of the future, you’d have a door that says Staff Only and staff who open it are launched into a Japanese garden with a waterfall and plants. The brain starts responding to that positivity in as little as 200 milliseconds. What the Brits call “green exercise” changes error rates and productivity. The Japanese call it “forest bathing”. When switching between projects, I look at something strongly visual – infographics or graphic novels – as a cognitive palate cleanser.

10:30

Hopefully I’m a nice guy but for education projects I’m regularly called in to scold. Why aren’t the cognitive neurosciences at the table of how we design education systems? It’s not like you can teach a pancreas calculus! Child development projects sometimes slam into the legal system: what do the cognitive neurosciences say about how you can aid those first five years of life, given they produce a trajectory a kid usually can’t quickly off-ramp from? No priority comes close to making sure a child feels safe. My heart breaks for kids in refugee camps. We’ll be paying for geopolitical screw-ups for years.

12:00

I take a brisk, three-mile [close to five kilometres] walk. I’m overweight but you don’t need to be in shape to get the cognitive benefits of exercise. Research literature demonstrates you need 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise a week. Lunch is also evidencebased – a Mediterranean diet.

13:00

“Glittering caves” time. I survey 20 or 30 journals a week. Because my thing is the molecular biology of psychiatric disorders, I have to be versant in behavioural work, anxiety and depression.

14:00

Coffee nap. Being an early chronotype, I don’t need a morning coffee but I do get the afternoon sleepies. I drink a cup right before a 20- to 25-minute nap because it takes that time to metabolise the caffeine in a way that you actually get the burst. You schedule the nap 12 hours past the midpoint of your previous night’s sleep. So if you went to bed at midnight and got up at six, the midpoint is 3am; wind it out 12 hours and at 15:00, you take a nap. If the body’s prone, the brain will relax. I get up and can go until 9pm, easy. [See box, right.]

14:30

I’m consulting with Microsoft on how to ease the transition back to the office. The big one is: be patient. Social skills are skills, potentiated when practised and capable of eroding when neglected. Even extroverts can use a break from social interaction after about three hours.

16:00

Email, planning. When researchers ask 80-year-olds about what they remember most, they reminisce about things from when they were aged 15 to 29. Nobody knows why but between those ages – and not at other ages – your brain gives you a big fat dopamine lollipop. So if I get stuck at the end of the day on a paragraph I can’t write or data I can’t make sense of, I’ll read some Tolkien or go on eBay to look at toys I once had and suddenly I’m thinking: I could try this! I use a “reminiscence bump” like a shoehorn.

The field of behaviour is rife with self-help ideas, mythologies and non-evidence-based suggestions about how to improve one’s life. I’m allergic to these.

On the clock John Medina says an afternoon “coffee nap” will not keep most people awake into the wee hours, providing they limit their overall caffeine intake. He adds the immediate rush many of us experience on our first sip is “almost entirely psychological”. The aromas signal to us an amphetamine hit is coming; the physiological kick-in won’t happen for 20 to 26 minutes. “The coffee nap is a thing that’s actually been measured,” says the molecular biologist, “and it works like a son of a gun.”

18:00

I’ve been married for 41 years. Brain Rules got started after I saw a headline – “Modern brain science can teach you to tell how someone will vote” – in a magazine. Peer-reviewed literature is the only information I allow into my practice and I get so sick of the mythologies: “You use only 10 per cent of your brain”; “There’s a right-brain and a left-brain personality”. These are mythologies! I threw that magazine down. My wife said, “You can throw magazines. Or you could tell people what we do know and don’t from data that’s randomised, blinded and repeated on a regular basis in non-competing laboratories.” I’m the luckiest man on earth.

22:30

Sleep is not necessarily energy-restorative. [Harvard professor] Robert Stickgold found that during sleep, you replay the things you experienced that day. So if you have a problem, you can capture that your brain is more rhythmically active at night. I draw the problem and look at it as I fall asleep. And by golly, when I wake up and start drawing again, mostly I’ve had an insight.

Mercedes-Benz Sydney

Everything you need to know about ESG

Think. is Qantas magazine’s thought leadership series that combines smart conversation with good food and wine. This event, at Michelinstarred chef Matteo Vigotti’s opulent Seta restaurant in Sydney, featured a panel discussion moderated by Kirsten Galliott, Editor-in-Chief of Qantas magazine and Travel Insider.

There’s one thing we know for sure in a changing world – ESG has never been more critical. At our first Think. event for 2022, three leaders with deep experience driving environmental, social and governance outcomes in their own organisations talk about what good strategy looks like and share their hard-won insights.

The leaders

Christine Holgate

The CEO of Toll Global Express since September 2021, Christine Holgate has vowed to create the most sustainable transport and logistics business in the world. She does not shy away from the myriad challenges she faces to achieve that task, just as she took on transforming Australia Post as its CEO (2017-2021) and before that as CEO and managing director of Blackmores (2008-2017).

David Cooke

As chairman and managing director of Konica Minolta Australia (2013-2020), David Cooke radically transformed the company’s culture by first championing gender equality then turning his attention to supply chains and enslaved people. He has spoken on business and human rights at the United Nations in Geneva and at the UN in New York on gender equality. Today, he consults through his company, ESG Advisory.

Janette O’Neill

As PwC Australia’s first chief sustainability officer, Janette O’Neill has day-to-day responsibility for the firm’s ESG agenda, including as a partner with the financial services team to advise clients on their strategies. O’Neill draws on more than 25 years of experience in sustainability, strategy, people and culture, including in her prior role as group head of sustainability at insurance giant QBE (2017-2021).

Tamara Graham

(Above from left) Dr Daniel Nour of Street Side Medics, Kirsten Galliott, Christine Holgate, David Cooke, Janette O’Neill and John Good, managing director of LSH Auto Australia; (below) Seta restaurant and its mezze maniche pasta with Genovese ragu

Some companies are making real progress around ESG but others still need convincing, don’t they?

CHRISTINE HOLGATE: If they still need convincing, they’re not going to have customers, they’re not going to have employees. And the cost of their debt is going to go up because all the banks have signed up to the responsible banking principles.

