Qantas Magazine | December 2022

ZAMBIA, AFRICA SANTIAGO, CHILE TRAVEL INSIDER

MOLOKA’I, HAWAII NEWCASTLE, NSW KNOW ONE PERFECT WEEKEND ON HAYMAN ISLAND DINE MELBOURNE’S SO-HOT, SO-NEW BARS DESIGN SHOW-STOPPING JEWELS FOR EVERY WISH LIST

23 Places to go in 2023

Lake Garda, Italy

Overseas model with optional equipment shown.

Electrifying performance

The all-electric Audi RS e-tron GT

With a powerful presence, wide stance and fowing lines — the Audi RS e-tron GT is designed to turn heads. With up to 475 kilowatts at your disposal, onlookers will have to turn quickly.

THE IWC TOP GUN.

Big Pilot’s Watch TOP GUN

Edition “Mojave Desert”. Ref. 5060: The U.S. Navy pilots’ flying suits and China Lake’s barren desert landscape inspired this Big Pilot’s sandcoloured ceramic case. It is the product of a complex process in which zirconium oxide is mixed

and formed with other metallic oxides before sintering in an oven and houses an IWC-manufactured 52110 calibre with a seven-day power reserve. Together, it all adds up to a pilot’s watch optimized for uncompromising performance.

IWC. ENGINEERING BEYOND TIME. SINCE 1868.

On the cover: Lake Garda, Italy. Photography by Benjamin Voros

Jeremy Koreski, Dan Paris

DECEMBER 2022

Design

138 On The Inside: Slow Beam, Hobart 140 Creative Process: Ari Athans

142 Foundations: San Giovanni Battista, Mogno, Switzerland

144 The Statement: Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman

146 The Look: Fine jewellery

150 The Classic: The chambray shirt Arts & Culture special report

155 How the arts industry is transforming Think.

164

Dream Teams: The lessons for business from worldclass teams in sport, the performing arts and science 172

View From The Top: Nicky Sparshott, CEO, Unilever ANZ 176 Small Business: The rewards of understanding and connecting with customers’ emotional drivers 178 Upstart: Baidam Solutions 180 Clock Wise: Matt Poole, Ironman

185 What the best companies look like post-COVID On board 193 Inflight entertainment 198 Health, safety and security on board and when you land 202 Games

For more travel inspiration, go to qantas.com/travelinsider

KYLIAN MBAPPÉ

Editorial

Editor-in-Chief Kirsten Galliott

Deputy Content Director

Faith Campbell Content Manager

Natalie Reilly

Contributing Editors Jessica Irvine Di Webster

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

NSW Sales Manager Callum Bean +61 404 729 224

NSW Senior Account Manager Crystal Wong +61 420 558 697

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

Senior Account Manager, Victoria Jo Farrugia +61 450 968 882

Digital Sales Director Mike Hanna +61 402 640 095

Digital Campaign Manager and Product Specialist Anna Delgado +61 404 855 041

Creative Director Tony Rice

Senior Designer Kate Timms Visual Director Elizabeth Hachem Copy Director Rosemary Bruce Deputy Copy Director Sandra Bridekirk Copy Editors Pippa Duffy Nick Hadley

Production Manager Chrissy Fragkakis

International Representatives

Greater China and Japan Peter Jeffery +852 2850 4013 peterjeffery@asianimedia.com South-East Asia and the UK Nick Lockwood +65 9776 6255 nick.lockwood@ pharpartnerships.com United States Ralph Lockwood +1 408 879 6666

ralph.lockwood@ husonmedia.com

For advertising inquiries, contact: qantasadvertising@mediumrarecontent.com

Rare Creative Strategy and Partnerships

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

FROM THE EDITOR

CARDS WITH A SOCIAL IMPACT

Travel just continues to feel so new.

Even though I jump on a plane every second week – mostly for work, occasionally for sweet leisure – the thrill hasn’t yet waned. I’ve tried to prioritise travel this year and said yes more than no. I’ve floated down the Mossman Gorge in the Daintree, “raced” with the Wild Oats crew off Hamilton Island, swum with turtles around Hayman Island and toasted a lolly-pink sunset aboard a yacht in Fiji.

Are you detecting a pattern? Yes – and it revolves around sun, sand and swimming.

It’s time to change things up.

As I write this note, I’m preparing to go to South Africa. Normally, I’d read everything I could on my destination and spend hours on websites but this time, I’m going with the flow. I don’t want to feel the weight of expectations – I want to be surprised. I want it all to feel new.

I suspect that after this past year – when so many of us have journeyed back to places we knew, loved and missed – we’ll once again go in search of novelty.

That was the thinking behind this special issue, which focuses on 23 places to go in 2023.

You can – and should – indulge in the triple treat of Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka but there’s such joy in road tripping through Japan, stopping at villages where tourists are an oddity. You’ve likely been to Adelaide but have you seen the stars at South Australia’s Dark Sky Reserve, one of only 20 in the world to receive international accreditation and the only place in this country awarded for its celestial beauty? Lake Como is wonderful – wonderful – but why not make a detour to Lake Garda for a Negroni at the Old Port?

This is the time. These are the places.

I hope your travels in 2023 ignite a sense of wonder.

Kirsten Galliott Editor-in-Chief

kirstengalliott

Our writers are not armchair travellers. 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.

Broome, 2022

Photo by Wayne Quilliam

Stephanie Gilmore –Sally Fitzgibbons –Kelly Slater

You’ll notice this month how busy our aircraft and terminals are as the holiday season starts. It’s also peak season in our freight terminals as our teams work to move Christmas parcels around the country.

We carry freight in the belly of our passenger aircraft, like the one you’re travelling on now, as well as on our dedicated network of Freighter aircraft. This December, we’ll be operating more than 1200 freight flights – that’s around 40 per cent more than usual. In our busiest week we’ll move more than 2500 tonnes of freight around the country, with most of that being part of our partnership with Australia Post. That’s enough to move more than 60 million Apple AirPods or 4 million Dyson Airwraps, which are worth mentioning because they’ve been among the top sellers on the Qantas Rewards Store recently.

It’s a busy time for our people in freight but also for our people who look after passengers, including our pilots, crew and airport staff. They’ve been amazing all year and are working hard to make sure our Christmas peak goes well. We have extra staff rostered on at airports and in our lounges this month to help ensure your journey is as smooth as possible.

We know from the events of the past year that it takes more resources to deliver pre-COVID levels of service in a post-COVID world – at least for the time being. There are a few reasons for that. First, it’s taking longer to source some spare parts for aircraft due to global supply chain issues. Something that used to take half a day can now take a week. Second, with lots of people travelling and fuller flights, it’s harder to quickly reaccommodate passengers if a flight is delayed or cancelled. To manage that, we have up to 20 aircraft on standby over the holiday period and more crew rostered on reserve. That will give us lots of buffer to keep things moving and is in addition to the 1500 people we’ve hired since Easter.

Wherever you’re heading these holidays, I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Thanks for choosing Qantas.

Alan Joyce CEO, Qantas

Serving up hope

Never will a meal be so satisfying. As part of his Hope Hospitality Foundation charity initiative, chef Neil Perry (left), Qantas’ creative director, Food, Beverage & Service, will soon be serving fresh and healthy lunches in Sydney’s CBD, with proceeds going to provide food to Australia’s most vulnerable. To service the changing menu, the foundations aims to receive donations of thousands of kilograms of produce that would otherwise end up in landfill from a host of collaborators, including chefs and major supermarkets. To see how you can get involved, visit hopehospitalityfoundation.org.au.

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.

Cool new ways to do New York

Walk on a floating park, take in the views from a mirror-clad deck and eat at a Singapore-style hawker centre.

Would you rather dine beachside in Montenegro or relax by the fire at a Greek escape? We’ve got you covered.

It’s time to refresh your travel goals with our round-up of the hottest under-the-radar spots to visit, from Ethiopia to Iceland.

Michael

ART GALLERY OF NSW

The goal of Sydney Modern, the $344 million Art Gallery of NSW expansion, was to provide an art experience “from here, for all”, according to director Michael Brand, who describes it as the most ambitious addition to the city’s cultural landscape since the Opera House. “The new building, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architects SANAA has doubled the gallery’s exhibition space,” he says, “providing visitors with art and cultural experiences only possible here. This is truly the world seen from Sydney.”

Yiribana Gallery, a dedicated First Nations showroom, is the first thing you see when entering the new building, and what lies beneath the surface is equally impressive: a disused WWII fuel bunker four stories underground has been transformed into the Tank gallery, complete with oil-stained walls. Here you’ll find acclaimed Argentine-Peruvian sculptor Adrián Villar Rojas’s eerie,

immersive work, The End of Imagination (until 16 July 2023). Wiradyuri and Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones’s installation, bíal gwiyúŋo (“the fire is not yet lighted ”), will fill a 24/7 public art garden linking both buildings and respond to the site’s history on Gadigal land (from mid-2023), while the newly opened Children’s Art Library in the original building offers sensory and tactile experiences, performances and artist-led workshops for tiny humans with big imaginations.

Brand says the museum’s significance is best expressed by a quote from groundbreaking French artist Marcel Duchamp. “He said that the creation of art begins with the artist – often working in isolation in the studio – but is not completed until it is placed out in the world and viewed by others. So, too, a building comes alive when its occupants make it their own.”

Make it a weekend…

If Italian dining has become something of a high-octane sport in the harbour city then Seta Sydney (setasydney.com.au) – from its marble-columned dining room down to the delicate petals of lobster in executive chef Matteo Vigotti’s minestra di aragosta – is a Formula 1 champion. After a long, sumptuous meal, pull up stumps at Ace Hotel Sydney (hotel.qantas.com.au/acesydney), a haven of urban cool packed with local contemporary art. Whether you’re sipping a Native Australian Negroni with bitter orange and strawberry gum in the sunken lounge at The Lobby Bar (a watering hole far cooler than any hotel bar has a right to be) or indulging in the house-cured salmon waffle for breakfast, the Ace experience feels less hotel than artist’s hangout.

Sydney’s most significant cultural opening since the Opera House promises to be a place everyone can call their own.

MAKING THE CUT

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

1 Movie

For anyone who might have missed the first Avatar film when it arrived in all of its shimmering 3D glory in 2009 (where were you?), James Cameron’s animated allegory for the destruction of the environment finally has a sequel: Avatar: The Way of Water Sam Worthington returns as Jake Scully, now fully immersed in Na’vi culture and ready to fight the army he once belonged to. Co-starring Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldaña as Scully’s wife, Neytiri, and Kate Winslet as Ronal (above). In cinemas 15 December.

2 Podcast

Organisational psychologist and The New York Times columnist Adam Grant, who popularised the term “languishing” during the pandemic, launched another podcast in September. Called Re:Thinking, Grant talks with the pioneering minds of our culture, including Brené Brown, Jane Goodall and Celeste Ng, to find out what makes them tick.

3 Drink

Impress your friends with a highly photogenic, limitededition bottle of bubbly from Champagne Pierre-Jouët (perrier-jouet.com), which is celebrating its 120th year. With just 100 bottles available Australia-wide, Belle É poque 2013 Brut ($380 per bottle) boasts a redesigned version of the brand’s classic 1902 Japanese anemone motif.

4 Books

Two books have landed, capturing very different but equally cult-ish Australian food experiences. The first is Lune: Croissants All Day, All Night by Kate Reid, founder of the Melbourne bakery that many argue serves better croissants than you’ll find in Paris. Buy it to discover Reid’s secrets for the perfect crescent-shaped pastries. And restaurateur Maurice Terzini has released Icebergs Dining Room and Bar 2002-2022 , a celebration of the Bondi restaurant that became an icon. It features playlists and recipes, including the ever-popular No.8 cocktail.

5 Home

Turn your home into a playground with the Freifrau Leyasol outdoor lounge swing seat ($5545; top3.com.au). Designed by German partners Birgit Hoffmann and Christoph Kahleyss, it can be used indoors or out and comes in grey and white with three different frame colours to choose from.

6 Streaming

The first season of Your Honor, starring Breaking Bad ’s Bryan Cranston as a New Orleans judge who tries to cover up his son’s crime against the family of mob boss Jimmy Baxter (Michael Stuhlbarg, above right, with Isiah Whitlock Jr), was Shakespearean in its scope – and its tragic ending. Will Your Honor Season 2 deliver closure? Or another dagger into both men’s hearts? Streaming on Stan from 14 January.

7 Beauty

“Skin cycling” – the latest skincare trend to go viral on social media – involves “cycling” through a different active product each night, from exfoliant to serum or a retinol lotion such as Paula’s Choice Clinical 1% Retinol Treatment ($89; paulaschoice.com.au) so you don’t overload or harm sensitive skin. Coined by New York dermatologist Whitney Bowe, the routine has been endorsed by other experts and is believed to enhance the performance of each product by giving skin time to recover – and by going hard on the moisturiser.

8 Style

If you’re strolling down George Street in Sydney’s CBD and suddenly feel like you’re in an outdoor art gallery, chances are you’ve found yourself at the doorstep of Cartier’s new flagship boutique (cartier.com.au). Sitting on the corner of George and King, over two expansive floors, the store is on a mission to inspire awe in customers and pedestrians alike with a 3D installation, The Australian Dreamscapes, by Melbourne artist Paul Milinski.

THE WAITLIST

NSW Toko

It was a bit of a shock when stalwart Toko, on Crown Street in Surry Hills, shuttered its doors earlier this year. The glamorous, moodily lit izakaya – famous for its smoked miso king salmon, soft-shell crab and yuzu meringue cheesecake – had been part of the dining landscape for 15 years. Thankfully for its many loyal patrons, the closure wasn’t permanent and Toko 2.0 has opened on George Street in the CBD (tokorestaurant.com). Apart from the new address, things remain largely unchanged – from the menu favourites to some of the staff, including owner and menu maestro Matt Yazbek, head chef Sunil Shrestha and manager and sake sommelier Paul Birtwistle. Even the design evokes comfort and joy: the sushi and robata grill counter’s there, as is the private dining room. “It felt incredible to see customers flowing back to the venue and enjoying the same experience and vibe as in Surry Hills,” says Yazbek of the first few days after opening. “We’ve had an amazing response.”

STORY BY ALEXANDRA CARLTON PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEVEN WOODBURN

A Sydney favourite makes a comeback and two big names put out green shoots.

Take a seat

NSW Next Door

The baby sibling to Neil Perry’s Margaret (yes, it’s next door), this chic-but-chilled bar and eatery (30-36 Bay Street, Double Bay) serves antipasti, cocktails and Perry’s famous cheeseburger with sell-your-soul-for-it sauce. No bookings; just wander in from midday, Wednesday to Sunday.

SA Africola Canteen

Another side project – though this one doesn’t sit physically beside its famous parent – Africola Canteen (africolacanteen.com) is in Norwood and the speciality is salads, like broccoli with green goddess dressing and crisp garlic.

TAS Omotenashi

Former Port Cygnet Cannery chefs Lachlan Colwill and Sophie Pope have opened an intimate diner inside the Lexus showroom in Hobart (omotenashihobart.com). With seats for just 12, the format is as much about conversation and storytelling as it is about food.

ACT The Marion

Originally an event space, The Marion on Lake Burley Griffin (themarion.com.au) is now serving elegant weekday lunches – lobster bisque, roast Muscovy duck with puy lentils – best enjoyed on the sunny deck by the water.

GOLD STANDARD

Swiss watchmaking is always a good investment – a Patek Philippe 1518 “Pink on Pink” sold for US$9.57 million (about $14.87 million) at a Sotheby’s auction last year – and the latest addition to the brand’s classic Calatrava collection, which dates back to 1932, is no exception. With a case inspired by the Bauhaus artistic movement, the Reference 5226G merges sleek lines with a vintage military aesthetic.

Blushing beauties

Australian pink diamonds, widely known for their rarity, will never lose their allure. Set in platinum, Calleija’s exquisite hand-crafted Aveline earrings feature 36 precious Argyle pink diamonds offset with sparkling white diamonds that also adorn the earrings’ elegant stems.

