A Great Victorian Bathing Trail

A Great Victorian Bathing Trail Peninsula Hot Springs on the Mornington Peninsula.

Matt Sykes outlines the opportunity to establish a signature tourism experience to meet Australian 2030 goals

In an age of disruption and uncertainty the ways in which we derive meaning from travel are changing. We prioritise the

Instagramability of our experiences and search for authentic local connections through online platforms like AirBnB. The white elephant of climate change means that if you’re not ‘plane shaming’ yourself, while planning your next holiday or business trip, then someone else is likely to, to which you can add global political and economic instability.

However, among all of this there’s a rising force which for me is very interesting - wellness tourism, especially nature-based wellness tourism.

Asking myself the question as to whether there could be a way of developing tourism trails and destinations which simultaneously improve the wellbeing of ecosystems, communities and economies, I have undertaken research into a hot springs and bathing tourism strategy for the state of Victoria. Before delving into more detail let’s set the scene.

Water links all cultures

Travel has a timeless allure. For millennia we have made pilgrimages to holy places for religious motivations. However, when contemplating our changing world, including the trend towards more secular beliefs, I see our sacred places of

Deep Blue Hot Springs, Warrnambool.

pilgrimage changing. Nonetheless, we still yearn for connection to self, others, nature and the cosmos.

During my time working as the Experience Manager at Peninsula Hot Springs I saw many, in fact thousands of people, finding a place of peace and retreat in its tranquil bushland setting. People of diverse ages and cultures use the space in the same way that their ancestors may historically have taken refuge in a temple, mosque or church. It provides a vital counterbalance to their hectic daily lives. A conversation with Uncle Max ‘Dulumunmun’ Harrison, Yuin Nation Elder, comes to mind, where he explained “we drink the same water, we bathe in the same water. All cultures walk the same land and breathe the same air. Water links all cultures.”

Consider that during the last 12 months over 500,000 visitors made a pilgrimage to ‘take the waters’ at Peninsula Hot Springs. The question we have to ask is whether our community is searching for more?

The opportunity under our feet

Here’s the pitch … why not invest in a chain of hot springs and bathing destinations along Victoria’s southern coastline, from Portland to Mallacoota, linked as an epic 1200 kilometre trail to rival the world’s greatest pilgrimages?

We have Deep Blue Hotel and Hot Springs, at the western edge of the Great Ocean Road, which has just opened its incredible new bathing Sanctuary. Latrobe City Council is currently constructing the Gippsland Regional Aquatic Centre which will use geothermal energy to heat its buildings and swimming pool. Add four more proposals; from Metung Hot Springs and Nunduk Spa Retreat in East Gippsland to Saltwater Hot Springs at Phillip Island and 12 Apostles Hot Springs in the west. We have the framework for something globally-unique. (All of these projects rely on accessing geothermal groundwater which sits roughly 600 metres below the surface, a renewable natural resource that must and can be managed sustainably). Let’s not forget the proposal for a public swimming facility called ‘Yarra Pools’ in the middle of Melbourne’s CBD as well as the potential for a string of contemporary sea baths and floating

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Gudlaug Baths In Iceland

saunas around Port Phillip Bay/Nerm.

All of this is clearly articulated in my strategic plan, but none of it was obvious before travelling across the globe to study industry-leading benchmarks.

Searching east and west

Through the support of the Victorian Tourism Industry Council’s Lynette Bergin Fellowship I had the privilege to study remarkable bathing cultures; from the onsen of Japan to the saunas of Finland.

In January 2019 I set off for the island of Kyushu in southern Japan. It only made sense to start my research by immersing in the world’s most rich and avid hot springs culture. I visited Beppu which is striving to be the world’s best hot springs city. How do you measure such a thing, you ask? Well, here’s a small indicator, using a very clever social media campaign, their mayor agreed to transform an amusement park into a ‘Spamusement Park’. Picture people in swimsuits hopping into a roller coaster filled with hot springs water and bubble bath soap. Beppu also hosts an annual onsen marathon where bathers must run between 42 of the cities hot springs, pausing for a minimum six seconds at each onsen.

In June I tracked north to the Nordic region, beginning with the hot springs of Iceland.

Here, I was amazed to discover over 77 hot springs tour packages, ranging from whale-watching and bathing to hiking and hot springs. It became clear that back in Victoria, investing in the hot springs industry could create extensive flow-on benefits to the broader nature-based tourism industry. I continued bath-hopping from the saunas of Finland to forest baths of Norway, harbour baths of Denmark and beaches of southern Sweden. It came to a point where I started to feel like Kevin Costner’s character in Waterworld, if a day passed

Gudou Hot Springs Guangdong China

without bathing, my gills started to dry out!

After a quick visit to Thermae Bath Spa and the ancient roman baths in the UK, I began the journey home via Guangdong province in China. There I saw and experienced the integration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and western balneology (the study of medicinal springs) in facilities such as Bishuwan Hot Springs Resort.

Connecting Communities, Conservation and Tourism

In among the birth of the Great Victorian Bathing Trail vision was the rise of the Climate Strike movement and now wideranging acknowledgement of the environmental crisis. Ecoanxiety could become paralysing if weren’t for the rapid uptake of initiatives like BCorp (Benefit Corporation) and 1% for the Planet accreditations, led by responsible business pioneers like Patagonia. In the context of tourism trail development, the United Nations declaration of the 2020s as the Decade of Ecosystem Restoration is particularly inspiring.

As Peninsula Hot Springs has shown, nature-based wellness tourism development can spark the restoration of degraded environments (20 years ago it was a horse paddock). Importantly, all of the aforementioned Victorian geothermal projects demonstrate a strong commitment to environmentally sustainable design. This shared philosophy is core to the branding and marketing of the bathing trail. Ultimately, it has potential to inspire the restoration of vast terrestrial, aquatic and marine environments between and around the trail. Think of it as Victoria’s equivalent of the Route of Parks which spans 2800 kilometres and links 17 national parks in Chile. In both projects, travellers are invited to journey via road transport but there is also the opportunity for hikers and cyclists to complete the traverse.

Looking forward

So, if it’s such a great idea why hasn’t someone else done it yet? Well, they have. A similar collective of hot springs in the United States has collaborated to create the Colorado Historic Hot Springs Loop. The question really is why haven’t we done it yet? Firstly, the industry needed pioneers like Charles Davidson of Peninsula Hot Springs and Gene Seabrook of Deep Blue Hotel & Hot Springs to show us the potential.

Now, the rest of the tourism industry including bodies like Tourism Australia and Visit Victoria need to advocate for the emerging developers so that public and private investment can be effectively coordinated. My dream is that in 2030 you, I and thousands like us will be able to bathe, walk and catch electric buses along one of the world’s iconic pilgrimages, right in our own backyard.

Matt Sykes is the author of The Great Victorian Bathing Trail: A blueprint for a Victorian hot springs and bathing tourism strategy, a roadmap for Victoria’s hot springs and bathing tourism industry. He has started a consultancy specialising in nature-based tourism trail development which connects the dots between conservation, communities and travel.

Peninsula Hot Springs.

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