So it’s a business imperative. And if you don’t jump on this bandwagon, you’re going to be left behind. David, when you were at Konica Minolta, you had quite a lot of naysayers when you were trying to shift that business. How did you get them on board?

DAVID COOKE: On day one, I wrote to everybody in the company and said I want us all to work together to build a company that cares about the people who work here, that cares about our customers and cares about our community. There’s only one problem. I don’t know how to do it and I need your help. We got 800 ideas and comments about the company. We did a range of things over time that were quite groundbreaking – parental leave, domestic violence leave and one of the charities we supported was in Cambodia and rescued young girls who had been trafficked into sexual slavery. It was so transformative for our organisation. But when I had my review [in Tokyo], my manager, who was number two globally in the company, said, “David, I’m just so disappointed in your first year.” I said, “Can you tell me why? The financial results and metrics are at their best in the company’s history, with the best profit and best market share.” And he said, “Yeah, but you could have done so much better if you hadn’t got distracted”, what he termed CSR [corporate social responsibility] stuff. So he was not a believer at all. I said, “Look, I have great respect for you. And I’ll think very deeply about the feedback that you’ve given me. But you know what, no matter how long I sit in my hotel room tonight thinking about our conversation, I think I’ll come back to the same belief that I have right now, which is that the reason we’ve turned the company around and engaged all of our people is because we did those things and they didn’t get in the way of our commercial results.” When you set your north star, your moral compass, you can’t compromise. You have to just push through.

We know the research shows that companies that have strong ESG perform much better, don’t they?

CH: That’s right. When people want to work, they’re motivated more than anything else. But also, what’s ESG? What does everybody in this room think ESG is and isn’t? I’ve just been talking

“

Leadership means being out the front.

It’s not about being at the top of the org chart. ”

David Cooke

[to someone] about carbon emissions. But so much of carbon emissions isn’t about changing your fuel. It’s about actioning waste. And when you start to address those things, you’re more efficient, you make more money and you grow. And people love working for you. It’s a happy combination.

Janette, PwC’s annual CEO survey found that a lot of accountability was lacking. Was it a surprise to you that people say, “Yes, I want to do it but I don’t actually want to be accountable for it”?

JANETTE O’NEILL: There were three key threats that CEOs were identifying globally and they were cybersecurity, access to skills and climate change. Ninety per cent of CEOs said that they were at least somewhat concerned about climate change and the impact it would have on sales and reputation. And yet, when you break that down, only about 35 per cent had a greenhouse gas target in their corporate strategy and only about 14 per cent had a personal link to it. I’m not necessarily surprised by that. The momentum is happening but we need to have ESG much more embedded in the way that we manage performance.

ESG is a big topic. Is it something where some people don’t quite know where to start?

CH: You start by asking your employees because they are often the best source of knowledge. We started by doing an audit, a complete review of the organisation, and asking our employees and our customers what the key concerns for them are.

When you say that you want Toll Global Express to be the most sustainable transport logistics company in the world, how are you going to do that?

CH: It’s not going to be a silver bullet. We’ll do it by addressing vans becoming electric and going to hydrogen. We’ll also do it by addressing real diversity issues. And we’ll do it by changing the way that we work. We’re working with a major retailer at the moment. They had 10 vehicles going in every morning. They’d go in early in the morning, drop off new deliveries and go out empty. At night, 10 vehicles would go to pick up stock then go out empty. What I see is two empty journeys. So what about if we worked together? Dropped off and picked up at the same time? So we haven’t changed the fuel but if we get this to work, we will have reduced carbon emissions by 40-something per cent and made significant reductions in the cost and supply chain. Win, win, win.

It seems a no-brainer. Janette, executives can get wrapped up in the reporting but there are huge opportunities for Australia, particularly in renewable energy, aren’t there?

JO: Absolutely. But on reporting, there’s a perception that reporting is boring and we just have to get through it. Actually, reporting can be powerful in forcing you to think about the actions you’re taking to meet the ambition. When you do public reporting, you’re accountable for explaining the journey, not only the ambition. With ESG, there’s that mitigation focus – we’ve got to manage risk, we’ve got to reduce our footprint – but there’s also huge opportunity engaging with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and looking deeper. How do I make a difference? Where’s the growth opportunity? How can I think about renewables? What are different solutions to help my customers and our communities? That shared value concept is powerful and reporting can bring it into focus.”

Christine talked about working with suppliers. David, can you tell us about scope 3 emissions and their importance?

DC: Scope 3 and biodiversity loss are complex issues that have come on to the corporate radar. If we follow the trends overseas – and we will –then companies will have to report on naturerelated disclosures, which are risks to their business. So is scope 3. Scope 1 emissions are the greenhouse gas emissions from your operation that you control. Scope 2 emissions are the power sources that you use in your business and the emissions that they generate – electricity, gas, steam and so on. Scope 3 is everything else. Now, you might think, “Well, haven’t we kind of covered the main things that a company does?” The issue, however, is that in scope 3, there are things such as the greenhouse gases generated by use of the products you sold or by the travel that your employees do. Are they catching the train? Are they driving their own car? If you have a franchise business, you have the emissions of your franchise network, dealer network, reseller network or service agents. It’s a very, very complex field. But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have to do it.

Let’s move onto the S in ESG, which is all about social. Christine, what policies are you enacting at Toll Global Express to look after your workforce?

CH: We’ve got amazing employees. We have 15 per cent superannuation and we’ve just introduced a whole load of policies around paying super –whether you’re male or female – when you take parental leave because it’s not included. And super when you take carer’s leave. But can I ask

“

Diversity of thought on your board enables people with different views to challenge the norm. If you don’t challenge the norm, how do you grow?

How do you become different? You just become average.

”

Christine Holgate

a question of the audience, please? Who in this room has a labour shortage in their workplace? [A lot of hands go up.] I’ve got great news for you. Women. The challenge for Australia is we have one of the lowest participation rates of women in the workforce. It’s 61 per cent. But when you look at how many women are working, more than 50 per cent are working part-time. So if you want more workers, all you need to do is tap into your female employees sitting around you. Why don’t more women work? Well, there are basic things like paid parental leave and exorbitant childcare. Then – and this is a terrible fact that I had no idea about until it happened to me – two out of five women are going to be bullied, harassed or assaulted while they’re at work. How is that right? It’s critically important that all 55 recommendations of the Respect@Work report by [Sex Discrimination Commissioner] Kate Jenkins, which was done in 2019, are introduced. The new prime minister has called me and he promised me it’s going to come in. So I will be holding him to account because we need healthy workplaces.