Calleija Aveline white and Argyle pink diamond platinum drop earrings / $65,350 / calleija.com.au

The case

This handsome white-gold watch’s refined round case remains a reflection of the first Bauhaus iteration from the 1930s, updated with an eye-catching Clous de Paris hobnail pattern adorning the flanks. As a further demonstration of superior craftsmanship, the guilloched motif continues around the entire caseband with the lugs becoming an integral part of the sapphire crystal caseback, which has an easy-to-wear diameter of 40 millimetres.

The band

The addition of two interchangeable straps – one light, one dark – further enhances the timepiece’s day-to-night versatility. The first contrasts the tactile charcoal dial in beige calfskin with a nubuck finish, while the second

complements in black calfskin with an embossed fabric motif and beige handfinished topstitching, complete with a timeless prong buckle.

The dial

Water-resistant to 30 metres, the textured charcoal-grey dial features a black gradient rim highlighting gold applied numerals and beige luminescent coating.

The movement

This new iteration features a self-winding calibre 26-330 S C movement, the date in an aperture and sweep seconds (meaning the hand glides rather than ticks).

The price

Patek Philippe Calatrava Reference 5226G-001 white-gold watch / $55,200 / from J Farren-Price, jfarrenprice.com.au

INTERVIEW BY NATALIE REILLY PHOTOGRAPHY BY NICHOLAS WILSON

Miranda Tapsell

The actor, podcaster and activist stars in this month’s festive movie, Christmas Ransom , on Stan. Here’s what she gets up to in her downtime.

Right now, I’m reading...

People Person by Candice Carty-Williams. I was a huge fan of her book Queenie. I love that she writes so conversationally and that she makes the characters speak in their Caribbean vernacular. I grew up being taught writing in a very strict grammatical way and I love that creative writing allows more freedom to write the way you would speak.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid was recommended to me by a wonderful make-up artist. We had been talking about losing our attention span for reading when we get busy but this book absolutely grabbed me from the beginning. I didn’t know where it was going to go and it was a lovely story to return to.

The podcast I keep going back to…

The Always Sunny Podcast tends to be a favourite of mine and my husband’s [writer and comedian James Colley], especially going on a long drive. The actors in the TV show, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia , aren’t like their characters but gosh are they naughty. I can’t help but giggle.

The app I use the most…

The book I’ve just finished… What I’m streaming now…

Definitely Audible . I love listening to audiobooks and podcasts around the house. It makes monotonous things like dishes and laundry go faster.

Never Have I Ever. I am a huge fan of co-creator Mindy Kaling. What I wouldn’t have given to see an awkward brown teen when I was growing up. I wouldn’t have felt as isolated as I did.

The last play I saw...

City of Gold by Meyne Wyatt. I’m so proud of brother boy creating this manifesto of his life in Kalgoorlie and of it having such an impact on the people who see it. I hope he writes more, rather than waiting for other people to tell our story.

A great article I read...

My husband wrote a clever and funny article in The Guardian called “In a world of endless sharing, I will not reveal my secret tattoo” He made such a big deal of not showing friends a tattoo he just got (it’s lovingly for our daughter) and then he wrote an article about it. He is an idiot and I adore him.

Beau Brummell Introductions founders Vinko Anthony and Andrea Zaza, photo by Sealeybrandt.com

HAYMAN ISLAND

Exclusive beachfront pavilions are another reason to add this luxury resort to your wish list.

One of the new Beachfront Pavilions (above); Bam Bam restaurant (opposite)

The reset starts on the luxury launch from Hamilton Island. The sun is high in the sky, the water sparkles and for the next hour, there’s nothing to do but immerse yourself in the Whitsundays – and indulge in a glass or two of sparkling wine. And that, right there, sets the tone for a stay at InterContinental Hayman Island Resort (hotel.qantas.com.au/intercontinentalhayman), which was refurbished to the tune of $135 million in 2019 and offers an easy and luxurious short break.

Eat

For an open-air breakfast and an under-the-stars dinner, head to Pacific (and don’t miss the twice-weekly buffet, which features oysters, lobster, Moreton Bay bugs and prawns). Aqua is the poolside eatery that offers moreish fish tacos and bug and prawn rolls, best eaten in your pre-booked cabana, while Bam Bam leans Asian with red sambal fish and a crisp pork po’boy. Amici is the resort’s Mediterranean-style diner, offering casual bites (sourdough pizza) alongside elevated dishes (organic pork cotoletta with nasturtium gremolata and smoked romanesco).

Stay

There are plenty of accommodation options on the island, from Lagoon Suites to Pool Villas, but if it’s privacy you’re craving, the new adults-only Beachfront Pavilions are the go. The 12 standalone pavilions are a 10-minute walk from the main resort and offer seclusion, direct access to the beach and private plunge pools. The rooms are spacious, with a separate living area and covered deck, but the best place to be is on one of the sunloungers with the Coral Sea right in front of you.

Do

Island life may involve swimming in the two epic pools or hiking among the wattle and eucalyptus trees. But the reef beckons and an easy trip that over-delivers is to nearby Langford Island. The resort staff will drop you off in a speedboat and leave you for a couple of hours with chairs, umbrellas and snorkelling gear. Get in the water with tiny cobalt fish the size of coins and milk-coloured fish that float like ghosts. And is there anything more meditative than swimming alongside a turtle as it ascends to take a gulp of air?

Indulge

The spa has 11 treatment rooms, including a private bamboo loft with its own bath and steam room. The one-hour Hayman Recovery kicks off with a back and neck massage followed by a Himalayan salt exfoliation and a facial. Just in case you need a bit more help relaxing...

MC LAREN GT

What makes this McLaren special? Think of the GT as the everyday McLaren. Where many super sports cars have poor visibility or are too rigid, low-riding or performance-orientated for daily use, the British marque has engineered this lithe machine as the antidote, without compromising on excitement. What are we talking here? The GT is the lightest and quickest car in its class, thanks to its carbon fibre chassis and throaty 456kW/630Nm, 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 engine, which is positioned in the middle of the car for perfect balance. It can sprint 0-100km/h in 3.2 seconds and has a top speed of 326km/h. That’s fast. Yep, and it does all of this with enough luggage space for a bag of golf clubs in the rear and a carry-on suitcase in the frunk. What other features does it have? McLaren cars are supremely pointy and nimble, and despite being designed for the road (as opposed to the track), the GT still has typical McLaren razor-sharp handling, which makes it a lot of fun on a drive outside the city. The GT has independent “Proactive Damping Control” suspension, which basically monitors each wheel’s compression and reacts to the road individually so the ride is always smooth, even when the conditions aren’t. Technical! Well, to make a car with a versatility that can switch between high-performance, comfort and ease of use isn’t a simple feat; a lot of development has gone into this vehicle and it’s certainly paid off. How much is it? From $399,995, plus on-road costs. cars.mclaren.com

DUBBO, NSW

“When I returned to Dubbo after two years working in Europe’s hospitality industry, it was pretty hard to find a decent coffee,” says local Alister Dyson-Holland. Happily, the 2015 opening of his own place, Press (pressdubbo.com.au), heralded the start of café culture in the regional city (about an hour by plane or five hours’ drive from Sydney). When Dyson-Holland isn’t fuelling locals and visitors one flat white at a time, he can be found walking his groodles around Dubbo’s parks and trails in Wiradjuri Country.

because it’s dog-friendly –even allowing dogs off-leash in some areas – and the 5.5 kilometre trail is incredibly pretty, wrapping around the river and making the most of the country landscape. I like to walk and to time my visits so I can see the sunset but plenty of people use the Macquarie River Loop for trail running and mountain biking.”

Pastoral Hotel

Dubbo Regional Botanic Gardens

“Located in East Dubbo off Coronation Drive, Dubbo Regional Botanic Gardens (dubbo.nsw.gov.au) isn’t highlighted by local tourism authorities as often as it should be. A morning walk around the Shoyoen Japanese Garden is the perfect start to the day and I always recommend the Adventure Playground to those with young children. It’s epic and has everything from a flying fox to a wheelchair-friendly swing. It gives kids – and their parents – hours of free and easy fun.”

Macquarie River Loop

“There’s no shortage of trails around Dubbo but my favourite by far is the Macquarie River Loop via Tracker Riley Cycleway. For me, it’s an easy choice

“It’s common in regional areas to remove or modernise heritage buildings and they lose their original charm and presence. What I love about the newly

renovated, heritage-listed Pastoral Hotel (pastoralhotel. com.au) is that the folks behind the business have bucked the trend and retained its old-school looks and charm. Located close to Macquarie River, it’s all about good beer and classic pub fare. Grab a seat on the verandah upstairs and enjoy the views of the original colonial shops on leafy Talbragar Street.”

(Clockwise from above, left) Alister Dyson-Holland and his wife, Cristina Gómez; Press café; the Macquarie River

Famous for its progressive zoo, this historic Central West hub is also home to great food and nature trails.

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WELL READ

From the latest novels to laughout-loud reads and classics worth rediscovering, these are the page-turning picks for the month.

The book everyone is reading

Sixteen years since his last novel, The Road, Cormac McCarthy is back with two interconnected novels. Make no mistake, this is a publishing milestone: McCarthy is widely described as one of the greatest living American novelists and while his books are divisive (occasionally tending to brutal violence or inexplicable nihilism), there’s no debate over their cultural impact. In The Passenger, a salvage diver explores a sunken wreck and discovers that one of the dead passengers is missing (400 pages). In Stella Maris, a young woman whose “intellect frightens people” struggles with hallucinations that appear as characters (200 pages). Two books, who the hell knows why, but if they have a fraction of the power of McCarthy’s previous novels they’ll be something to conjure with.

The non-fiction to know about Sisters Vika and Linda Bull are known for a career of raising their voices together in song. Eleven solo albums, four ARIA nominations and decades of joining some of Australia’s best-known musicians – including Paul Kelly and John Farnham – to produce number-one albums and indelible hits. The generosity and warmth you’d expect from the pair is here on the pages of No Bull, a collection of stories that are personal, honest and infectiously funny.

The book you should be reading

As we barrel towards Christmas and the end of the year, it would be quite reasonable to feel a little overwhelmed. Journalist and author Brigid Delaney ’s latest book, Reasons Not to Worry, has the subtitle “How to be Stoic in Chaotic Times” and it’s hard not to think of a better philosophy with which to face the silly season. After re-reading ancient lessons, Delaney has outlined how to approach the modern moment – the result is insightful and surprisingly fun.

The Australian book to read now At some point during the pandemic lockdowns, children’s entertainer Jimmy Rees , better known as a puppet owl’s sidekick by the name of Jimmy Giggle on ABC Kids, became something of a social media sensation. His specialty was a slightly louche rambling analysis of the arbitrary elements of modern life: who did decide that it made the most sense for milk to come in a cardboard box? Resolutely silly and delightedly ridiculous, The Guy Who Decides is Rees’s first adult book and seriously funny stuff.

The classics to revisit If you haven’t read Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, pour yourself a Spritz, find a comfortable seat where you can put your feet up and get ready. Whether you’re enjoying a glorious summer or are holed up indoors avoiding La Niña, these novels are the essential accompaniment.

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a good life

1 Luxury Sofitel Auckland Viaduct Harbour

If you wander into this 90-room waterside hotel (hotel.qantas. com.au/sofitelviaductauckland) in the evening, you’ll feel compelled to whisper. Such is the quiet luxury of the property, a flat kilometre west of Queens Wharf and Britomart, which has counted Barack Obama and U2’s Bono as guests. The sprawling suites with marina views are a high point, as are the elegant yet relaxed onsite eatery La Marée and the performative bottle-popping that happens nightly at sunset at glamorous Sabrage Bar.

BRIDGET DE MAINE

NEW ZEALAND

2 Views Voco Auckland City Centre

The primary attraction of this new hotel is right there in the name – it’s in the thick of the action. But an even greater lure? The good times get better the higher you go (hotel.qantas.com.au/ vocoauckland). Occupying floors

21 to 38 of its tower (the lower levels belong to Voco’s mid-priced sister property, Holiday Inn Express), most of the 201 rooms have uninterrupted views across the city – some even have water views of Waitematā Harbour and out to the islands.

Floor 38 is home to Bar Albert, Auckland’s highest rooftop bar. ALEXANDRA CARLTON

3 Design SO/ Auckland

Four cool places to stay in the City of Sails.

4 Family Cordis Auckland

A brazen black-on-black colour scheme, ornately dressed staff and furnishings tipped (literally) on their heads: guests can be in no doubt that Downtown’s SO/ Auckland (hotel.qantas. com.au/soauckland) is packed with personality. Soaring over the harbour and the Britomart precinct, the location is another drawcard of this 130-room property, as is the 20-metre indoor heated pool, sleek rooftop bar and decadent onsite spa complete with Himalayan rock salt walls. And those deep soaking tubs? No room, or guest, goes without. BRIDGET DE MAINE

With 640 beautifully finished rooms, one of the country’s best homegrown bars (every wine, beer, spirit and even bitters served is from New Zealand) and a sumptuous buffet for breakfast, plus lunch and dinner from Thursday to Sunday (served at Eight restaurant, named for the eight cuisines it offers), Cordis Auckland (hotel.qantas.com.au/ cordisauckland) delivers a hard-to-beat retreat. The Pinnacle Tower is where to book for interconnecting rooms when travelling with your troupe; opt for a room with a kitchenette, if desired.

SAMANTHA O’BRIEN

2

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Santorini, Greece by Steve McCurry

STORY BY BEK DAY

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAM JAM

Live and Sip Sustainable

Make a positive impact by purchasing eco-products from one of our certified wine producers. Green choices also earn 250 bonus Qantas Points on designated Eco- friendly cases.

When Meghan Markle stepped onto the Dubbo tarmac in 2018 wearing jeans by ethical Aussie fashion brand Outland Denim – a social enterprise built on empowering survivors of sex trafficking through skilled employment – several things happened at once. The style sold out within the week, a months-long waitlist blossomed and founding CEO James Bartle was suddenly fielding calls from TV stations. For any startup founder, a brush with the “Markle Effect” is surely the holy grail but Outland Denim isn’t just any startup and Bartle – much like his B Corp-certified apparel line – is cut from a different cloth.

“It was amazing, of course,” he says, “and crucially we could employ an additional 46 seamstresses in Cambodia. But I was quite green and had never experienced growth like that. You make good and bad decisions through those periods… growing too fast isn’t always the right thing.”

It’s this unflinching self-evaluation that led to the creation of the brand’s much-lauded sustainability pillar, developed when the team realised the environmental impact the fashion industry was having on the very communities they were trying to help. Outland Denim now partners with universities and governments around the world to research innovations in something Bartle believes is at the heart of the solution to the climate crisis: “Actively leaving the planet healthier than we found it.” And he reckons they’re close. “We’ve been working on tech for a number of years now,” he says, referring to the development of new fibres that are better for the environment, “and we’re getting very close to launching that into the marketplace.”

While a duchess’s sartorial endorsement mightn’t have been Bartle’s defining moment of professional pride, he happily reveals what was. “Our very first employee came from a sexually exploitative background and used to sleep under a sheet of plastic,” he says. “After a few years working with us, she told us she was able to buy back her sister from a trafficker. I mean, that’s a career high right there.”

Unlock Green Tier Enjoy your rewards

Nothing comes between CEO James Bartle and his vision to make Outland Denim a force for social and environmental good.

James Bartle (above) and Meghan Markle in Outland Denim

Two Best in Show awards at the Decanter World Wine Awards 2022 for exemplary Shiraz from the Barossa’s unique valleys; Eden Valley and Barossa Valley.

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ANOTHER ROUND

Melbourne’s bar scene might have been shaken by the pandemic but it’s also been stirred, snapping back with a wave of cool new openings.