Janette, many companies are finding that their workforce is not necessarily skilled for the future. How do they retool?

JO: Understanding future workforce trends is imperative. We can’t assume that the degree someone’s come out of university with is going to get them through for the next 40 or 50 years. How do you embed those skills from graduate through to partner from a consulting perspective? At PwC, we’ve got a digital academy and we’re trying to ensure that everyone has the right AI, automation and digital skills. ESG is another huge topic when it comes to skills. We’ve suddenly gone from it being a specialist area that only a few people need to know about to now almost every single person in the organisation needs to have some ESG skills. I was talking to a client at a bank the other day and he said, “We need almost every banker to have ESG risk skills. We can’t just go and hire them but we can acquire them.” We have to focus on finding the passionate people in the organisation, making them stay by investing in them and giving them opportunities.

David, I want to talk more about supply chains and you’ve done so much work in this space. Can you tell us about that journey and what it was like for you?

DC: At Konica Minolta, we had what I would call a road to Damascus moment that transformed our thinking. We had a dinner on an old clipper ship in Thailand. We’re in the middle of nowhere, it’s completely pitch-black on the ocean, but there

(From above) The panel; artistic director of the Queensland Ballet Li Cunxin and wellness entrepreneur Sally Obermeder; a Mercedes-Benz at the entrance; the table setting

are lights dotted all around us. The cruise director explained that they were Thai fishing vessels. [A week before, she had gone aboard one] and the first thing she saw was a very emaciated man sitting on the deck, with a collar around his neck. He was chained to the deck of the boat. And she said, “Who’s that?” The fishing captain looked down and said, “Oh, it’s a slave.” Notice the dehumanising language – it’s not a human being to him, it’s a slave. She said, “You can’t have slaves.” With the sweep of his arm, indicating all the other boats, he said, “Most of us have slaves.” And there’s thought to be about 50,000 fishing boats off the coast of Thailand… She went back and she bought that man for US$700 [to free him]. When I heard the story, I thought, “Seafood produced in that way can find its way into the supply chains of the biggest food companies in the world. There must be goods produced by slaves, forced labour and exploited people finding their way into the Konica Minolta supply chain.” We thought we were a good company but we actually weren’t because we were blind to the abuses going on within our operation. And we decided to do something about it.

And the key message is that your supply chain is part of your workforce.

DC: Absolutely. That’s the view you have to take. If you know that there are people within your suppliers’ businesses – or contractors or people who come onto your sites – who might be being mistreated in some way then my view is that as a responsible business or business leader, you have as much responsibility to those people as you do to your own employees.

Christine, are you seeing more willingness by boards to adapt and change? Or do you think that they’re still stuck in the past?

CH: It depends on which board you’re on but unfortunately boards have become really risk-averse. And what we’re talking about is pioneering and changing things. That means

“

We’ve gone from ESG being a specialist area that only a few people need to know about to almost every single person in the organisation needing to have some ESG skills.

”

Janette O’Neill

you’ve got to be open-minded because there are no answers yet. That is the complete opposite mindset to being risk-averse, filling in a box, thinking about remuneration reporting. Diversity of thought on your board enables people with different views to challenge the norm. Because if you don’t challenge the norm, how do you grow? How do you become different? Otherwise, you just become average.

But greenwashing is everywhere, isn’t it, Janette?

JO: You certainly don’t want to be the company that gets tagged as greenwashing. It’s not just the information you put out there but the integrity of that information. And if you’re found lacking, it’s going to seriously impact trust in your organisation and in ESG more broadly. It’s imperative that an organisation goes above and beyond to make sure it explains how the information is prepared and what limitations there are for the information. It’s also about the product and its marketing. If you’re saying you have a green product or a green service, how are you proving that it’s making a difference? And does that stand up to scrutiny?

CH: Clearly, no-one wants greenwashing. But if people are going out there doing it, what does that tell you? That they realise ESG is important. While I’m totally against people greenwashing, those companies are helping to raise the fact that this is becoming so important. This is not all negative.

DC: I think an extension of that is that we wouldn’t want a crackdown on greenwashing, to create a situation where companies who are legitimately doing good things are a bit scared to tell people and put their hand up in case they’re criticised for greenwashing. Because we need beacons of light in the corporate world, people to follow and admire. So let’s hope that when companies do good things and put good programs in place for their people and so forth, that they are public about that.

Driving ESG from land to sea

When it comes to creating long-term value in a company, it’s all about finding the keys to purpose.

For LSH Auto Australia, the local arm of the world’s largest Mercedes-Benz passenger vehicle dealer group, ESG initiatives begin with one simple focus: care. “That includes caring for the environment and contributing to our communities,” says managing director John Good. “I’m very proud of how we’ve aligned with charities who have the same passion for people and the environment as we do.”

For the past two years, LSH Auto Australia has been supporting not-for-profit Street Side Medics, which provides free healthcare to people experiencing homelessness across NSW. Dr Daniel Nour purchased a Mercedes van to get his charity going but when LSH Auto saw the difference that Street Side

Medics was making, they donated a second van. “I had the privilege of going streetside with Dr Nour one very cold evening and it was a humbling experience. The vans are fitted out like a mobile hospital; it’s incredible. And it’s saving lives.”

Not-for-profit Chain Reaction also hits the road in the pursuit of better healthcare but on two wheels instead of four. The long-distance cycling challenge has raised almost $37 million to support sick children since it was founded in 2007. Australian business executives cycle for 1000 kilometres in seven days or 300 kilometres in three days to raise money. LSH Auto Australia dealerships in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane have supported the

event for many years. “Wherever the rides are taking place around the country, we provide the backup and lead vehicles to ensure the safety of the riders,” says Good.

The business is also a Gold Supporter of The Sapphire Project, an initiative dedicated to protecting our oceans by connecting charitable conservation efforts with philanthropists. “The environment is at the forefront of our ESG commitments so we’ll be building our support for The Sapphire Project in coming years.”