Just seven months after its opening, Caretaker’s Cottage was named number 60 on the 2022 World’s Best Bars list. “Independent ownership defines the Melbourne hospitality scene,” says bartender Matt Stirling, who launched the CBD drinking den with his friends, Rob Uldis Libecans and Ryan Noreiks, in February. “That characteristic has force-propagated openings on the back of our lengthy downtime.”

First winning a loyal local following for their residencies and pop-ups under the Fancy Free banner, the trio has struck a balance

between reverence for good service and precision-made drinks, all the while maintaining an irreverent attitude to just about everything else. Set back from Lonsdale Street in a century-old bluestone vestry, Caretaker’s is possibly the only venue in town as committed to pouring a textbook pint of Guinness as it is to serving a Martini at 18° below zero. Singular a proposition as that may seem, Stirling says it’s emblematic of a Victorian hospitality ecosystem that sustains and fosters growth. “The dam wall just had to give because Melbourne’s bar scene is never going to stop.”

Caretaker’s Cottage in Melbourne’s CBD

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It’s a sentiment shared by the co-owners of Gray and Gray, a wine bar in Northcote that takes the former Soviet republic of Georgia as its inspiration. Friday night finds a diverse crowd wolfing down khachapuri pastries fat with sweet potato, urfa biber chilli and sheep’s cheese custard while downing wines pink and orange. The bar is a collaboration between two American émigrés, baker Boris Portnoy (of neighbouring bakery All Are Welcome) and winemaker Mitch Sokolin. The concept is not something that would have arrived via a corporate think-tank or focus group –serving the food of the Caucasus alongside outré wines inside the 1960s shell of a former solicitors’ office seems like something of a leap of faith, even without a pandemic going on. But Sokolin was charmed by Melbourne’s tight network of small bars and restaurants and figured if it was going to work anywhere, it was here. “I suppose it was a naive vote of confidence in the future, that the sun will rise again tomorrow.”

As the sun sets in Brunswick, meanwhile, the volume is rising. Step across the threshold at Waxflower and its priorities are immediately clear: a bar with interesting beers on tap and wines on pour plus vast speakers from cult audio artisans Pitt & Giblin and a wall of eclectic vinyl. This is one of the more prominent examples of the new wave of venues putting as much care into

Public Wine Shop

What started life as a Fitzroy North retail showcase for the carefully farmed, minimally handled wines that float importer Campbell Burton’s boat has become a local blueprint for the kind of drink-in bottle shop you want in your neighbourhood (publicwineshop.com.au). Plus, there’s a menu of excellent snacks from former Agrarian Kitchen chef Ali Currey-Voumard.

Hope St Radio

Is it a radio station? A wine bar? A restaurant? With Pete Baxter on the pours, Ellie Bouhadana on the pans, Jack Shaw across both

camps and DJs working the decks in the dining room, it’s all of those things and more (hopestradio.community). Start your night with snapper crudo and breakfast radish dressed with ’nduja in the bar and close it out by swirling a glass of something delicious by the fire under the stars. About as Collingwood as it gets.

Zaubertrank

A venue teaming food from Malaysia and Singapore with “blue-chip sour beers” and aromatic white wines from Germany and Austria might not have been the first thing you’d expect from cult Thornbury

Annika Kafcaloudis, Tom Ross

Public Wine Shop in Fitzroy North (left) and Hope St Radio, Collingwood

their Technics SL1200 MK3D turntables and Isonoe analogue mixers as they do their skin-contact Grampians pinot gris and wild dark ales. Waxflower’s success – along with that of fellow audiophile watering holes like Hope St Radio and Music Room at Her – is typical of Melbourne being the Australian proving ground for international trends, according to its co-founder David Byrne. “It’s an innovator in the Australian market but probably more a competitor in its own right in the global market.”

Having made a name for himself in the Brisbane bar scene, Perryn Collier moved to Melbourne in 2019 with a view to opening something new – Pearl Diver is the result. The Chinatown venue celebrates the romance of the seas with a menu rich in oysters and a cocktail list that riffs on the tropical tiki tradition. That could mean a half-dozen rock oysters dressed with crème fraîche and salmon roe or Pacifics cooked à la Rockefeller with warrigal greens in place of the usual spinach. Complement either with the Sea and Shell, a Martini made with oyster shell gin and Maidenii Coastal vermouth. Melbourne is a city that treasures hospitality and Collier says he felt inspired by the esteem his adopted home holds for its restaurants and bars: “It’s this sentiment that gives people the confidence to continue to open new venues.”

bottle-o Carwyn Cellars (zaubertrank.com.au). Rather than try to puzzle that out, jump right in: pair a bright, fresh grüner from Niederösterreich and a plate of prawns blanketed in butter and egg floss and it all makes sense.

Her

This CBD spot (her.melbourne) covers all bases over four levels: a cocktail joint doing French plates and an all-day menu on one; a “turbo-charged canteen” doing Bangkok street food on another; and a lovely terrace bar on the roof. Our pick? For sublime design, great tunes and an intimate atmosphere – not to mention A-grade cocktails – the Music Room is hard to beat.

Yarra Falls

A bar with its own waterfall? There’s more to this city newcomer (381 Flinders Lane, Melbourne) than a lavish indoor water feature and, as the name hints, it’s all about things local, with the path and history of the mighty Yarra River providing the narrative thread. Try riesling from Yarra Valley winemaker Mac Forbes, Martinis made with The Melbourne Gin Company’s wares or the house amaro, made with plants foraged by the team.

sausage on a bun with a glass of Sélosse (or Raveneau or Mount Mary)? You bet.

Caretaker’s Cottage

They call it a pub and they pour a great Guinness but to not recognise this CBD award-winner (caretakerscottage.bar) as one of the most essential spots on the cocktail map would be to miss out on some very fine drinking.

Gray and Gray

Georgian food? That’s the Georgia that’s bordered by Russia, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan, not the one between Alabama, Florida and Tennessee. In this former solicitors’ office in Northcote (breadandwine.com.au), it’s less of the peach cobblers and sippin’ whiskey, more of the adjika, tinili cheese and rkatsiteli wine.

Waxflower

The only thing higher than the volume at this Brunswick smash (waxflowerbar.com.au) is the vibe. Hook into chef Damon McIvor’s smart, flavour-forward plates, grab a pint of something fresh off the tap or hit up the sparky staff for a recommendation from the natural-leaning wine list.

Pearl Diver

Auterra

If you’ve had a gap in your life that’s roughly the size and shape of an upmarket wine bar that teams grower champagnes with luxed-up hotdogs, Clinton McIver and the team from Armadale fine-diner Amaru are about to make your day (auterrawinebar. com.au). Time for merguez

Step off one of Chinatown’s arteries and into a marine dream (pearldiver.com.au). Pearlescent light fittings float on the ceiling, a vintage diving helmet adorns the bar, oysters form the heart of the menu and the flavours of lime, yuzu, coconut, grapefruit and spiced rum perfume the cocktails.

Waxflower in Brunswick

Scan to discover ‘The Spirit of Whiskmas’ mini film here.

STORY BY ALEXANDRA CARLTON PHOTOGRAPHY BY JUDIT LOSH

CRAB SOUFFLÉ AT MONTRACHET

It’s been on the menu for close to 20 years, yet this French flag-bearer never loses its attraction.

Ask the French if their culinary classics should ever be altered and you’ll likely be met with an arched brow. Australians, however? We’re amenable to tweaks here and there, particularly if it results in something lighter, fresher and packed with high-quality ingredients. So goes the tale of this beloved crab soufflé – celebrating 20 years as a signature dish at Brisbane’s Montrachet (montrachet.com.au) in 2023 – which had a respectful refresh at the hands of chef Shannon Kellam when he and his wife, Clare, bought the Bowen Hills restaurant in 2015.

“We refined it by putting more detail into the bisque to make it cleaner on the palate and by switching up the cheese to a 24-month-aged comté from the Savoie region of France, which adds a lovely nutty taste,” says Kellam. He also sources topquality sand crabs from all over Australia and specifically Queensland, when they’re in season. Despite – or perhaps because of – these tweaks, the regulars love it. “It’s the number-one-selling dish in the restaurant.”

In fact, the kitchen plates up between 120 and 150 helpings of the airy entrée, served in a crab bisque and a cloud of the comté,

every week – a huge number for a venue that only seats 40. It’s so popular that Kellam has even set up a cooking school, Lumiere, where he teaches soufflé fanatics how to perfect the rise at home. The secrets to that wobbling, delicate tower? Whisk your egg whites slowly. “The faster you whisk, the bigger the bubbles but the more fragile they are so that’s how you’ll lose air.” And don’t pull your soufflé straight out of the oven. Instead, prop the door open with a tea towel to let cool air seep in gradually. If all else fails, make a booking at Montrachet – they nail it every time.

The Crowd-pleaser

BYRON BAY REGION

Best Italian Belongil Beach Italian Food

It was never going to be easy opening a new restaurant during the pandemic. But renowned Sydney restaurateur Maurice Terzini (of Bondi’s Icebergs Dining Room and Bar fame) persevered to unveil this pastel-pink oasis of relaxed, seafood-centric fare just in time for last summer. It’s the kind of place you can arrive at fresh off the beach across the street for gamberetti fritti and a glass of prosecco (that’s if you’re lucky enough to snag a walk-in table).

33-35 Childe Street, Byron Bay; (02) 8090 6962; bbif.com.au

Best all-day restaurant Shelter

Just south of Byron in low-key Lennox Head, newly renovated Shelter ticks all the boxes: smart yet laid-back seaside setting; friendly service; and interesting breakfast, lunch and dinner menus using local produce. There’s even an aperitivo hour from 4pm. Don’t bother ordering the plump Hervey Bay scallops with XO, preserved lemon and wild rice individually – you’ll want all six in the standard serve.

41 Pacific Parade, Lennox Head; (02) 6687 7757; shelterlennox.com.au

Best neighbourhood hangout Barrio

This large, airy restaurant spills out into the main courtyard of the Habitat complex in Byron’s Arts and Industry Estate. Centred on a woodfired oven and grill (with Argentinian chef Santiago Socrate at the helm), dishes are designed to be shared (and frankly, with options such as Bangalow pork belly with nashi pear and mustard jus, you won’t have much say in the matter). There’s also a coffee counter with pastries and excellent salads.

1 Porter Street, Byron Bay; 0411 323 165; barriobyronbay.com.au

Best Mexican La Casita

Mexican eateries have mushroomed in the shire but few can hold a tamale to La Casita, the sister restaurant of two-hatted Fleet (currently closed). Memorable evenings at this rustic, semi open-air “little house” kick off with a spicy Benny’s Margarita (mezcal, orange, ginger and chilli) and antojitos (little cravings). Follow up with a serving of tacos – the slow-cooked pork with achiote, pickled pineapple and pig’s ear chicharrón is essential.

5/3 Fawcett Street, Brunswick Heads; (02) 6685 1223; lacasita.com.au

Best breakfast Bayleaf

Bayleaf’s owners transformed this centrally located café into a must-visit after taking it over a decade ago and it’s stayed that way ever since. Come for wholesome dishes that taste as good as they look (the scrambled special, laced with salsa verde, is always a winner) and efficient service that keeps the inevitable queue for a table moving. Hit up the adjacent takeaway section for a quick fix.

2A Marvell Street, Byron Bay; bayleafbyronbay.com

Best newcomer You Beauty

Following a short stint at buzzy Bangalow pizza joint Ciao, Mate!, Western Australian chef Matt Stone (now a Northern Rivers local) has opened his first venture, just two doors down. As you’d expect from a champion of the sustainable food movement, You Beauty is all about hyper-seasonal local produce, with a regularly changing menu of dishes designed to be shared. Expect roast chook croquettes, roo skewers, tap beers and natural wines.

37-39 Byron Street, Bangalow; (02) 6687 2626; youbeauty2479.com

There’s sun, sand and plenty of stunning scenery but this laid-back part of northern NSW also serves up some next-level dining.

Best for a night out

Bang Bang

Have you even been to Bali – sorry, Byron – if you haven’t had dinner and cocktails at Bang Bang? Bringing together well-executed South-East Asian favourites and on-trend mod-Oz dishes (crunchy tempura soft shell crab sliders, a rich and creamy massaman curry of braised Wagyu brisket) with a cool cocktail list to match, this loud, moodily lit corner restaurant is a guaranteed good time.

4/1 Byron Street, Byron Bay; (02) 7204 5324; bangbangbyronbay.com

Best fine-diner Raes Dining Room

If Byron people-watching peaks in one place, it’s at Raes on Wategos’ intimate Dining Room overlooking the shire’s famous beach. Formerly of Sydney’s Pilu, executive chef Jason Saxby presides over the Med-influenced menu –a three-course affair with four choices in each (with dishes such as fregola pasta with local shiitake, black garlic, porcini, macadamia and saltbush). There’s also a tasting menu plus vegetarian versions.

6-8 Marine Parade, Byron Bay; (02) 6685 5366; raes.com.au

Best for light bites Bar Heather

Byron’s contentious new Jonson Lane precinct redeems itself with this new bar-restaurant from James Audas and Tom Sheer, the sommeliers-turned-wine importers behind Luna Wine across the road. While the emphasis is on the natural wine list, the lively snack-style food menu by chef Ollie Wong-Hee (ex Sydney’s Ester and Sixpenny and Hobart’s Franklin) is not to be overlooked. Graze on the likes of zingy betel leaf wraps between vinos.

G9/139 Jonson Lane, Byron Bay; 0400 444 944; barheather.com

Jess Kearney

(Clockwise from above) Shelter in Lennox Head; Argentinian chef Santiago Socrate at Barrio; Raes Dining Room

ALBANY, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

The perfect beer batter, sauerkraut on a pizza and produce worth staying in for – chef Amy Hamilton shares her top hits in the Great Southern.

The lures of the Great Southern are obvious to chef Amy Hamilton of acclaimed Parisian-inspired bar Liberté (libertealbany.com.au) in the seaport of Albany. “There’s a view everywhere,” she says. “You can still have a whole beach to yourself here and the beaches are beautiful. And there’s such a diverse range of produce because there are a lot of microclimates within the region.” It’s why, when she stopped here on her way back home to Perth from Melbourne some 16 years ago, she never left.

If you don’t have time to tour the region, your palate still can via the stellar produce used in Hamilton’s Vietnamese-leaning menu. But if you’re in town a little longer, here’s her pick of the best local eats.

STORY BY JESSICA IRVINE

The Naked Bean Coffee Roasters

For brekkie on the go

“Patrick and Mary [McSweeney] are originals on Albany’s food scene (thenakedbean.com.au). Patrick was roasting coffee in the region long before anyone else and Mary is a fabulous cook – she does excellent pastries and snacks. You can sit down but it’s more the kind of place where you smash the coffee, have a snack and go.”

Due South For woodfired pizza

“Right on Princess Royal Harbour is this tavern, where they make really great woodfired pizza (duesouthalbany.com.au). When it comes to toppings, the simpler the better for me but they have this Reuben pizza, which is embarrassingly good; it has corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and pickles. The large windows here mean no matter how busy it is, you can still look out and see water.”

The farmers’ markets

For fresh produce

“What I recommend to anyone coming down here is Albany’s farmers’ markets. There are a lot of Airbnbs around so if you’re staying in one, head to the markets, grab some local

produce and take it back to your place. On Saturdays on Collie Street, the main market has a huge array of produce (albanyfarmersmarket.com.au) – fruit and veg, meat, coffee, honey, bread – and on Sundays there’s the Boatshed Markets (256 Princess Royal Drive), which has seafood. During summer you can get oysters, flathead and blue manna crab.”

Albany Fish & Chips

For the best batter

“It’s one of the originals and the batter is the best – a good beer flavour and the crunchiness is right, too (155 Albany Highway, Mount Melville; 08 9842 1266). I find that so many times you get fish and chips and the batter is just not crunchy enough; it has to be crunchy but it has to be light. It’s about getting that balance.”

Rats Bar

For Great Southern wines

“At Middleton Beach, in this lovely tucked-away area, there’s Rats Bar (albanyratsbar.com.au). It’s a tiny hole-in-the-wall wine bar. Alex [Little], the owner, is a great operator. She has a really tight wine list and good tapas-style snacks. I’ve always loved the cool-climate wines. My pick? It’d be hard to be from this region and not say riesling.”

(Clockwise from above) Liberté; Bred Co at Albany Farmers Market; chef Amy Hamilton; Greens Pool, near Denmark

CRÉMANT

What does it mean when a French sparkling wine is labelled crémant? While wines called champagne come exclusively from the Champagne region, crémant refers to sparkling wines from other French appellations, such as crémant de Bourgogne or crémant de Loire. Are they made in the same way as champagne? Yes, in terms of technique – with a still base wine that undergoes secondary in-bottle fermentation to create the all-important bubbles – but the grape varieties often differ. The grapes used are those permissible under the protocols of the individual wine regions. So, does crémant taste like champagne? Not really. Champagne’s flavour reflects the region’s exceptional terroir – especially its chalkladen soils. The nearest would be crémant de Bourgogne since, as in Champagne, chardonnay and pinot noir are the predominant grapes in the Burgundy region. Cremant d’Alsace includes pinot noir but generally leads with the Alsace heroes – riesling, pinot gris and pinot blanc. Why choose crémant? Taste and price. While we know and love champagne, the diversity of flavours in the crémant appellations adds character and intrigue. For example, crémant du Jura includes the usual suspects chardonnay and pinot noir along with interesting local varieties savagnin, trousseau and poulsard. What does it cost? Most sell for about the same price as good Australian sparkling wine, say $30-$60.

Pierre-Marie Chermette Crémant de Bourgogne

From a top beaujolais grower, this pure chardonnay bubbly is based on the warm 2016, 2017 and 2018 vintages. Brimming with pear and citrus flavours, it has a creamy mouthfeel and a tight, acid-etched finish.

Burgundy, France / NV / $56

Joseph Cattin Crémant d’Alsace Brut

The Cattins have been farming for 300 years with 65 hectares under vine. Their crémant is made from pinot blanc and auxerrois, a sibling of chardonnay. There are Granny Smith apple and lemon sorbet flavours with a lively palate.

Alsace, France / NV / $31

Langlois-Chateau

Crémant de Loire Blanc Brut

Owned by Bollinger, this zippy wine is poles apart from the pinot-powered champagne. It’s primarily chenin blanc, with citrus blossom and nashi pear aromas, intense flavours and a crisp finish.

Loire Valley, France / NV / $36

Tissot-Maire Lapiaz Brut Crémant du Jura

A collaboration between the Michel Tissot and Henri Maire families, this wine combines pinot noir and chardonnay with poulsard, savagnin and trousseau. Apple and honey aromas meld to a juicy palate and mineral-laden finale.

Jura, France / NV / $35

Champagne isn’t the only French fizz fit for toasting.

Ready, set go!

Hotels with epic views. New restaurants in the hottest neighbourhoods. Pinch-me moments in the world’s greatest cities. What are you waiting for?

Los Angeles

Live large in LA with its swanky Spanish bars and cinematic charm. The City of Angels beckons...

Order a cocktail in LA’s coolest neighbourhood

Bar Moruno (barmoruno-la.com), a vivid Spanish dream on Sunset Boulevard, is making its mark on LA’s uber-cool Silver Lake neighbourhood. The woodfired oven turns out Iberian dishes made for eating with gusto: think salt spring mussels with hearty butter beans and chorizo cantimpalo. The drinks list is light, Latin in influence and very LA, with an Espresso Martini kicked up a notch with overproof tequila.

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Enjoy fee-free load options and no transaction fees on spend.1 Plus, earn 1.5 Qantas Points for every AU$1 spent in foreign currency.2 Find out more at qantastravelmoney.com T&C apply. Consider the PDS & TMD. Issuer: Heritage Bank Limited (AFSL 240984).

Ready, set, go!

Anne Fishbein

Spend a day with Oscar winners

Forrest Gump, Titanic, Die Hard – so much of Los Angeles’ culture is tied to its history of hit moviemaking. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures (academymuseum.org) – opened in 2021 – takes you on a deep dive into the filmmaking process and features canonical movies and seminal actors, including Citizen Kane and Bruce Lee. For all the Oscar obsessives, there’s a line-up of golden statuettes and memorable speeches to see – and even the opportunity to present your own (don’t forget to thank the Academy).

Take a spin at Super Nintendo World

The fun and fast-paced Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach are coming to Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Hollywood (universalstudioshollywood. com) in 2023. Visitors enter the bright Mario universe through a “Warp Pipe” and then it’s game mode activated. Take the interactive Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge ride. The kids will love wearing the augmented reality goggles on the roller-coaster as they battle against the famous villain across legendary Mario Kart courses to win the Golden Cup.

New York

These hot new venues will give you another reason to visit NYC.

Stay inside a modern art movement

Dine at the Rockefeller Center’s refined French bistro

TIP:

A tip of 15 to 20 per cent on top of the bill (before sales tax) is standard when travelling through the US. Only tip 25 per cent or more for exceptional service.

1. Ready

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Le Rock’s (lerocknyc.com) fit-out within the Rockefeller Center is all upscale Manhattan, with green-leather banquettes, mahogany tables and patinated brass fittings under soaring ceilings. But the menu plays an elevated French tune, with razor clams, barbajuans (chard-filled and fried bite-size pastries) and Burgundy-style snails. For mains, there’s a riff on steak au poivre, made with bison fillet, alongside a steak haché – a bunless burger served with some of the city’s best fries.

2. Set

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3. Go!

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The 114-room ModernHaus SoHo (hotel.qantas.com.au/modernhaussoho), which opened in mid-2021 in downtown Manhattan, is filled with an extensive modern and contemporary art collection from names such as Alexander Calder, Hans Hartung, George Condo and Kaws. The rooms are big on Bauhaus, blending functional minimalism with reclaimed wooden floors, custom furnishings and geometric sculptures. “Visit the nearby AIRE Ancient Baths for a relaxing spa day, Sadelles for brunch and The Drawing Center and MoMA gift shop for some additional exploration,” says Rene Roman, the hotel’s general manager.

Nikolas Koenig

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Bask in the City of Light’s best views

What was once Paris’ first 24-hour post office is now one of its chicest stays. The H ôtel Madame Rêve (hotel.qantas.com.au/hotelmadamereve), located in the 1st arrondissement, offers 82 rooms and suites, many with balconies giving knockout views of the Eiffel Tower. The interiors are sophisticated – all onyx leather and polished brass – but the pièce de résistance is the rooftop terrace, featuring a hanging garden and spanning more than 900 square metres.

Choose from over 460,000+ hotels worldwide with Qantas Hotels. 4

Throw dough in a Parisian bakery class

Kids will love creating their own piece of French culture by going behind the scenes with A Taste of Paris (atasteofparis.com). In this two-hour baking class, youngsters aged six and up can enjoy getting stuck into some dough, a whole lot of taste-testing and baking their own baguette.

Fall in love with the French capital all over again. Discover a cool brasserie, stay in a luxurious hotel with rooftop views over the city and bake your own baguette in a boulangerie.TIP: Load Euros and reward yourself for shopping and eating your way through Paris. Earn 1.5 Qantas Points for every AU$1 spent in foreign currency with Qantas Travel Money.2

Vibe to tunes played on vinyl

Records line the walls while bartenders curate cocktails over a plywood counter for music-loving patrons – Fréquence (instagram.com/frequenceparis) has all the ingredients for a good time with late-night DJs spinning only vinyl. Expect tipples such as the Superfly, a peach, sake and manzanilla sherry aperitivo. For the peckish, the tight tapas menu features delicious homemade hummus and pita, pork croquettes and onion pickles.

Feast on cinematic fare

Inspired by the mysterious celebrity chic of film director David Lynch’s nightclub Silencio comes a ’70s-inspired brasserie and cinema, Silencio des Prés (lesilencio.com).

Located in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the restaurant is a mixture of retro and Art Nouveau design with bamboo-clad walls and black-leather benches. The kitchen plates traditional French dishes with a twist of drama: try the eggs with Oscietra caviar, beef tartare with fish roe and cloves and Kintoa pork sausage and mash.

Follow van Gogh’s footsteps in regional France

Vincent van Gogh once described Auvers-sur-Oise as the heart of the countryside, distinctive and picturesque. The idyllic French town, with its narrow laneways, lush parklands and opulent Château d’Auvers, is less than an hour by train from Paris and a must-visit for art-lovers and Francophiles alike. On an easy day wandering town, you can take a tour through the artist’s home and the spots that inspired some of his iconic works. Don’t miss the Musée de l’Absinthe, a shrine dedicated to absinthe, where you can enjoy a nip of the legendary “Green Fairy”.

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Ready, set, go!

Singapore

Eat a southern rock lobster charred over flames, drink in the sunny retro vibes of Palm Springs at a rooftop bar, then slip into an Italian designer robe at a stylish new hotel. Singapore is sizzling right now.

Stay in designer digs

In the bustling heart of Chinatown, you’ll find Duxton Reserve (hotel.qantas.com.au/ duxtonreserve), the first of Marriott’s Autograph Hotels in Singapore, which features moody interiors with a black, gold and yellow palette, Chinoiserie screens and calligraphy wallpaper. The revamped hotel offers 49 guestrooms and suites, featuring bathroom amenities by Italian designer label Etro. “The nearby gardens of Tanjong Nagar Park, Duxton Plain Park and Vanda Miss Joaquim Pavilion are really beautiful for a walk,” says the hotel’s concierge, Aladdin Negm.

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Catch the breeze at this Palm Springs-inspired bar

Bringing the technicolour fun of the ’50s to the Lion City’s bar scene, Las Palmas (instagram.com/laspalmasbarsg) is a sunny cocktail bar within the Courtyard by Marriott Singapore Novena. The interiors were designed by Australian Emma Maxwell and feature brightly coloured wallpaper and bleached timber. Have the staff mix up a classic Margarita. Cheers!

Go snorkelling on a tropical island

The green, red and white of Chinese temples contrasts against the cool blue tones of the Singapore Strait on Kusu Island. Named for a giant turtle (“kusu” means tortoise or turtle in Chinese), this little escape is an hour by ferry from Marina South Pier. Snorkel off the coast to spot a sea turtle, visit the tortoise sanctuary or climb to the top of the hill to visit one of the island’s sacred shrines.

Explore the story of the forest

Spot snakes, frogs and wild birds in a digital jungle at the National Museum of Singapore (nhb.gov.sg). Story of the Forest is a mesmerising interactive naturescape set in a glass rotunda at the museum and if you stand still enough, the animated animals might even sneak up close.

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Dine at a produce-to-plate powerhouse

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Perched on the 51st floor above iconic Raffles Place, Kaarla (kaarla-oumi.sg) is a stone- and moss-adorned restaurant helmed by Australian chef John-Paul “JP” Fiechtner. JP brings a sustainable ethos to the kitchen with coastal Australian dishes of market oysters and fire-grilled line-caught market fish with shaved abalone, tarragon and sea greens. Greens and herbs are grown onsite at 1-Arden Food Forest, a sprawling garden atop the complex.

Ready, set, go!

Tokyo

Take on the city with insider tips on where to see the cherry blossoms, drink a Japanese Martini and go on a digital safari.

Walk through an urban forest

From late March to early April, Tokyo explodes into pink and white for Sakura, the cherry blossom festival. Hanami, the practice of flower viewing, is a national event and you are invited. One of the best places to see the petals is The Imperial Palace East Gardens in Tokyo. Access to the garden is free and it offers Instagrammable vistas of the blooms framed by the palace beyond. Next, explore the city with a 20-minute taxi to Yanaka Ginza, one of Tokyo’s famous shopping streets.

Carb load in central Tokyo

Had your fill of sushi and izakaya bars? Flour + Water, near Nakameguro station, offers a different kind of fuel. This bakery produces loaves of shokupan (Japanese milk bread), sweet muffins, sandwiches and miniature pies. After 5pm, the eatery transforms into Dra7 – an Italian dining bar serving thin-crust pizza, such as the Reggiano with jalapeño, garlic and mozzarella.

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Sleep at a boutique hipster hotel

Airy rooms filled with light, timber, glass, black steel and stone add to the cool allure of Trunk Hotel (hotel.qantas.com.au/ trunkhotel). A few minutes walk from some of Shinjuku’s toniest streets, this boutique hotel has just 15 rooms but has a big vibe. Shared spaces include a record player and ceiling projector, which add a welcoming feel. The lobby pours almond-milk lattes by day and Espresso Martinis after dark while the main eatery, Trunk (Kitchen), combines European and Japanese flavours in dishes such as panko and herb-crusted chicken thigh.

Taste a new spirit in a classic bar

At Gold Bar (goldbaratedition.com), which opened in April 2022 in Tokyo’s Toranomon precinct, dark wood finishes and black marble from Spain are offset by (you guessed it) gold adornments and glowing bar underlighting. It’s the kind of place James Bond would drink in, with cocktails like the Martini, Daiquiri and Manhattan reinterpreted through a Japanese lens by highlighting local spirits and seasonal ingredienwts. The snacks menu follows suit, focusing on truffle and Wagyu beef.

Explore a futuristic zoo without animals

Take a walk on the wild side. Well, digitally, at least. At the Zukan Museum Ginza (zukan-museum.com), in the heart of the Ginza district, this “digital zoo” lets you get up close to wildebeests and giant pandas thanks to immersive graphic animations and sound effects. Explore the Japanese seasons with the Stone of Recording, a tablet-like device that guides your adventure through the museum and records the animals you discover along the way.

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London

Upgrade to the West End’s hottest new hotel, then find a chargrilled prawn that tastes like home. The old city is turning up new-world style.

Vintage chandeliers, brass, crimson, mohair and damask adorn the interiors at the first NoMad Hotel (hotel.qantas.com.au/nomadlondon) outside of the United States. The new NoMad London offers 91 rooms, including an opulent Royal Opera Suite with a gold bathtub and tall, light-filled windows. On-site NoMad restaurant reworks some American favourites, such as tender suckling pig served with wild greens. “Be sure to visit my favourite street in London, Lambs Conduit, which is just a short walk from Covent Garden,” says Kristin Millar, the hotel’s general manager. “Take advantage of the prix-fixe lunch menu at Noble Rot, too. It’s the best deal in town with a stellar wine list to match.”

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Eat Aussie classics abroad

If you’re feeling homesick, duck into one of Milk Beach’s (milkbeach.com) two London venues – one in Queen’s Park and the other in Soho – for a refined taste of modern Australian. At its Soho outpost, the restaurant leans into the coastal-chic appeal with a sun-kissed, whitewashed fitout. While it all looks like Bondi inside, expect a Melbourne-calibre flat white, Four Pillars gin in the Milk Beach Martini and delectable South-East Asian flavours in the dishes. The Robata grilled prawns in fermented chilli butter is a must-order, along with Milk’s take on a Golden Gaytime ice-cream.

Manchester

Hotel

Grab an after-hours tipple at the business end

Lace up your boots at the Theatre of Dreams

Embark on a railway adventure for all ages

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Ronaldo, Beckham and Rooney are just some of the big names that have called Manchester United’s (manutd.com) Old Trafford Stadium home. For many die-hard fans of the club and the game, this is a place worth making a pilgrimage to. On the Museum & Stadium tour, you’ll see the club’s Champions League trophies and get to walk through the players’ tunnel and stand pitchside. Don’t go home without your personalised jersey.

Hop aboard a thunderous steam train ride through the English countryside with East Lancashire Railway (eastlancsrailway.org.uk). The journey begins in Bury, a 30-minute drive from Manchester city centre and home to the Bury Transport Museum. Take the kids on one of the historic 20-kilometre train line’s heritage locomotives, stopping in towns such as Ramsbottom, for artisan markets and a brownie tasting plate at the Chocolate Café.