As well as supporting its local communities, LSH Auto regards strong ESG commitments as critical to attracting great talent. Staff who are recognised in the company’s quarterly employee awards win a grant to direct to a charity of their choice. It leads to feeling good and doing good all at once. “We want to be an employer of choice and it’s essential that we’re a valued part of the community.”

Visit lshauto.com.au for more information.

(Clockwise from left) John Good and Dr Daniel Nour; LSH Auto Australia providing vehicle support to Chain Reaction Challenge Foundation; LSH Auto Australia is a Gold Supporter of The Sapphire Project

On board

Premiere movies, hit TV shows and absorbing audiobooks.

Movies

There’s something for everyone in this selection of new films.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

When a franchise as sumptuously layered – and beloved – as Harry Potter exists, it’s only natural that fans would want to keep flinging open its hidden doors to find out more. Few understand this as well as author J.K. Rowling, who wrote a book in the form of a screenplay, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and then a movie to explain how these wizards came to be. This, the third in the Beasts series, focuses on Harry Potter’s greatest mentor, Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore. Originally played by Richard Harris and later by Michael Gambon in the Harry Potter films, Jude Law (above, centre) takes up the wand in the global wizard war as a young and dashing Dumbledore. The drama begins with the birth of

a creature called a Qilin. A CGI blend of a tiny dragon and a grasshopper, it has prophetic powers and is incapable of being deceived. Villainous Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller) steals the Qilin on behalf of dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen), the former friend – and one-time love –of Dumbledore, who plans to use it for his own nefarious purposes. Little does Grindelwald know but the Qilin has a twin that’s been secreted away by Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne, above, right) to help the good guys. A legendary tale in Harry Potter’s era, the wizard war is retold here at a polished, gentlemanly gallop, with plenty of supernatural sparks to jump-scare the story along. Rated M

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Another action-hero movie, another multiverse. This time there are no comic book underpinnings, just a seemingly ordinary Chinese-American woman, Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh, above, centre), being audited by the tax department. A tax agent (Jamie Lee Curtis) is in the middle of serving her a threatening lecture when Evelyn’s reality appears to split, sending her off into different shards of alternate universes, each one unveiling a lesson and adding up to the fundamental importance of Evelyn and her family as more than ordinary. Rated MA15+

Family Squares

This comedy implodes into soapy drama when Grandma (June Squibb) delivers some eye-opening revelations after her death. Someone is adopted. Someone has been embezzling money. And someone’s been hiding something from everyone else. That she has recorded these hot takes, delivered via Zoom to her family while they all look on from their laptops, is what gives the movie its title, which is also a nod to the games that families play. Co-starring Henry Winkler, Ann Dowd (The Handmaid’s Tale), Rob Reiner and Judy Greer. Rated MA15+

by Natalie Reilly

Words

Falling for Figaro

Hedge fund manager Millie (Danielle Macdonald, far right) is singing in the shower one day when she realises she has a remarkable voice. Bored and depressed by her humdrum life, she decides to follow her talent, leaving her dull job to get singing lessons in the Scotland countryside from acclaimed opera diva Meghan GeoffreyBishop (Joanna Lumley), who informs her she must suffer first if she wants to sing and puts her to work on her muddy farm. Written and directed by Ben Lewin, who helmed The Sessions – that other movie about the relationship between musical greatness and hard work – Falling for Figaro is a gentle comedy infused with the best lessons from The Karate Kid and perhaps a smidgen of Cinderella . Rated M

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

There’s nothing like hopping between universes to get humanity back on track. This is the power – and the burden – that Dr Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch, far left), a neurosurgeon-turned-mystic-master, must harness as he attempts to save America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), whose superpower is the ability to punch holes between worlds. Rogue superhero Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) believes that America will lead her to the world where her two sons exist so she’s determined to chase her down. What Wanda doesn’t realise is that she made up those sons to deal with her loneliness. But that won’t stop her trying to kill Dr Strange. Sound a little chaotic? Welcome to Marvel, where time loops are de rigueur for director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man) and the melding of mysticism with comic-book villainy functions as the greatest fun park at the box office. Rated M

Television

Whatever your mood, there’s a show to match.

The Staircase

A woman is dead and her husband was the only person on the property at the time. He tells police that she fell down the staircase drunk or maybe an owl flew in and killed her. There are a few problems with these explanations. First, the victim appears to have been bludgeoned and, second, a female friend of the husband also died falling down a set of stairs. The true story was made into a documentary in 2004 and proved so compelling it’s now been turned into this eight-part series, starring Toni Collette and Colin Firth (above, centre). Rated MA15+

The Offer

The epic story of The Godfather has an equally compelling story about the battle to get it made. Starring Top Gun: Maverick ’s Miles Teller (far left) and Fantastic Beast s’ Dan Folger as director Francis Ford Coppola. Rated MA15+

1883

Real-life couple and country singers Tim McGraw and Faith Hill star opposite Sam Elliott (below) in this Western series from Taylor Sheridan, the creator of Yellowstone, about a family’s journey from Tennessee to Texas after the American Civil War. Rated MA15+

The Flight Attendant

Kaley Cuoco (below) plays airline crew member Cassie Bowden, who’s living a life of one-night stands and one too many cocktails when her world is plunged into disarray after a murder. With Zosia Mamet (Girls). Rated MA15+

We Own This City

Based on real-life events surrounding the corruption of the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force, this six-part series, set only five years ago, makes The Wire look like weak fiction. With Josh Charles. Rated MA15+

Tune into these compelling stories.

The Secret Runners of New York

The end of the world is rumoured to be nigh and when Skye Rogers and her twin brother, Red, arrive in Manhattan, she’s asked to join the Secret Runners of New York, a covert society with access to a time portal into the future. What she discovers is frightening. This thriller, from bestselling Australian novelist Matthew Reilly, takes you on a race against (and through) time to change the future before it’s too late.

Bridge Of Clay

With their mother dead and father gone, the five Dunbar boys are forced to fend for themselves. To survive, they’ve had to write their own rules. Clay, the quiet fourth brother, will be the one who creates a miracle of sorts, building a bridge for his family to transcend life as it is for something better. This Australian coming-of-age story from Markus Zusak, author of worldwide bestseller The Book Thief, is about the possibility of love and dignity in the midst of terrible loss and cruelty.