Use the Qantas Travel Money currency converter to view competitive exchange rates. Choose from 10 foreign currencies and lock in the rate to avoid currency fluctuations.1 Be confident knowing what you have to spend while you’re away.

There’s more to this great city than living out a football fantasy.

bar Sterling (sterlingbarmcr.com) – a moody, sexy space – recently opened underneath Manchester’s historic Stock Exchange Hotel. The drinks list is long but you can’t go wrong with a slick Martinez (Roku Gin, Asterley Bros. Estate vermouth, dry cherry and orange bitters). Bar snacks, such as truffle cheese gougères, are provided by Lush by Tom Kerridge, the celebrated chef at the helm of Bull & Bear restaurant, also in the Stock Exchange Hotel.

Ready, set, go!

on fees

Set sail for the wild and grandiose landscapes of the Kimberley, following PONANT’s iconic 10-night itinerary between Broome and Darwin in 2024. Highlights include some of the most picturesque parts of the region such as the Hunter River’s wild mangrove forests where estuarine crocodiles live along with many species of birds, exploration of the King George River and reaching the majestic Twin Falls, the highest falls in Western Australia. You will also visit Collier Bay to admire Montgomery Reef, the world’s largest inshore reef with vast expanses of lagoons and plentiful marine life. Sailing on board modern and sustainable small ships Le Lapérouse and Le Jacques-Cartier, our Kimberley expeditions promise an exceptional adventure!

Montgomery Reef

23 PLACES TO GO IN 2023

New year, new experiences... our hit list of the destinations to head to next

PUERTO

By Alexis Buxton-Collins

“That might look like a simple drink,” Pablo Garcia Smith tells me, “but you’re holding the story of the Caribbean in your hands right now.” Suddenly nervous lest I spill a drop of this precious history, I transfer my attention from the courtyard of a former Carmelite convent to my guide as he provides a brief rundown of Puerto Rico’s past five centuries.

He says that when the Spanish arrived in 1493, they decimated the thriving indigenous Taíno culture and turned the country’s most fertile land into giant sugar plantations worked by enslaved Africans. Rum distilled from molasses proved popular with the region’s sailors, while limes helped them ward off scurvy. Now the combination of those three ingredients, the Daiquiri, is helping me keep the heat at bay.

Next to my drink is a crisp croquette filled with arroz mamposteao, a thick mixture of stewed beans and rice that’s been cooking in spices and pork fat all day. “The name comes from mamposteria , which is the word for ‘masonry’ – some people say that’s because it’s so heavy you can use it as spackling,” explains Smith with a laugh. “But this is what workers ate after a long day in the fields so in a way, Puerto Rico was built on this dish.”

Like all the guides at the Spoon tour company (thespoon experience.com), Smith (top right) was born and raised in Puerto Rico. As we pass between the grand colonial buildings on the narrow streets of Old San Juan, he illustrates how he earned the nickname WikiPablo. Everything from the tropical-pastel hues of the buildings to the blue patina of cobblestones cast from leftover slag is a launching pad for a fascinating anecdote. But while the architecture in this 500-year-old settlement, a four-hour flight from New York, speaks only of the Spanish colonisers, the food provides a more honest record of all the people who have called Puerto Rico home.

We stop to try local favourites like mofongo, a starchy cake of mashed green plantains that has a direct lineage to West African

fufu. Slow-roasted pork shoulder is flavoured with a fragrant mix of garlic, onion, peppers and spices, including annatto and culantro (a native coriander), and hints at a long tradition of communal meals; the word “barbecue” comes from the Taíno language.

At a hole-in-the-wall café, we taste delicate pour-over coffee from mountain plantations started by Corsican immigrants before graduating to a nearby bar for frothy Piña Coladas. The archetypal Caribbean drink was invented here in 1954 to slake the thirst of American tourists, who have been frequent visitors since Puerto Rico became a territory of the United States in 1898.

For Smith, it’s simply another chapter in this beguiling island’s rich story. “We’re part of the US but we have our own unique identity that continues to evolve.”

Find yourself in Tokyo

tokyotokyo.jp

Please visit the Official Tokyo Travel Guide for COVID-19 updates: gotokyo.org/en/

HND Qantas flies from Brisbane and Sydney to Tokyo

J A

By Catherine Marshall

When you think of Japan, driving around in a VW Kombi might not be the first thing that comes to mind. But for Luke Bridgford, the Tokyo-based Australian who founded Overland Campers Japan (overlandjapan.com) in 2021, it’s the only way to travel.

“Japan is an undiscovered gem for road trips,” he says. “It has incredible infrastructure and a rich tourism backbone that is steeped in history.” His company’s collection of nimble, fully fitted camper vans – including the Land Rover Discovery and a rebuilt VW Kombi – equips wanderers with transport, accommodation and the freedom to go wherever the road takes them. “It takes you away from the ‘same same’ experiences.”

Road tripping offers an intimate portrait of Japan; its superlative cuisine (bring on the ramen, tonkatsu and bento boxes), preserved history and natural environment are at their most authentic in the less-frequented prefectures. And opportunities for cultural exchange are amplified when you’re exploring regions that are just “dying for attention”, says Bridgford. “It’s a fantastic way to meet kind, generous, curious Japanese people who haven’t been hardened to foreign visitors in the cities. And it’s cheap! The yen is at a 24-year low.”

Collect your ride in Tokyo, pick one of Overland’s itineraries or choose your own adventure: hike and stargaze in Doshi village, located in a forested valley, 90 minutes drive from Tokyo; or traverse the mountainous peninsula of western Izu Prefecture, 2.5 to 3.5 hours from the capital. From here, descend to a volcanic coastline rimmed with beaches, shrines, hot springs, seafood restaurants and a sublime view of Mount Fuji across Suruga Bay. Campgrounds are plentiful – and you can forget everything you know about shower blocks. “Japan has the onsen culture, with thousands of them all over the country,” says Bridgford. “I encourage people to incorporate bathing as part of their road-trip experience.”

Not hard when you have wheels at your disposal and the back roads as your guide. “You aren’t confined to where a bullet train stops or where a bus might pass.”

(Haneda) and, from March, will begin flights from Melbourne to Tokyo (Haneda). qantas.com

SOUTH AUSTRALIA SOUTH AUSTRALIA

AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA

3By Alexandra Carlton

“We knew it was dark out here,” says Kelly Kuhn, who runs tours into the 3200-square-kilometre River Murray International Dark Sky Reserve with her company, Juggle House Experiences (jugglehouse.com.au). “But when it was measured officially on the darkness scale of zero to 22, our sky measured 21.9.”

Getting International Dark Sky Reserve accreditation for a particular patch of starry sky is a slog and for the community around the Murray River, Lakes and Coorong region of South Australia, it took four years until they achieved it in 2019. Today it’s one of only 20 certified International Dark Sky Reserves in the world and the only one in Australia. Best of all, Kuhn’s tours begin just a 90-minute drive from Adelaide (the Mount Lofty Ranges are a natural barrier that blocks artificial light from the city), which makes the experience more accessible than other stargazing spots around the country.

Our trip into the darkness begins in the daylight. I meet Kuhn’s minibus at the town of Mannum on the banks of the Murray, 84 kilometres east of Adelaide, at about 4.20pm. The sky doesn’t look ideal for stargazing, filled with ominous low clouds, but Kuhn, a born-and-bred Murray River region local, is unfailingly upbeat. “Don’t look!” she says on the drive to our first stop. “I promise, it can change in an instant.”

That promise comes good when our group of eight reaches Maynards Lookout near the town of Walker Flat. We stop to watch the sunset over the limestone cliffs that line the banks of the smoke-green river and, as if on Kuhn’s command, the clouds part. The sky is flint-blue, the cliffs turn a burnt-sugar gold and the sun’s a peach. Pelicans glide silently in the wetlands below and everything else feels absolutely still (winter, according to Kuhn, is one of the best times to visit the Murray because you avoid the winds of the warmer months).

We gaze quietly at the fiery beauty before heading for a classic pub dinner (I choose a very decent schnitty and chips) at the Swan Reach Hotel (swanreachhotel.com). “Even if we don’t see stars tonight it’s already been worth it,” a fellow guest says.

“I love coming here at night because I see a lot of spirits. So if I stop and go a bit quiet, don’t get frightened. It’s just because I’ve seen someone standing there.” That’s the first thing Ivy Campbell, her face painted with the traditional white dots of the Nganguraku people, tells us when we arrive at the stratified rock shelter in Ngaut Ngaut Conservation Park at about 7.30pm. With her daughter, Sally, and husband Sam Stewart, she weaves smoke to welcome us to Country. We follow them into the bush, with the dark, cool night a shroud around us. At the towering cliffs, Campbell points out markings that have been etched into the walls for millennia – turtles, dolphins, human figures, some indicating sacred sites, waterholes and lines and dots that show how far it is to them.

“When the men came back from hunting late at night they never woke up the old people and babies,” she says when explaining the Ngaut Nguat camp’s social structure. “Sign of respect. You would’ve had something said to you… or thrown at you.”

As we go to leave we’re delayed by an echidna, rolled into a fat spiky ball at the base of one of the cliffs. Stewart knows how to pick it up without getting pricked and he expertly wriggles it into his arms then passes it around so we can all have a hold.

“Is that really Saturn or have you put a photo inside the telescope?” cries a member of our group. We’re back at Maynards Lookout and she’s standing on a short ladder to peer through the telescope set up by astronomer Joe Grida. No, Grida confirms with a laugh, it’s the real deal. I step up next and immediately see what she means: Saturn appears exactly as it does in pictures – tilted slightly but precisely spherical with a clear, sharp ring around its centre. I’ve never seen anything through a telescope that looked like much more than a few white dots, maybe a smudge of the Milky Way; this looks like a page out of a school textbook.

I’m no galaxy nerd (come back to me when we’ve found aliens) but Grida manages to make space sound as diverting as the terrestrial world with his stories and star choices: the double dots of Alpha Centauri, a rainbow-coloured mass called The Jewel Box and a globular cluster named NGC 104, which is so far away that its glow takes some 16,000 light years to reach our eyes – in other words, we’re looking back at prehistory.

As the night draws to a close, I turn my gaze upwards towards the staggering celestial world above our heads and feel a twinge of profundity. I’ve witnessed light travelling from beyond time and space, seen ancient landscapes and evidence of thousands of years of civilisation but in the scope of the universe, my life is barely a blip. With that, I bite meditatively into the Milky Way chocolate bar Kuhn hands me and my thoughts turn to bed.

ADL Qantas flies from all Australian capital cities, plus 10 regional centres, to Adelaide.

SONOMA COUNTY, USA

By Noelle Faulkner

If Napa Valley is flamboyant Sydney then Sonoma County, with its creative, boho energy and farm-to-table culture, would be Byron Bay. The two-hour drive from San Francisco is a peaceful journey that heads across the Golden Gate Bridge, through ancient redwood forests and past ocean views to arrive at big skies and rolling emerald hills. Sonoma has more than 400 wineries, nine major cities (most linked by Highway 101) and many small townships stretching from the hills to the sea. The area has experienced a resurgence of late thanks to waves of San Francisco residents relocating here for a more relaxed (and affordable) lifestyle.

The epicentre of California’s farm-to-table movement can be found in Healdsburg, a charming, art-filled city that’s tempted ex-San Fran chefs to take advantage of the area’s richness in wine and produce, sprouting high-end restaurants, including two with Michelin stars. In the middle of town, The Matheson (thematheson. com) is worth booking for its ever-rotating menu of Sonoma wines and locally grown (and foraged) ingredients, including Wagyu beef short rib with corn, porcini, alliums and fermented black garlic. Or opt for an afternoon drink at its lively rooftop bar. From here, take a beautiful half-hour forest drive to Calistoga in neighbouring Napa, where American classic meets Mid-century Modern, with resort-style amenities at the Calistoga Motor Lodge and Spa (hotel.qantas.com.au/calistogalodge).

LAX Qantas flies from Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney to Los Angeles.

Under the Sicilian sun

Taking Maserati’s new MC20 Cielo for a spin in southern Italy is a taste of la dolce vita.

The sun beats down on the roads of Catania as the peaceful silence is interrupted by the high-revving V6 engine of the new Maserati MC20 Cielo – the Italian marque’s latest convertible sports car.

As you cruise through the Sicilian countryside, peeling back the roof of the Maserati takes only 12 seconds at speeds of up to 50 kilometres an hour. The electricpowered rigid roof is a technical triumph made

of glass and covered by a layer of polymerdispersed liquid crystal. The film allows the roof to change from clear to opaque and back again at the touch of a button, giving the new Maserati its name – Cielo being Italian for “sky”.

The convertible has a hard act to follow with its sibling, the 2020-released MC20 coupe – Maserati’s first supercar in 15 years – winning the coveted 2021 Red Dot award for best product design.

With the roof folded into the rear, the convertible MC20 manages to maintain the same boot capacity as the coupe, without sacrificing style.

It was German designer Nikolai Schröck who made the alterations required for the Cielo convertible. Schröck had to redesign the rear of the MC20 to make space for the folded roof to lie sandwiched between a flip-up external cover and the car’s mid-mounted engine.

An increase in the visual weight of the car’s rear was unavoidable but the designer’s skilful shaping of the cover and rear fender does not diminish the Cielo’s beauty.

Beneath the MC20 Cielo’s curved exterior comes the exact same twin-turbo 3.0-litre V6 as the coupe. This Maserati-designed engine is made in Modena, close to the MC20 assembly line, and employs Formula 1-style combustion technology to deliver a hefty 463 kilowatts at a soaring 7500 revs per minute. Those numbers place the Maserati in the elite group of cars capable of accelerating 0-100 kilometres per hour in under three seconds.

The engine – named the Nettuno for ancient Rome’s trident-toting god – drives the rear wheels through an eight-speed double-clutch transmission. If the V6’s exhaust note can’t be heard when driving

roof-up, lowering the cabin’s small back window brings the noise.

You drive a Maserati for the drama. Butterfly doors flick up, opening to a leather and carbon-fibre interior that oozes Italian style and wears craftsmanship on its sleeve.

While low-slung supercars are notoriously difficult to see out of, Maserati has installed a lever on the interior rear-view mirror that switches to a display of the perfect view, provided by a back-mounted camera.

Driving the MC20 Cielo on sinuous Sicilian roads is pure joy. Maserati’s chassis engineers have given this convertible a relaxed athleticism courtesy of a lightweight carbonfibre central monocoque body structure.

The supercar moves easily around corners, barely affected by the 65 kilogram weight increase compared to the coupe.

In default GT driving mode, the MC20 Cielo is an easygoing and remarkably smooth-driving car. However, when you turn the driving mode dial to Sport, the Maserati instantly becomes fiercer and more focused.

Scan to find out more.

GREENLAND

By Ben Mack

The mattak tastes like a chewy boiled egg. Then again, it is frozen narwhal whale skin and blubber, a traditional food in Greenland. It’s distinctive and surprising, as are many things about this island nation of less than 60,000 people between Canada and Iceland.

“The clean tastes, the freshness of the food we get up here, come directly from fishermen or hunters,” says Inunnguaq Hegelund, who runs Arctic Food By I, a catering business that specialises in Greenlandic cuisine. The braised musk ox at Hotel Icefiord in Ilulissat (hotel.qantas.com.au/hotelicefiord) –almost 600 kilometres north of the largest city, Nuuk, and dotted with colourful houses and huge mountains looming in the distance – is a fine example; it tastes like tender beef. Watching building-sized icebergs floating in the dark waters of Disko Bay is equally satisfying.

The property’s managing director, Anders Okholm Gadeberg, says sourcing food locally also promotes the culture. “We’ve even exchanged our [pork] bacon with Greenlandic lamb bacon in order to deliver a more local product and to reduce our carbon footprint.”

Ilulissat (“icebergs” in the Kalaallisut language) is a wonderland for nature-lovers, with whale watching, snowmobiling, dog sledding and raw, glacier-carved landscapes to explore. White snow covers everything in winter like thick vanilla icing on a cake.

I feel small looking out on the inky sea from the ferry Sarfaq Ittuk (aul.gl), which sails between Qaqortoq, in Greenland’s far south, and Ilulissat every week from April to January. While passengers can get on at any stop along the route, the price increases the further you travel and if you make the eight-day round trip. The five-deck ship is cosy but it has a small cinema and a restaurant serving international and Greenlandic dishes like reindeer spaghetti.

I board in Nuuk and the three-day voyage north to Ilulissat stops at charming villages such as Kangaamiut – with its homes painted in cheery rainbow hues, as they are throughout Greenland – and plenty of opportunities to spot whales, seals and other Arctic wildlife from the indoor viewing lounge.

“Sailing on Sarfaq Ittuk is an authentic experience of travelling like and with the locals, a way of travel that has connected towns and villages for generations,” explains Aviâja Lyberth Lennert, CEO of the Arctic Umiaq Line that the ferry is part of.

The frigid environment and shimmering colours of the aurora borealis seem a world away from Australia but Tanny Por, a travel professional originally from Sydney, says there are similarities.

“The first time I landed in Greenland, I was surprised by the moon-like landscapes,” she says. “Its ice cliffs and snow were the stark opposite of sweltering summer in Australia but in these contrasts I found many similarities, too. This includes the stories of the local people – the resilience of Indigenous culture.”

NEW CAS

NSW

The lobby of the QT hotel

By Natalie Reilly

“You’ve come at the right time,” the surf shop owner tells me while my husband looks for shorts. A last-minute weekend away with my family in Newcastle, just over two hours north of Sydney (about as long as two kids under 10 can take in a car), means we rushed packing to beat the Friday afternoon traffic. Like almost everyone we meet here, he’s welcoming and friendly. “There’s lots of new places but not too many people yet,” he says. Looking at the busy restaurants, luxury stays and cool boutiques, it’s clear “Newie” has morphed from the pit stop I knew as a kid into a cosmopolitan city, without losing the relaxed atmosphere and beautiful beaches.

It’s 3pm when we check in but the QT hotel (hotel.qantas.com. au/qtnewcastle), a couple of blocks from the beach, is bustling. “That’s the place to be,” a local tells me later. “The rooftop bar is always full, especially on weekends.” Like all QT hotels, this outpost, which opened in June and is an essential part of the city’s renaissance, has an eclectic aesthetic that includes a gigantic full moon hanging from the ceiling in the lobby, retro photos on the wall outside our room and a mirrored lift that plays dance music when we step in. “This is like a circus!” exclaims my nine-year-old son. Our concierge has pink hair and personifies the Cirque du Soleil vibe; my six-year-old daughter becomes entranced after they bond over her Care Bear – the “pet” she insisted on bringing after learning that the hotel allows furry friends. A faint meow heard from the room next door confirms this, to her wide-eyed delight.

Just as the sun’s going down, we wander two blocks to one of Newie’s best-loved institutions: Scratchleys (scratchleys.com.au). It’s right on Queens Wharf and though it’s early, the place, like every other restaurant around, is jumping. My husband and I make the most of the fresh seafood menu, ordering salt and pepper

calamari and yellowfin tuna, my daughter chooses an enormous bowl of spaghetti (which they made especially for her), while my son tucks into a plate of hot chips as big as his head.

Next morning, after poached eggs and bacon at the QT, we explore the city by light rail, hopping off at the Honeysuckle stop to grab lunch at Neighbours café (neighboursonmarketst.com.au), where I devour the greatest hash brown I’ve ever known. Then it’s up to Nobbys Beach (above, left) to burn off some energy. After walking the pedestrian underpass, we find ourselves with front-row seats to the ocean. A group of surfers are bobbing on the waves in their black wetsuits and if you squint they could be seals. “Look!” I try to explain it to the kids but they’re too busy eating icedchocolate gelato from Estabar (estabar.com) and digging their toes in the sand. Next stop is Nobbys Lighthouse, a 20-minute walk away, perched on Nobbys Head like a candle stuck on a cake. The clouds are darkening and, minutes later, lightning strikes the lighthouse, to startling effect.

An early dinner appeals, which is lucky, as the only seating available at hip Asian diner Light Years (lightyearsasiandiner. com.au), is at 4.30pm. With its peachy décor, loud music and cocktail selection, the place feels like a day club. We take the waiter’s advice and sell the Fire Cracker Chicken (above, right) as nuggets – the kids buy it.

On the way back to the hotel we make an essential detour to Vera’s (verawine.com.au). Ex-Melburnian Florence co-owns the wine shop with her husband, Josh, who grew up in Newcastle. The couple only meant to spend a year here but were hooked by its beachy summer feel and stayed. She’s telling me about a bright white when my daughter interrupts, pointing to a tiny dog curled up near the counter. “That’s Jelly,” says Florence. My daughter reaches for a pat and Jelly stretches out a paw. Even in grown-up places, there’s still plenty of fun for the kids.

Sydney’s red-hot racing event

Feel the rush from an island, boat or Barangaroo when SailGP hits Sydney Harbour this summer.

“This isn’t traditional sailing,” says Tom Slingsby with a smile. “F50s are up on hydrofoils, flying about a metre above the water and capable of speeds up to 100 kilometres an hour.”

The Olympic gold medallist – and driver of the Australia SailGP Team – will be racing in the KPMG Australia Sail Grand Prix | Sydney on 18 and 19 February 2023. Nine international sailing teams will be carving up the postcardperfect waters of Sydney Harbour in flying F50 catamarans.

The ninth leg of the globetrotting, fast-paced racing series, now in its third season, will see the world’s best sailors duke it out – and Australia will be vying for a third win on home waters.

The best vantage point to catch the action of this family-friendly event is through the Genesis Island Experience. Located on Sydney Harbour National Park’s Shark Island, the waterfront seats are right in the middle of the race course and ticket holders (ages five and

up) will get boat transfers from Barangaroo, a gourmet picnic hamper and access to an open bar, while a DJ and live race commentary bring a summer-festival feel.

Fancy catching the action from the water? Jump aboard a SailGP spectator boat that gets inside the public exclusion zone. Keen sailors can secure an exclusive on-water viewing position with Adrenaline Yachts –limited charter options are available for corporate or private use so get in quick.

Crank the experience up a notch by going behind the scenes at the SailGP Technical Area, with a Team Base Tour. The 45-minute tour of the “pit-lane garages”, led by the expert hosts, offers a detailed look at the engineering of the high-tech F50 catamarans.

Back at Barangaroo, the SailGP Village features its own exciting program. Watch the SailGP F50 catamarans pre-race fly-by parade, order a drink at a pop-up bar or drop into a Q&A with SailGP athletes.

The Australia Team is currently in first place on the season three SailGP championship table. A Sydney victory could prove vital in the reigning champions’ bid for a third consecutive title and a cool US$1 million in prize money.

“The best sailors in the world have signed up for this,” says Slingsby. “We’re very keen to make sure Australia stands on top of the podium.”

Get tickets at sailgp.com/sydney

Presented by KPMG Australia Sail Grand Prix | Sydney

The KPMG Australia Sail Grand Prix | Sydney is supported by KPMG, the New South Wales Government through Destination New South Wales and Genesis.

CROATIA

By Bek Day

Croatian delicacy peka – aromatic lamb or octopus with vegetables slow-roasted in metal pots over fire (above, right) – is, like so many traditional recipes, more than the sum of its parts. Locals say the dish requires a special alchemy of an ideal cooking environment, a worthy occasion and a healthy dose of sreća (good fortune).

It’s fitting then that you should first encounter the dish while watching a dipping Mediterranean sun paint lavender fields pink, a glass of Bogdanuša (made from a white grape grown exclusively on the sleepy island of Hvar) in hand. Hora Farm, organic producers that sit in a valley in the UNESCO-listed Stari Grad Plain, is just one of the jewels on Sail Croatia’s Restaurants Route private yacht tour (sail-croatia.com) – one that will immediately earn a spot on your bucket list of travel moments.

The food-focused journeys run for seven days between April and October and spotlight a lesser-known drawcard of Croatia: its gastronomic scene. Customisable itineraries reveal the

Dalmatian Coast’s glittering ports through visitors’ tastebuds, something Sail Croatia’s director Grant Seuren says his guests rave about. “You’re able to curate your own itinerary – visit all of the destinations you’ve researched in advance or take on your skipper’s recommendations of local, hidden gems.”

A typical day onboard (the yachts range from six to 10 berths) begins with breakfast on the water before setting sail for a secluded bay where swimming, stand-up paddleboarding and 360-degree vistas floating on the sparkling Adriatic await. Each afternoon, you’re free to explore a new port, with a suggested (but optional) dining experience. It might be fresh local seafood at waterfront restaurant Trica Gardelin in Vrboska, a wine-paired tasting menu 250 metres above sea level at award-winning Jeny in Tučepi or tuna tartare and rice bread at Zori in the picturesque Pakleni Islands.

For Seuren, the village of Milna on Brač Island has a special place in his family’s heart. “The town is surrounded by these fragrant pine trees and beautiful secluded bays. We’ll anchor up and spend the entire day just swimming and relaxing.”

By Catherine Marshall

Bhutan’s essence is distilled along the Trans Bhutan Trail, a Buddhist pilgrimage route that fell into disuse in the 1960s. In 2018 the King spearheaded its restoration by volunteers and workers furloughed during the pandemic and it reopened in September.

Extending 403 kilometres across much of the country’s breadth, the path swoops up forested mountain passes and plunges deep into river-laced valleys. Tradition and ritual stir beneath your feet: since at least the 16th century, pilgrims have passed through the villages, farmland, temples and monasteries strung along the route on their way to sacred sites in western Bhutan and Tibet.

Set aside a month – in autumn (September to November) when skies are clear or spring (March to May) when the rhododendrons bloom – to complete the trail on foot. Or sample sections on a leisurely exploration with COMO Hotels’ Jewels of Bhutan itinerary

(comohotels.com). Bhutanese culture suffuses every detail at COMO Uma Paro in the Himalayan kingdom’s gateway city, Paro, and COMO Uma Punakha, overlooking the Mo Chhu River in Punakha Valley: the dzong-style buildings trimmed with carved window frames and topped with turrets; the driglam namzha (Bhutanese code of etiquette) that informs a practice of cultured hospitality.

From these lofty perches, the Land of the Thunder Dragon opens like a storybook fluttering with prayer flags and brimming with folklore, archers raising their bows, ruby-robed monks lighting butter lamps (with candles fuelled by yak butter), Buddhist chants spiralling heavenwards and spilling over valley walls. Reserve some energy for the hike up to Taktsang (Tiger’s Nest monastery; above, right), which has clung to a granite cliff edge for centuries. Your efforts will be rewarded with a long soak in the bathhouse at COMO Uma Paro’s Shambhala Retreat and a feast of specialities – dumplings with radish and mustard greens, riverweed and egg drop soup – concocted from the valley’s bounty.

By Ben Mack

Sleeping deep in the dense bush of the North Island doesn’t seem so daunting – at least not in the big, soft bed at Te Whare Ruruhau (owhaoko.com), beneath a skylight that reveals the shimmering spiral of the Milky Way. There are no roads to the luxury twobedroom property, which is a 25-minute chopper flight from Taupō Airport, but once you’re there you’ll find all the essentials, plus a fireplace, large outdoor soaking tub and a fully stocked kitchen. But it’s what’s outside that beckons: almost 7000 hectares of native wilderness with walking trails, a swimming hole, mountain springs and towering forest.

AKL Qantas flies from Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney to Auckland and, from June, will start flights from New York to Auckland. qantas.com

Banana Shire Mayor Nev Ferrier says there’s more to this small Central Queensland town than its famously big heart.

As told to Di Webster

“I moved to the Banana Shire, 120 kilometres west of Gladstone, in 1965 when I was 12 years old. I still work a small family farm in Dululu, 75 kilometres from Bilo. Biloela’s our biggest town by far and it’s very multicultural. You can go to the local state school and hear 20 different languages! If someone needs a hand, everybody helps; it doesn’t matter what religion or race you are. We’ve just got everything here. Lake Callide is seven kilometres out of town. They catch barra a metre long out there; you can hire a kayak and other water-sport equipment and go for a bit of a paddle. And there are cabins where it’s just magic to settle down

and watch the sunset. My favourite spot is the Dawson River, which runs through Taroom, Theodore, Moura and Baralaba. There’s a lot of free camping and the river hardly ever stops running so people go there for waterskiing and freshwater fishing. It’s beautiful.

Bilo has three pubs – the top pub, the bottom pub and Hotel Settlers. I can’t pick a favourite – I get into enough trouble – but if you want a feed, you can get a really, really good steak in town. I take visitors to the two terrific bakeries but you can get healthy tucker at The Rabbit Hole and, my word, Rita puts up a lovely Vietnamese dish at Rita’s Blue Café.

The land around the town is pretty flat but mostly nice and green because we’ve got good irrigation. I reckon April to November is the best time to visit. We can have a frost in the morning and by 8 or 9 o’clock you’re walking around in a shirt. We’ve got a few festivals in winter but the biggest one is the multicultural day when we close off the street and everyone gets dressed up. By gee, they bring out some beautiful clothes.”

BILOELA, QLD

ZAMBIA

By Catherine Marshall

Etiquette is flouted during wild mango season in Zambia’s South Luangwa Valley, when elephants saunter through the lobby of Mfuwe Lodge (bushcampcompany.com). Unwittingly built across an ancient elephant path in 1962, the lodge’s refurbishment in 2010 didn’t deter the hungry mammoths who, between the months of October and December each year as the mangoes fall, simply climb the steps to the open-sided reception area to check out the facilities or take a nap (in the case of calves) before exiting in the direction of fruit-laden trees. Human guests are herded to safety, where they can watch the procession from behind the reception desk or the adjacent bar and dining area (where wild mangoes are off the menu).

LUN Qantas flies from Perth and Sydney to Johannesburg, South Africa, with connecting flights on partner airlines to Lusaka, Zambia. qantas.com

By Bridget De Maine

Picture white sand, swaying palms and warm, clear water only a few hours flying time from Australia’s east coast. (Then brush up on your French.)

New Caledonia, a French territory of sublime natural beauty, rich Indigenous heritage and Gallic-influenced gastronomy, is just two hours by plane from Brisbane but still a bit of a secret. Head to L’Atelier Gourmand (lateliergourmand.nc), a chain of boulangeries in the capital, Nouméa, for its lauded baguettes, best paired with a wedge of imported French cheese found on local supermarket shelves. From here, the fringes of the world’s second-longest coral reef are just a five-minute drive away. If you’re seeking Elysian scenery, you’ll find it on l’Île des Pins (Isle of Pines). This pinprick of an island, just south of the territory’s largest, is where that cyan sea and icing-sugar shoreline seems almost unreal – stay as long as you can at the luxurious Le Méridien I’ Î le des Pins (hotel.qantas.com.au/ lemeridieniledespins) to make sure you’re not seeing things.

NEW CALEDONIA

NOU Qantas flies from Brisbane and Sydney to Nouméa.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

By Bek Day

01. CYGNET BAY PEARL FARM

At Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm (hotel.qantas.com.au/cygnetbay pearlfarm), about 200 kilometres north of Broome, the only place you’ll find colours more spectacular than the inside of an oyster shell is in the sky at sunset. Located on Bardi Jawi Country on the Dampier Peninsula – a collision of white sand, red earth, purple skies and the endless blue of the Indian Ocean – the oldest working pearl farm in Australia gives guests a fascinating glimpse into the region’s spoils. A recent large-scale 2WD-accessible upgrade has seen the addition of 15 glamping tents, with aircon, ensuites and king-sized beds, that let guests wake up to birdsong and waves year-round. But it’s the incredible beauty of the Kimberley coastline and the sacred connection of its Traditional Custodians that make this place so special. Not to be missed is a day out with Terry Hunter (opposite), a Bardi man who grew up on the Peninsula. Follow him to the freshwater spring in the sand, learn where to find bush honey then finish the day eating smoked oysters.