The Happiest Man on Earth

How do you survive unimaginable suffering and not be defined by it? In 1938, Eddie Jaku, a German Jew, was arrested and spent seven years enduring the horrors of Buchenwald and Auschwitz concentration camps then a death march. In this memoir, Jaku, who died in 2021, tells how the Holocaust robbed him of family, friends and country but never his belief in humanity. His story is proof that the pursuit of happiness is the most effective rebuke to hate.

News

Enjoy unlimited access to theaustralian.com.au and afr.com when you are connected to Qantas Wi-Fi on board and in Qantas lounges.

Connect to Qantas Free Wi-Fi and Entertainment App

Once onboard, connect your own device to Qantas Free Wi-Fi on domestic flights in three simple steps to access the internet and Qantas Entertainment App (note: those on aircraft with seatback screens only need to access the internet to find in-flight entertainment options):

STEP 1

Enable Aeroplane Mode and select the “Qantas Free Wi-Fi” network in your Wi-Fi settings.

STEP 2

Follow the prompts on the “Welcome Onboard” screen to connect.

STEP 3

Once you’re connected, you’re now ready to access the internet and the Qantas Entertainment App to watch hours of hit movies and TV shows and listen to audiobooks.

Having trouble connecting?

Make sure you are connected to the “Qantas Free Wi-Fi” network and go to wifi.qantas.com in your preferred browser to start exploring.

Inflight entertainment varies by route and aircraft. Voice calls are not permitted inflight.

Inflight workout

These exercises are designed to provide a safe way to stretch and enjoy movement in certain muscle groups that can become stiff as a result of long periods of sitting. They may be effective at increasing the body’s blood circulation and massaging the muscles. We recommend you do these exercises for three or four minutes every hour and occasionally leave your seat to walk down the aisles. Each exercise should be done with minimal disturbance to other passengers. None of these exercises should be performed if they cause pain or cannot be done with ease.

01

Start with both heels on the floor and point feet upwards as high as you can.

Ankle circles

Lift feet. Draw a circle with toes, moving one foot clockwise and the other counterclockwise at the same time. Reverse circles. Rotate in each direction for 15 seconds. Repeat if desired.

Knee lifts Lift leg with knee bent while contracting your thigh muscle. Alternate legs. Repeat 20 to 30 times for each leg.

Neck roll

With shoulders relaxed, drop your ear to your shoulder and gently roll your neck forward and back, holding each position for about five seconds. Repeat five times.

Knee to chest Bend forward slightly. Clasp hands around left knee and hug it to your chest. Hold for 15 seconds. Keeping hands around the knee, slowly let it down. Alternate legs. Repeat 10 times.

In the air

Mobile phones and electronic equipment: All transmitting electronic devices, including mobile phones, tablets and laptop computers, must be switched to flight mode* prior to departure. Smaller devices such as mobile phones, e-readers, electronic games, MP3 players, iPads and other small tablets may be held in your hands or stowed in a seat pocket. Unless otherwise directed by the captain, these devices may remain switched on and used in flight mode during take-off, cruise and landing. Larger electronic equipment such as laptop computers may only be used from when the aircraft seatbelt sign is extinguished after take-off until the top of descent. After landing, the cabin crew will advise when flight mode may be switched off.

Headsets: Do not use a personal single-pin audio headset in the Qantas inflight entertainment system unless it is supported by a two-pin airline headset adaptor. Personal headsets that connect via a cable

to a handheld device can be used at any time from boarding until arrival. Headsets and other devices that connect via Bluetooth must be switched off for take-off and landing but can be used during cruise.

*Flight mode enables you to operate basic functions of your mobile phone or personal electronic device while its transmitting function is switched off, meaning you cannot make phone calls or send an SMS.

Fly Well

Your wellbeing is our priority. Our Fly Well program brings together a number of measures to give you peace of mind during your flight.

Cabin air: Our aircraft air conditioning systems are fitted with hospital-grade HEPA filters, which remove 99.9% of all particles including viruses. The air inside the cabin is refreshed every few minutes, ensuring the highest possible air quality.

02

Put both feet flat on the floor. Lift heels high, keeping the balls of the feet on the floor.

03

Repeat these three stages in a continuous motion and at 30-second intervals.

Forward flex

With both feet on the floor and stomach held in, slowly bend forward and walk your hands down the front of your legs towards your ankles. Hold for 15 seconds and slowly sit back up.

Shoulder roll Hunch shoulders forwards then upwards, backwards and downwards in a gentle circular motion.

Inflight: The aircraft configuration, including the seats and galley, act as a natural barrier, and people are not seated face to face. The direction of inflight airflow is ceiling to floor.

Enhanced cleaning: Our aircraft are cleaned with a disinfectant effective against coronaviruses, with a focus on the high contact areas of seats, seatbelts, overhead lockers, air vents and toilets. Our people are trained in the latest hygiene protocols.

Face masks: Some destinations require you to wear a mask during your flight or at the airport. Ensure you check the latest government requirements before you travel. You’re required to wear a mask on all Australian domestic flights and international flights to Australia. This is an Australian State and Territory government requirement. Your face mask needs to cover your mouth and nose, fit securely and must be worn unless you’re under 12 years of age or have a medical exemption.

Foot pumps (foot motion is in three stages)

Your inflight health: When flying, passengers can be seated and inactive for long periods of time. The environment can be low in humidity and the cabin pressure equivalent to an altitude of 2440 metres above sea level. The following advice helps you stay healthy during your journey.

The importance of inflight blood circulation and muscle relaxation: When walking, the leg muscle action helps return venous blood to the heart. Sitting in the same position for a long period of time can slow this process and, in some people, leads to swelling in the feet. Some studies have shown that immobility associated with travel of longer than four hours (by air, car or rail) can also lead to an increased risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT), or clotting in the legs. Personal factors that increase the risk of DVT include:

A ge over 40 years

Personal or family history of DVT or pulmonary embolus

Recent surgery or injury, especially to the lower limbs, pelvis or abdomen

Cancer

Inherited or other blood disorders leading to clotting tendency

Pregnancy

O estrogen therapy (oral contraceptive pill or hormone replacement therapy).

There are a number of ways to help reduce the possibility of DVT, including the following: Avoid leg-crossing while seated

Ensure adequate hydration

Minimise alcohol and caffeine intake before and during your flight

Wear comfortable, loose-fitting clothes

D uring your flight, move your legs and feet for three to four minutes per hour while seated and move about the cabin occasionally

D o the light exercises we recommend here (see above) and through the inflight entertainment system.

If you have concerns about your health and flying, or you feel that you may be at risk of DVT, Qantas recommends that you talk to your doctor before travelling. Additional measures such as well-fitted compression stockings or anti-clotting medication may be recommended for high-risk individuals.

Jet lag: Unlike other forms of transport, air travel allows for rapid movement across many time zones, which can disrupt the body’s biological clock. This is commonly known as jet lag. This disruption can affect various body rhythms such as the sleepwake cycle and the digestive system, leading to symptoms such as tiredness and lack of energy and appetite. In general, the more time zones crossed, the more disruption of the body clock and the more symptoms experienced after the journey. We recommend the following to minimise the effects of jet lag.

Before your flight:

G et a good night’s rest

During your flight:

Eat light meals

Wear loose, comfortable clothing and sleep when you can

S tay hydrated – drink plenty of water and avoid excess tea, coffee and alcohol

At your destination:

If possible, give yourself a day or two after arrival to adjust to the new time zone

G o out in the daylight and do some light exercise

Try to eat meals and do other social activities at appropriate destination times to adjust to the new time zone

Cabin humidity and hydration: Humidity levels of less than 25 per cent are common in the cabin, as the outside air that supplies the cabin is very dry. The low humidity can cause drying of the surfaces of the nose, throat and eyes and it can irritate contact lenses. If normal fluid intake is maintained during the flight, dehydration will not occur.

We recommend:

D rink water and juices frequently during the flight

D rink coffee, tea and alcohol in moderation

Remove contact lenses and wear glasses if your eyes are irritated

Use a skin moisturiser to refresh the skin

Cabin pressurisation: During flight, aircraft cabin pressure is maintained to a sufficient density for your comfort and health. As the aircraft climbs, the cabin may reach the same air pressure as at an elevation of 2440 metres above sea level. Cabin pressure does not pose a problem for most passengers. However, if you suffer from obstructive pulmonary diseases, anaemias or certain cardiovascular conditions, you could experience discomfort at these altitudes. These passengers should seek medical advice before flying, as some may require supplementary oxygen. Qantas can arrange this but requires at least seven days’ notice before travelling. The rate of change in cabin pressure during climb and descent is also carefully maintained and does not usually cause discomfort. However, children and infants, and adults who have sinus or nasal congestion, may experience some discomfort because of pressure changes during climb and particularly descent. Those suffering from nasal or sinus congestion because of a cold or allergies may need to delay travel. The following advice may assist:

To “clear” your ears, try swallowing, yawning or pinching your nose closed and gently blowing against it. These actions help open the Eustachian tubes, equalising pressure between the middle ear chamber and throat.

If flying with an infant, feed or give your baby a dummy during descent. Sucking and swallowing help equalise pressure in an infant’s ears. Give children something to drink or chew during descent.

C onsider using medication such as nasal sprays, decongestants and antihistamines 30 minutes prior to descent to help open up your ear and sinus passages.

Motion sickness: Air travel, especially if turbulence is experienced, can cause motion sickness, as it leads to a conflict between the body’s sense of vision and its sense of equilibrium. Maintaining good visual cues (keeping your eyes fixed on a non-moving object) helps prevent motion sickness. When the weather is clear, you should look out at the ground, sea or horizon. If the horizon can’t be

seen, closing your eyes and keeping your head movements to a minimum will help. While over-thecounter medications are available, we recommend you consult your doctor about the appropriate medications. More information can be found: At qantas.com.au/info/flying/intheair/ yourhealthinflight

Through the onboard entertainment system O n our information leaflet available from Qantas or your travel agent

Smoking: Government regulations prohibit smoking on all flights operated by Australian-registered aircraft. The use and charging of all e-cigarettes and other personal vaporisers are not permitted on board an aircraft. There are smoke detectors in all toilets and penalties for regulation breaches.

Travelling with children: Please ask cabin crew for help if required. Baby food and nappies (diapers) are available on most flights, while some washrooms are fitted with baby change tables. Please dispose of nappies etc. in the waste bins.

When you land

Leaving flights: On international flights, the cabin crew will distribute the necessary Customs and Immigration forms. If you are stopping en route, you will need your boarding pass to re-board the aircraft. If you’re travelling as a domestic passenger on an international flight within Australia, retain your boarding card with the large D sticker. This will be required to clear Customs at your destination.

Transferring from Australian domestic flights numbered QF400 and above to international flights: At check-in you will be issued with your international boarding pass. Your international boarding pass and baggage will be tagged through to your final destination. There is no need to claim your baggage or attend check-in at the transfer airport. Follow the signs for international transfers passengers to the complimentary transfer bus (not necessary in Melbourne and Darwin).

Transferring from international to domestic flights numbered QF400 and above: On arrival at your Australian transfer port, go through Immigration and collect your luggage. Proceed through Customs and follow the signs to the domestic transfer area to re-check your luggage. A complimentary transfer bus (not necessary in Melbourne, Adelaide and Darwin) departs at regular intervals for the domestic terminal for your connecting Qantas flight within Australia. If your connecting domestic flight is numbered QF1-QF399, there is no need to clear Customs and Immigration. These flights depart from the international terminals. Customs and Immigration clearance will be completed at your final destination.

Transferring to a Jetstar domestic flight: If your next flight is with Jetstar (JQ) or a Qantas codeshare flight operated by Jetstar (QF5400-QF5999), you will need to collect your baggage and follow the signs to the Jetstar counter to check in for your flight and re-check your baggage.

What you need to know about your onboard security, safety and health

Qantas security policy

The Qantas Group has a strict policy of denying boarding, or offloading any passenger who makes inappropriate comments or behaves inappropriately inflight or on the ground. Qantas will not accept any inappropriate comments as “jokes”. It will also seek to recover all costs incurred, including diversions as a result of security incidents, from those involved.