02. SAL SALIS, NINGALOO REEF

From the air, you’d be forgiven for missing the 16 sand-hued safari tents that comprise Sal Salis (hotel.qantas.com.au/salsalis), a luxury eco camp nestled 1300 kilometres north of Perth, footsteps from the turquoise playground of World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Reef. The camp’s fusion with the surrounding scrub is in many ways the point: a stripping back of the barriers between beauty and the beholder. But while guests may feel at one with the elements, three-course meals starring fresh local seafood, as well as handcrafted jarrah beds, certainly cushion them from all but the most pleasant. Guided snorkelling, walking and kayaking excursions are included but the real story here is the whale sharks. An estimated 300 to 500 of these caravan-sized creatures migrate annually from mid-March to the end of July, and swimming alongside them is a bucket-list item for a reason. Mainly because it’s so hard to describe, says lodge manager Nick Day. “You don’t fully understand it until you’ve done it. It’s almost impossible to wrap your head around seeing something of that size swim so peacefully past you.”

03. FARAWAY BAY

Showering atop a rocky outcrop, encircled by eucalypts and with the Timor Sea before you, you’ll have one of those snapshot-intime moments (or at the very least, one of the best showers of your life). With no roads in or out and access strictly by air, Faraway Bay (farawaybay.com.au) is less a whimsical retreat name than geographical fact. About 280 kilometres north-west of Kununurra, the exclusive camp is one of the most remote bush retreats in the country. Eight luxe eco-cabins hold a maximum of 16 guests, who can fill their time fishing for barramundi, absorbing 12,000-year-old Aboriginal art (the surrounding cliffs and caves boast some of the best examples of Gwion Gwion rock paintings in existence) or chasing waterfalls to paddle in crystalclear freshwater swimming holes. Communal-style feasting happens three times a day at the clifftop Eagle Lodge, where gourmet offerings showcasing local produce are dished up under the keen eyes of circling sea eagles.

LAKE GARDA, ITALY

Pear tarte tatin with a glass of chiavennasca at MoS Ristorante (top left) and alfresco aperitivi (bottom right) in the Porto Vecchio district of Desenzano Del Garda, a resort town on the south-western shore of Lake Garda

Photography by Lean Timms

FCO Qantas flies seasonally from Perth to Rome and year-round

By Di Webster

After seeing the 2017 film Call Me By Your Name, parts of which were filmed around Lake Garda in northern Italy, Canberra-based photographer Lean Timms knew she had to go there. “When I arrived, the sun was setting behind me and catching the glass of a building on the other side of the lake. Not only was the sky in front of me awash with pink but it gave the clear blue water an almost transcendent glow. With the alps in the background, it was so special.”

And the hits kept coming. “The local freshwater seafood is incredible and I had this spaghetti dish with dried bottarga [fish roe] that I’ll never forget.”

Need more encouragement to visit this lower-key alternative to Lake Como? “The old port, with little wooden boats bobbing in the setting sun, is a stunning place for an afternoon spritz.” We’re already there.

Porto Vecchio in Desenzano Del Garda (left); crates of mineral water in Sirmione (above, right), on Lake Garda’s southern shore

from Melbourne, Sydney and Perth to London, with connecting flights on partner airlines to Rome. qantas.com

SEOUL,

SOUTH KOREA

By Erin Craig

Cherry blossoms are a botanical poem to life’s fleeting beauties, covering the trees in pink and white lace for two brief weeks each spring. The phenomenon is most often associated with Japan, with few outsiders knowing about South Korea’s spectacular cherry blossom display. In fact, you can track the season’s progress in South Korea by its flower festivals. It all starts in late March with the Jinhae Gunhangje Festival (culture.changwon.go.kr), a four-hour car ride south of Seoul. You’ll be richly rewarded, as 360,000 trees transform the port district into a fairytale.

Seoul’s blooms peak in early April and busy Yeouiseo-ro becomes a pedestrian thoroughfare for the Yeouido Spring Flower Festival (blossom.or.kr). Eighteen hundred cherry trees (including rare native Jeju Kings) canopy the 1.7-kilometre road, where food trucks and K-pop stages can’t compete with the century-old practice of strolling beneath the illuminated trees at night. “Visit the festival after sunset,” suggests Surin Jeon, manager of the district’s Culture and Sports Department. “You can get very beautiful photos with the cherry blossoms coloured by lights.”

DISCOVER A PICTURE-PERFECT PALACE

Set against the red pillars of Changgyeonggung Palace (cgg.cha.go.kr), delicate blossoms create an exquisite anachronism. The disused 15th-century palace became a park in 1909 and the cherry trees arrived a few years later – imported by the thousands during the Japanese occupation of Korea. For decades, the palace was synonymous with springtime. “Millions of people came every year just to see the cherry blossoms,” notes historian Jihoon Suk.

Seoul’s five palaces were restored in the 1980s and 1990s but some things remain the same at Changgyeonggung’s Okcheongyo Bridge — the 500-year-old structure is veiled in petals during blossom season. Mountain cherry blossom trees grow in the Secret Garden of neighbouring Changdeokgung (cdg.go.kr), while Deoksugung’s (deoksugung.go.kr) enormous weeping cherry tree makes a great photo against the white columns of Seokjojeon Hall.

AVOID THE CROWDS

In the early mornings, Yangjaecheon Stream (seocho.go.kr) is a dreamscape of pink and white flowers against a watercolour sky. Rent a public bike with the Seoul Bike App (bikeseoul.com) for a leisurely five-kilometre pedal along the tree-lined waterway. Head to Seoul Forest Park (seoulforest.or.kr) on weekday afternoons, where the Culture & Art section is the place for picnics beneath the blooms. Grab supplies from Under Stand Avenue’s (understandavenue.com) hip eateries via Seoul Forest Station’s exit 4.

ICN Qantas flies from Sydney to Seoul.

By Sandra Bridekirk

As I float on my back beneath the stony gaze of the sacred Red Dragon, spray from the sky-high Mo’oula Falls tickling my face, the true meaning of aloha echoes in the steep volcanic valley walls and lush rainforest around me. “It means love,” says Greg Solatorio, whose family runs Halawa Valley Falls Cultural Hike (halawa valleymolokai.com). “Not hello, like everyone tells you,” he adds, grinning. Solatorio’s family farms their ancestral land for kalo (taro), like many of the island of Moloka’i’s 7000 inhabitants, and takes pride in living and teaching the spirit of a Hawaii far removed from the leis and hula of popular culture. Most visitors who take the half-hour flight from Honolulu stay in the unofficial coastal capital of Kaunakakai; from there, Halawa Valley is about an hour east, along a winding stretch of hairpin bends. Beginning with a traditional welcome ceremony and talk, the four- to six-hour guided hike takes you past the ruins of an ancient Hawaiian settlement, over boulders and streams and through a larder of wild-grown pomelo, sweet strawberry guava and pungent noni. The cooling dip is our last stop and just one of the many attractions of this under-the-radar idyll.

MOLOKA’I, USA

Mark Edward Harris

HNL Qantas flies from Sydney to Honolulu. qantas.com

L A S K A, U S A

By Dilvin Yasa

The park ranger is proud of us, he wants to make that very clear: “Look at you guys shivering in that icy rain and wind!” His chipper voice booms over the loudspeakers as we, his humble cruise passengers, shrink into our wool-lined coats. “I know the weather can be hard to take but I promise that if you persevere out there on the deck, you’re going to see things you’ll be talking about for years to come.”

Icy shards of rain pelt my cheeks from all directions and my teeth chatter as though keeping time with a particularly aggressive drum solo. Beside me, my 13-year-old daughter moans that her fingers are almost too frozen to message her friends. She somehow manages one quick “My mother is trying to kill me” missive, along with a faux-fur-trimmed selfie. Just as I’m about to admonish her, something else happens: the high-pitched call of bald eagles soaring above, followed by a thunderous crack that reverberates around the bay. We watch as a large chunk of ice breaks away from Margerie Glacier and tumbles into the sea, its waves freezing mid-movement.

“Go ahead and give yourselves a pat on the back!” the park ranger erupts with joy, as though we’re all somehow personally involved in the calving of the glacier. “Then go inside and treat yourselves to a hot bowl of soup the team has waiting for you. Just know that I’m proud of each and every one of you!”

Many things have brought me to Alaska. One is my desire to see brown bears popping flying salmon like mints. The other is the MS Koningsdam, a Pinnacle Class ship with Holland America Line, which I boarded back in Vancouver for the seven-day Alaskan Inside Passage voyage (hollandamerica.com).

Some of the 2650 passengers book to hit all of Alaska’s highlights in one: fishing for salmon in Juneau; discovering Skagway’s gold rush history; cruising around Glacier Bay National Park. Others choose it because Holland America Line has been cruising this renowned wilderness region for 75 years and reassures with its level of experience. Me? I’m on a mother-and-daughter holiday with my wildlife-obsessed teenager so while I appreciate the classic décor and the elevated dining onboard, I’m not ashamed to admit I’m most enamoured by the fact that this cruise ship company eschews bells-and-whistles family activities like thrill slides and go-karts. Without these to distract her, my daughter is encouraged to bond with her mum (cue hours of intense Jenga and trivia sessions interspersed with air guitar performances in the Rolling Stone Rock Room).

A significant part of the trip is focused on optimising opportunities to view the state’s “big five” (bear, moose, dall sheep, wolf and caribou), as well as its marine life. Time on board MS Koningsdam quickly turns to celebrating – or commiserating –what others have (or haven’t) seen. “I just saw three bears catching salmon by the river!” a man screams as he tears into the onboard food hub, Lido Market, his declaration an invitation for strangers to give him high fives and crane their necks over the blurry images

captured on his phone. “I was picking berries and when I looked up, I could see a moose staring at me through the trees!” a woman responds with the same volume and emotion. High fives all round. My daughter’s eyes are like dinner plates but while she’s thrilled with the idea of finally seeing bears in the wild, she remains pragmatic. “In my head, we hug the bears and wrestle with them but the reality wouldn’t be so… picturesque, huh?” she says, smiling.

Like matchmakers with a Rolodex, the liner’s team do their best to introduce us to the wild and woolly locals and arrange for national park rangers and Native tribe members to lead workshops and lectures through their Alaska Up Close program. In between flower-arranging demonstrations, massages in the Greenhouse Spa & Salon and eating endless seafood feasts across the ship’s 11 restaurants (the cruise line has partnered with Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute to serve sustainably sourced local seafood), my daughter and I attend a “how to spot wildlife” session and gaze out at the seal-sprinkled glaciers and pods of whales as we listen to the rangers. We’ve got this, I think.

Disembarking in state capital Juneau, where colourful timber buildings lean into one another as though huddling from the cold and shapely crab legs stick out of tabletop buckets in a way that reminds me of supermodels sliding out of cars, a conga line of stores advertise fur bikinis, diamonds and arrow tips. “We need to have this,” my daughter squeals inside a Christmas store as she holds up a particularly violent Santa Claus ornament, the generally jolly character clutching both a rifle and the remnants of one of his reindeer. We buy it then take it past the fisheries swarming with leaping salmon (dozens of bald eagles circle overheard hoping for a free feed) to nearby Mendenhall Glacier and take photos in which Santa looks poised in wait for his next game trophy. Delighting in our grisly joke,our laughter can be heard well into the evening as we settle into a fireside Alaskan salmon bake held in a riverside clearing of the Tongass rainforest.

In Skagway, a gusty gold rush town so pretty it looks like a movie set, we chug through mountains on a three-hour White Pass scenic railway excursion but the only wildlife we find is reindeer sandwiched in a hot dog bun back in town. In Ketchikan, an all-terrain vehicle tour through the apparently fauna-rich rainforest is exhilarating yet fruitless (those on the float plane excursion have more luck) but we do come across a taxidermy store dedicated to “preserving the Lord’s creations for your memories”. “Only we could come to Alaska and have this kind of wildlife experience,” my daughter quips before we both crack up.

And that’s the thing. Cruising Alaska doesn’t come with any wildlife-spotting guarantees but you can be sure to witness spectacular glacial landscapes (and weather extremes), experience the quirky attractions of small-town America and laugh until your sides hurt. Disembarking the ship, my daughter and I may not have the stories to shout at other passengers but we’ll always have Hunting Santa. And when it comes to memory-making with a 13-year-old, that counts for an awful lot.

Candice Cusack. John Hyde. Richard Sidey

DEAL, UK

By Steve McKenna DAY

ONE

AM “Deal was once a rough, dangerous place; a hotbed of organised crime, smuggling gangs, drunken sailors, murderers. It’s a lot nicer nowadays,” says local author George Chittenden with a smile. He’s my guide in the quaint and serene old quarter of Deal, a town that hugs the coast of Kent and lies just over an hour south-east of London by high-speed train.

As Chittenden speaks, gulls squawk above pastel-hued Georgian cottages and Victorian townhouses, many of which flaunt names – Smugglers, Time & Tide, Tradewinds, Pirate Treasure – that evoke Deal’s maritime heritage, with others sporting doorknockers shaped like anchors, octopuses and mermaids. Some restored properties, says Chittenden, are now Airbnbs, cashing in on Deal’s emergence as a cool seaside escape, especially with so-called DFLs (Down From London).

Buoyed by Chittenden’s tour (thehistoryproject.co.uk), with its tales of Deal’s raffish past and resurgent fortunes, I mooch along the rejuvenated High Street, browsing textiles and homewares at Hoxton Store (hoxtonstore.com), bespoke jewellery at Rees & Rees (reesandreesjewellery.co.uk) and upcycled handmade fashions at Mrs Lang (138 High Street).

Then I amble back to the salty-aired seafront for a lobster and crayfish roll at Deal Pier Kitchen (dealpierkitchen.com), a hip brunch-lunch spot at the end of the town’s 1950s-era pier. The flat whites are good here, too, and I can glimpse France, shimmering 40 kilometres away across the English Channel.

PM “There are some really lovely rides around Deal,” says Andy Chambers, who rents me an e-bike (yourleisure.uk. com) and shares his favourite routes, with the Skylark Loop offering a refreshing change of pace and scenery from bustling London. This 30-kilometre circuit threads through sleepy, undulating, sheep-and-cow-dotted Kentish countryside to Dover, where you can walk atop the legendary white cliffs, spying ships crisscrossing the Channel.

Cycling back to Deal, I zigzag down to St Margaret’s Bay, where James Bond creator Ian Fleming once had a beachfront holiday home. The best spot to refuel here is at The Coastguard (thecoastguard.co.uk) – touted as Britain’s closest pub to France – or in the neighbouring hamlet of Kingsdown, where the Zetland Arms (zetlandarms.co.uk) has tables set by colourfully painted fishing boats and beach huts. Back in Deal, there’s drinking and dining alfresco at The Royal Hotel (theroyalhotel. com), a nautical-themed charmer with creaking floorboards, model ships and accommodation upstairs. The cosy rooms are named after celebrated British seafarers, royals and even

politicians and I check into the Collingwood, which has soothing neutral tones, abundant teas and mesmerising Channel vistas and sunrises, as I discover later.

Luring me across the road is 81 Beach Street (81beachstreet. co.uk), a casual-chic bistro that showcases art by local painters and dishes combining regionally foraged ingredients with global flavours. My satay king prawn skewers, the catch of the day – whole plaice – baked on the bone and white chocolate and lavender cheesecake all hit the spot.

DAY TWO

AM I pedal to Betteshanger Country Park (betteshanger-park. co.uk), a regenerated former colliery just outside Deal that brims with peaceful walks and pulse-raising potential, from army-style obstacle courses to orienteering and geocaching adventures in leafy woodlands. There’s also an archery range, fossil hunting zones and winding trails that you can buzz around on bikes or a Swincar e-Spider, a cutting-edge Frenchdesigned electric vehicle with quirky pendulum suspension.