Group-wide security

Security screening is subject to the laws and regulations of the country of operation. The Qantas Group ensures that its passengers, staff and aircraft are safe and secure through an outcome-focused, risk-based approach to security management. Qantas security standards apply across the business, including QantasLink and Jetstar.

A dedicated operations centre monitors global security events 24 hours a day.

Security advice

Pa ck your own luggage

D o not carry any items for another person

C arry valuables, approved medication and keys in your carry-on baggage

A ll knives, sharp objects or cutting implements must be in checked baggage

S ecurity measures can include random frisk search after consent is obtained. Passengers may request privacy and must be searched by a screener of the same gender

Important note: Security screening is subject to the laws and regulations of the country of operation.

Restrictions on powders and liquids, aerosols and gels (LAGs)

On all international flights to and from Australia:

E ach container of LAGs in your carry-on baggage must be 100ml or less

A ll 100ml containers must be placed in a single transparent one-litre plastic bag

P lastic bags containing LAGs are to be screened separately from other carry-on baggage

A ll powders must be screened separately with restrictions on the carriage of inorganic powders over 350ml (350g)

Pa ssengers may still carry prescription medicines or baby products sufficient for the flight

I f departing, transiting or transferring on an international flight at an Australian

international gateway airport, duty-free powders and LAGs must be sealed, with receipt, in a security tamper-evident bag issued at the time of purchase

Full-body scanners

T he Australian federal government has introduced full-body scanners at international gateway airports: Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Darwin, Perth, Melbourne and the Gold Coast

The Australian Federal Government has commenced introducing full-body scanners at major domestic airports: Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Canberra, Darwin, Gold Coast, Hobart, Launceston, Melbourne, Newcastle, Perth, Sunshine Coast, Sydney and Townsville

At international gateway airports passengers refusing to pass through the scanner will be banned from entering the sterile area or boarding an aircraft for 24 hours

E xemptions apply for people with serious medical conditions, infants and small children, and people in wheelchairs

A s per advice, the energy exposure is comparable to that from a mobile phone several metres away

T here are no known safety concerns for people with pacemakers and metal implants or for pregnant women

Dangerous goods

Common items used every day may seem harmless but on an aircraft they may become dangerous. When the aircraft changes altitude, variations in temperature and pressure may cause items to leak, create fumes or catch fire.

Items that are forbidden on aircraft or have carriage restrictions include lithium batteries, other battery types, camping stoves, fuels, oils, compressed gases, aerosols, household cleaners, matches, lighters, paints, explosives (including flares, fireworks, sparklers and bonbons), emergency position-indicating radio beacons, radioactive material, biological and infectious substances and fuel-powered equipment. This list is not exhaustive so please carefully consider what items you pack for your next flight.

If you’re unsure about an item in your baggage, ask a member of our friendly cabin crew.

For further information, go to qantas.com or email dg@qantas.com.au.

Travel advice

Qantas is a partner in the Australian government’s Charter for Safe Travel. Travellers may obtain the latest travel advice for their destination by visiting smartraveller.gov.au.

Automated immigration clearance

Several countries are introducing automated immigration clearance procedures to cope with growing air-travel numbers. The goal is to provide a faster, smoother immigration experience to eligible passengers without compromising border security. Please note that some automated clearance options may not be available due to COVID. Countries providing facilities across our network:

Australia SmartGate: e-passport holders of Australia, Canada, China, France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Macau, New Zealand, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and US

China e-Channel: citizens of China

Hong Kong e-Channel Residents: citizens and residents of Hong Kong

Hong Kong e-Channel Visitors: frequent visitors that are visa-exempt, including Australians

Indonesia Autogate passport gates: citizens of Indonesia

Japan Speedy Immigration: citizens and foreign nationals with re-entry and special re-entry permits

New Zealand SmartGate Plus: e-passport holders of Australia, New Zealand, UK and US

Singapore enhanced-Immigration Automated Clearance System (eIACS): citizens, permanent residents, work permit holders and APEC cardholders

UAE eGate: UAE citizens and residents

UK ePassport gates: e-passport holders of UK, Switzerland and European Economic Area (EEA)

USA Global Entry system: US citizens and permanent residents, Dutch citizens, South Korean citizens and Mexican nationals. Canadian citizens and residents with NEXUS membership

USA Automated Passport Control: for US, Canadian and Visa Waiver Program passport holders

Fee applies

Pre-enrolment required

Quick clues

Across

1. N eurotic fixation (4,2)

5. Po pular style (5)

8. M arriage partner (6)

11. C ollided (8)

12. A ssisted suicide (10)

13. Versatile street musician (3,3,4)

14. B owling style (8)

15. B lond (4)

16. Forthcoming (2,5)

19. L ackey (3,3)

22. Pa ckage (6)

24. D own-to-earth person (7)

27. F ind fault (4)

28. C ogito, … sum (4)

29. S ighing sleepily (7)

30. Pa nels (6)

31. D rawing of lots (6)

33. S tatesman (7)

34. C hinwag (4)

36. P rehistoric creature (8)

39. B east of burden (4,6)

41. S odium bicarbonate (6,4)

42. C hests of drawers (8)

43. S on of Zeus (6)

44. I dleness (5)

45. B uilding inspection (6)

2. P ungent cleaning fluid (7)

3. Academic establishment (7,6)

4. Th eoretically (11)

5. S trong colourless spirit (5)

6. Avarice (5)

7. E xpress excitement (7)

8. B ack-up (5,2)

9. Transmitting (2,3)

10. S lalom competitor (5)

17. S carecrow stuffing (5)

18. Formal discourse (7)

20. S ycophant (6,7)

21. B itter-smelling (5)

23. M ajor blood vessel (5)

25. G old bar (5)

26. Temples (11)

32. An ti-riot vapour (4,3)

33. P riest’s lectures (7)

35. S crutinise (7)

37. L ikeness (5)

38. R epugnance (5)

39. Keyboard instrument (5)

40. A pprehend (5)

Cryptic clues

Across

1. End phone call because of emotional problem (4,2)

5. Bravo! Guess what’s in fashion? (5)

8. Half a match? (6)

11. One member of parliament took action and made an impression (8)

12. Youth in Asia speak up about mercy killing (10)

13. Single chap apparently banned for doing everything on his own (3,3,4)

14. Not an overthrow? So don’t provide enough weapons (8)

15. Just a carnival (4)

16. Ahead of you inside shop (2,5)

19. He’s no naysayer (3,3)

22. Listen, Pa, sell for a packet (6)

24. One who is pragmatic about an itemised record (7)

27. Complain about fish (4)

28. In Latin, therefore, go after the Queen (4)

29. Gaping at dowdy awnings included (7)

30. Gets onto executive committees (6)

31. Social event to go back to the vote (6)

33. Treason badly affected politician (7)

34. Start of conversation heard at teatime (4)

36. As I do, run off to view palaeontologist’s latest discovery (8)

39. Put pet in suitcase – a donkey, for example (4,6)

41. Antacid needed for Pop after cooking (6,4)

42. Pieces of furniture for lads who have experienced growth spurt (8)

43. Greek god’s designer label (6)

44. This lot has shown dreadful laziness (5)

45. Map out opinion poll (6)

Down

2. No, ma’am, I managed to get bleach (7)

3. College that teaches all parts of speech (7,6)

4. I back powerful ally possibly (11)

5. Pa rt of screwdriver made in Russia (5)

6. Agreed, not a sin (5)

7. Speak with passion then sue perhaps (7)

8. Be loyal to understudy (5,2)

9. Blissfully broadcasting live (2,3)

10. Sportsman takes silly risk round last obstacle (5)

17. Dried grass makes warts come back (5)

18. No limit on public address (7)

20. Gregarious Ivy is one who hobnobs with the rich and famous (6,7)

21. I am taken in by shifty card sharp (5)

23. It comes from the heart (5)

25. Metal cast in forging others (5)

26. Tables set up around faulty crane in houses of worship (11)

32. It is enough to make a criminal cry (4,3)

33. Speeches for the masses (7)

35. Break down when Anna lies out loud (7)

37. Picture drawn right out of strange mirage (5)

38. Hate being unable to keep quiet on podium (5)

39. Tunes are hammered out on it (5)

40. Hidden drawback in what the fisherman is after (5)

Tough puzzle, simple rules: each row, column and 3x3 box must contain the numbers 1-9.

Wheel of words

Create as many words of four letters or more as you can using the given letters once only but always including the central letter. Don’t use proper nouns or plurals ending with “s”. See if you can find the nine-letter word using all letters.

11 G ood

15 Very good 18+ E xcellent

I E G R I L N G N

Match-ups –

Oscar-worthy

Fill in the missing parts of the film titles and then find them hidden in the grid of letters. They can be found in straight lines up, down, forwards, backwards or even diagonally. The leftover letters will reveal the movie that took home the trophy in 1996.

A MIND BEAUTY HALL OF FIRE WITH WOLVES DRIVING DAISY FORREST MIDNIGHT MILLION DOLLAR NO FOR OLD MEN PEOPLE OF AFRICA MAN LIST IN LOVE MILLIONAIRE TERMS OF THE THE HUNTER THE PATIENT THE CONNECTION THE PART II THE LOCKER THE KING’S THE EMPEROR THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE THE OF THE LAMBS

Quiz

By Hazel Flynn

Spot the difference

Can you spot the seven differences between these two images? Circle what’s changed on the image below.

01. What Australian actress was Oscar-nominated for roles in Animal Kingdom and Silver Linings Playbook ?

02. Sand puppy is another name for what highly unusual mammal native to East Africa?

03. This year, which basketball team became the first to reach the finals in its inaugural NBL season?

04. What colour is the gem amethyst?

05. Approximately how many species of eucalypts are there: a) 500, b) 700, c) 900?

06. What is noteworthy about the 1888 painting Red Vineyard at Arles?

07. A jeroboam of champagne holds how many standard-sized bottles?

08. What is the third most expensive property in standard Monopoly (UK or US)?

09. What creatures produce gossamer?

10. Casement, sash, bay and dormer are all types of what?

11 What Swedish warship sank on its maiden voyage in 1628 and was raised in 1961?

12 What actress, who died in 1980, gave her name to a WWII inflatable life preserver?

13 What is the largest island in the Philippines?

14 What is the highest score in tenpin bowling?

15 What late Australian singer-songwriter released his 100th album in 2000?

16 What is the only penguin species native to Australia?

17 What vegetable features in the dishes baba ganoush, moussaka and caponata?

18 The 1987 movie Roxanne reworked what Edmund Rostand story?

19 And who played the title character in a 2021 musical film adaptation of the story?

20 In what world capital would you find buildings nicknamed the Gherkin, the Shard and the Walkie Talkie?

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Solutions

If you’ve filled in the answers, please take the magazine with you so the cabin crew know to replace it with a new copy.

Crossword

Wheel of words

Girl, Grin, Line, Nine, Rein, Rile, Ring, Ingle, Inner, Linen, Liner, Reign, Ginger, Lignin, Linger, Lining, Niggle, Riling, Reining, Ringing, Reigning, Relining.

Nine-letter word: LINGERING.

Spot the difference

01. Far-left house balcony door now green.

02. Strip on far-left boat made pink.

03. Front of foreground boat changed colour.

04. One anchor rope removed.

05. Side of front-right balcony filled in.

06. Orange rescue ring on wall duplicated.

07. Tree on right-hand side removed.

Match-ups

A Beautiful Mind, American Beauty, Annie Hall, Chariots of Fire, Dances With Wolves, Driving Miss Daisy, Forrest Gump, Midnight Cowboy, Million Dollar Baby, No Country for Old Men, Ordinary People, Out of Africa, Rain Man, Schindler’s List, Shakespeare in Love, Slumdog Millionaire, Terms of Endearment, The Artist, The Deer Hunter, The English Patient, The French Connection, The Godfather Part II, The Hurt Locker, The King’s Speech, The Last Emperor, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Silence of the Lambs. Solution: Braveheart

IWC TOP GUN.

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BRADY, 7 TIME SUPER BOWL CHAMPION

“MOJAVE DESERT”

TOM

EDITION