I work up an appetite for lunch at the park’s eatery, The Lamp Room. Served with sea-salt fries, the Miners Burger (the café sits beside an interactive new mining museum) has two 28-day-aged Kentish beef patties wedged into a charcoaldusted brioche bun. Biting into it, a tang detonates in my mouth thanks to the cheese that’s hand-smoked onsite.

PM In 1539, seeking to defend England from its European rivals, King Henry VIII commissioned a chain of coastal fortifications. Still intact is Deal Castle, where visitors can navigate eerie underground tunnels. But more beguiling for me is Walmer Castle, a half-hour stroll – or 10-minute ride –by a sweeping shingle beach. Volunteer guides regale history in its eclectically furnished rooms, which range from spartan to Downton Abbey-esque. Tea and scones are served on the castle’s sea-facing terrace and guests can circle the grassy moat and potter through the gardens where the late Queen Mother liked to relax.

Later, back in Deal, I sup hoppy ales at Smugglers Records (shop.smugglersrecords.com), a laid-back watering hole in a vinyl store, and The Ship Inn (141 Middle Street; +44 1304 372222), an old-school pub with a fire. The mixed local crowd swells with out-of-towners (including those DFLs). You’ll also find Kentish beers, ciders and wines at The Bar (152 High Street; +44 1304 363306), a buzzy hangout with outdoor seating under striped awnings, and The Rose (therosedeal.com), a bar-restaurant-hotel where patrons mingle over gooseberry Margaritas and menus are crafted in collaboration with Nuno Mendes, a top London-based Portuguese chef.

But I head to Victuals & Co (victualsandco.com), which is hidden down a passageway. Decorated with abstract art, it boasts a wine list featuring everything from Kentish chardonnay to Argentinian malbec and conjures contemporary British cuisine that tastes as good as it looks. My quiche-like trout and watercress tart and soy and miso glazed duck breast, with duck confit spring roll and sesame pak choi, are bursting with satisfying flavours. “This is such a fantastic town, with a great community spirit,” says the restaurant’s manager Rob Callaghan. “What adds to its appeal with visitors, I think, are all the independent businesses we have here.” Deal’s nefarious underbelly may be long gone but the nose for opportunity remains.

LHR Qantas flies from Melbourne, Sydney and Perth to London. qantas.com

Michael Turek

By Sarah Reid

“It hardly ever rains in Santiago; every day is like this,” says my taxi driver with a shrug when I comment on the cloudless sky during the ride from the airport. Having travelled to Chile from the wettest corner of NSW, it’s exactly what I want to hear. It’s my third visit to Chile and I’ve accidentally timed it perfectly. With a new president, a constitution in the works (to replace the one inherited from the Pinochet dictatorship) and COVID-19 restrictions easing, there’s a palpable sense of optimism in the hot, dry air as I set out to explore its sprawling capital.

Santiago’s historic centre is grittier than I remember, with its grand 19th-century buildings plastered in political graffiti. Popularised in the 1970s during Pinochet’s military rule, this protest art made a comeback as part of the anti-government demonstrations that erupted in 2019. The protests are (mostly) over but no-one has bothered to scrub off the slogans, stickers and posters, which are now part of the city’s social fabric.

Just across the Mapocho River, the bohemian enclave of Barrio Bellavista is covered with decoration of a different kind – colourful murals and mosaics adorn bars, clubs, theatres and artists’ workshops. The street art scene flourished following Chile’s return to democracy in 1990, when exiled artists returned with a desire

SANTIAGO, CHILE

to recreate the vibrant underground cultures they’d been immersed in abroad. A hub for creatives before the Pinochet era, the rundown buildings of Bellavista were the ideal canvas, as they are today for a new generation of artists who brighten the streets with paintings of giant pumas, fantastical faces and other-worldly beings.

It’s quieter here mid-morning than I expected. The clang and tinkle of crates of alcohol being unloaded from delivery trucks echoes through the leafy avenues as I wander around filling my camera roll. “The pandemic has been tough on Bellavista,” a fruit seller tells me when I stop to buy a peach. “Some venues closed but many are opening up again now that tourists are returning.”

Among them is La Chascona (fundacionneruda.org), a museum that was originally an eccentric house built in the 1950s by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda for Matilde Urrutia, his not-so-secret lover. Stooping to enter the low-ceilinged Captain’s Bar (he had a thing for ships), I feel like I’ve stepped into a psychedelic Mid-century dream. Apparently Neruda claimed that wine tastes better when sipped from coloured glass and as I pass through the narrow room filled with objets d’art collected during his frequent travels, I can imagine the Nobel Prize winner holding court at the table that remains set with multi-hued glassware.

The museum is in the foothills of Cerro San Cristóbal, Santiago’s largest urban park. I’m told it’s a 45-minute slog to the Virgin Mary

statue at the top, some 300 metres above the city, but with the day heating up I head to the summit on an open-sided shuttle bus packed with families (there’s also a cable car). I come up here for the splendid, if hazy, views towards the snow-capped Andes but the small army of young couples canoodling on the steps seem much more interested in each other.

While Bellavista doesn’t really get going until sundown, there’s plenty of life to be found in its food scene. At Peumayén (peumayen chile.cl), dishes are inspired by pre-Hispanic gastronomy and while the guanaco tartare, made from a close relative of the llama, isn’t for me, the tasting menu (I choose the “land” option of terrestrial treats) is a culinary adventure, kicking off with a platter of breads arranged geographically by each recipe’s origin. The sopaipilla, a fried disc made from flour and Andean pumpkin, is my favourite.

Long lunches segue seamlessly into cocktail hour. In this ’hood there are few better spots to watch the sun set over the urban jungle with a glass of Chilean chardonnay in hand than sixth-floor rooftop restaurant and bar Azoteca Matilde (Antonia Lopez Bello 0118, via Chucre Mazur). From my elevated perch I watch the streets fill with students and workers clocking off. By the time I’m back at ground level, drinkers from Bellavista’s bars are spilling onto the sidewalks, the district now filled with energy, laughter and blaring Latin beats.

flies from Sydney to Santiago.

By Bek Day

“Many people look but very few see,” observes Fraser Nai, a Masigalgal man and majority owner of Strait Experience (strait experience.com.au), a tour hub gently and sustainably opening up parts of the Torres Strait to travellers. When it comes to the 200 or so islands that make up this archipelago, he’s right. What you’ll look at: an ecosystem brimming with turtles, crocs, tiger sharks and dugongs, volcanic formations, Maldives-esque coral cays and, across the horizon, Papua New Guinea. What you can see: the deep cultural connection people here have to community and Country, with traditions that stretch back millennia, and a taste of Ailan Kastom (island custom) so rich you’ll want to bottle it to bring home. Strait Experience offers multi-night trips to the outer islands but for time-poor travellers, the Strait Day tour (ex Cairns, charter flights included) packs in a sunrise-to-sundown highlights reel on Thursday Island (Waiben) and Horn Island (Ngarupai). The traditional Kup Murri feast – heavy on local crayfish (when it’s in season) – will fill your belly and your soul as you absorb the untamed magic of this special place.

TORRES STRAIT ISLANDS

QUY NHON, VIETNAM

By Dilvin Yasa

All signs insist I’m in Quy Nhon, a coastal city located halfway between Vietnam’s more touristy destinations of Nha Trang and Da Nang, but I feel trapped in a landscape peepshow. Each image that flashes before me is more arresting than the last: turquoise coves dotted with weather-beaten boats, fishermen nodding off under the gaze of watchful felines; sun-dappled boulevards where honking motorbikes perform a perfectly choreographed dance.

My sensory journey far from complete, I’m drawn to Bánh Xèo Tôm Nhay Anh Vũ (82 Diên Hong, Ngô Mây, Thành pho Quy Nhon; +84 90 510 52 13) to eat crisp Vietnamese crêpes crammed with beef, prawns or pork, mung beans and sprouts. The place is far from pretty, serving up a chaos of metal tables and plastic chairs to the soothing aural accompaniment of a blaring television, but it’s teeming with locals expertly wrapping their crêpes in fresh lettuce and herbs. I follow suit, hands growing oilier by the Bánh Xèo, until I realise I’ve demolished six and am ready to take my place in the sun beside the fishermen.

Bi

SGN Qantas flies to Bangkok and Singapore, with connecting flights on partner airlines to Ho Chi Minh City.

CANADA

By Lance Richardson

The journey to Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge (clayoquotwilderness lodge.com), on the western side of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, is worth the price of admission alone. Departing from a distant corner of Vancouver International Airport, my seaplane glides over the Strait of Georgia, passing above Nanaimo, a town on the island’s shore and the point at which I leave civilisation blissfully behind. Ascending into the mountains, so high and remote that snow remains in June, I take a deep breath as the pilot threads the plane between peaks before bringing it down like a swan, circling elegantly to alight on the surface of a pristine

inlet. A horse and carriage are waiting by the dock with a staff of trained professionals, including general manager Sarah Cruse and her poodle, Toby.

My luggage is whisked away and I’m handed a glass of sparkling wine. A young woman walks me through a glade of damp spruce trees to a white canvas tent, where I receive a detailed three-day itinerary tailored to my interests. The tent is divine: a giant bed, Bemboka blanket, the scent of cedar everywhere, an Adirondack chair on my private porch over a creek. The shower is outside in a nook behind the tent: showering alfresco is a supreme pleasure. The view from the toilet is so good that I later talk about it with another guest, who reportedly told their partner: “If it seems like I’m taking a long time, I’m fine. It’s just really beautiful in here.”

Jeremy Koreski

This is an elemental place, untamed and unpredictable. It rains on Vancouver Island about 200 days a year. But something you will not find at Clayoquot is pessimism. “One of the lessons you learn, living in a rainforest, is that you play in the rain,” Cruse tells me. “I call it tears of joy.”

The precursor to Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge was established by Richard Genovese in the 1990s, a few rustic tents at the mouth of the Bedwell River. Over the decades, the outpost evolved into an eco-safari resort, its 25 luxury tents in the middle of the Clayoquot Sound Biosphere Reserve. In 2021, the property partnered with Australian hospitality experts Baillie Lodges –“a marriage made in heaven,” says Cruse – and a $2-million renovation elevated the already exceptional.

Besides the accommodation tents, there’s a music tent with a Heintzman piano, a spa with jacuzzis and sauna (above), and a fully equipped gym. The bar, in a permanent building of glass and wood overlooking the inlet, opens for drinks and canapés each afternoon. One evening, an Australian bartender makes me a Morning Bedwell Mist (single malt whiskey, Amaro Montenegro, Averna, burnt orange) and then tells me about the tech bros who recently booked the whole place for a long weekend, only to leave early because the wi-fi wasn’t fast enough. I find the story so shocking I’m forced to order a Negroni to recover.

From the bar, I drift to the glass-walled dining room with outdoor seating, a blazing fireplace and vast open kitchen.

Michelin-grade cuisine is not something that I generally associate with the wilderness but at Clayoquot I quickly become one of those people who photographs every dish. Goat butter and fresh-baked sourdough, sable fish with summer squash, a pavlova with lavender and blueberry ice-cream, chantilly and lemon curd. The pastry chef, Alise Scott, is a genius and each of her creations is a miniature work of art.

Perhaps the busiest place at the lodge is the gear room, where guests get kitted out for hiking, kayaking, horse riding, cycling or an expedition on the camp’s Zodiac. I try a number of these activities but the one that leaves me genuinely moved is the Ursus Valley hike, a nearly full-day walk into the wilderness with a guide and two other guests, Victoria and Eve, both doctors from the Gold Coast. We wade through frigid streams that leave us gasping and trek through a shaggy forest of red alder trees and hemlock. At the end there’s a stand of cedars about 750 years old, making them about the same age as the Magna Carta. The trees’ scale is beyond belief. I’m speechless as I caress their enormous trunks; it’s like paying respects to a group of forgotten deities. Our guide smiles knowingly. This is her favourite place on the island, too.

Victoria and Eve are collected in a helicopter from the edge of the Bedwell but I take the long way back to camp, picking salmonberries as I walk. Of all the wonders offered at Clayoquot, none is more exclusive or meaningful than getting so close to such an astonishing landscape.

YVR Qantas flies from Sydney to Vancouver.

By Alexandra Carlton

The moment I sense that I’m truly in the south-est part of the South – the Cajun-style, coastal, very south South – comes one evening in the small town of Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Walking back from dinner in the warm, early autumn air, I pass homes painted cornflower-blue, surrounded by mistletoe and mulberry trees and marked with Stars and Stripes flags and yard signs proclaiming “Jesus 4 President”.

Turning a bend, I see a house bright with lights, figures moving behind the windows. It’s a party, maybe a college get-together or someone’s birthday – nothing out of the ordinary. At least not until I get close enough to hear the music: wailing tales of bad luck and redemption blended into hard-edged hymnal harmonies by a man and a woman and a banjo. This is small-town, down-home Americana.

The little towns on my week-long road trip across the southern Gulf Coast states – from New Orleans in Louisiana through Mississippi and finally to Mobile, Alabama – are full of holidayfriendly restaurants serving huge plates of fried chicken, waffles and root beer floats, antiques stores selling seaside curios and galleries showcasing the work of local artists that make it feel like the United States I know. But there are also plenty of reminders that this is the real, red-as-a-ruby, swampland South. And I thrill to every bit of it.

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, TO MISSISSIPPI

My trip starts in the technicolour and very touristy New Orleans, a city so brash with colour and sound it almost gives you synaesthesia. Fueled by po’ boys and beignets, I drive onto the Interstate 10 east towards Mississippi, trying desperately to keep up with the Chevvies and Buicks racing by at 20 miles over the speed limit.

Too scared to cross three lanes of traffic, I miss the turn to the Chef Menteur Highway, which would have taken me along a scenic coastal route, and stay on the I-10 past the Bayou Sauvage wildlife park and across the nine-kilometre Frank Davis “Naturally N’Awlins” Memorial Bridge (named for a beloved local TV personality and his famous tagline). The low-lying overpass took a severe battering by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

A few moments later, I roll into Mississippi and immediately the interstate is lined with magnolias, the state tree, indicating that whoever’s in charge of the foliage along the roadways is taking their assignment very seriously. The traffic eases and I point my wheels towards the coast.

THE GULF COAST, USA

BAY ST LOUIS, MISSISSIPPI

Off the main interstate, the road is fringed with grim-looking casinos and caravan parks. A handwritten sign declares one rustylooking trailer park to be the home of the “Mississippi State Militia” and another promises “Deals on Glocks”. You can’t sugarcoat the tough reality of this part of the country.

But then I arrive at Bay St Louis and it’s like stepping into a Gap catalogue. The weatherboard houses in this popular resort town (a lot of New Orleans residents have second homes here) remind me of the coastal-chic hamlet of Mollymook in NSW.

At the Thorny Oyster (thornyoysterbsl.com), with its broad timber floorboards and quirky roses-and-oysters wallpaper, I order a swooningly delicious bowl of shrimp (whole, large, head on) and creamy grits, studded with lardons and garlic cloves and sprinkled with fistfuls of fragrant tarragon, along with a Lazy Magnolia Southern Pecan Nut Brown Ale to chase it.

“I also like Mockingbird [mockingbirdcafe.com] for the veggie burger and The Blind Tiger [theblindtiger.biz] does the best mahi mahi tacos,” my waitress, Angelina, tells me. But there’s no way I have room for any burgers or tacos after the generous tub of grits.

I potter around the antiques at Worth Repeating (worthrepeating.business.site) and briefly consider joining the queue for a red velvet ice-cream cone at The Creole Creamery (creolecreamery. com) but I have more highway to grind.

OCEAN SPRINGS, MISSISSIPPI

It’s in Ocean Springs that I stumble across that late-night bluegrass gospel party but the town reveals something even more surprising: it’s the former home of eccentric painter Walter Anderson, whose fans have included Whoopi Goldberg and William Faulkner. His pastel murals of bears, deer, owls, European colonists and Native Americans have what a Smithsonian curator once called “a restless and impolite intensity”. His painting is the antithesis of genteel Southern charm and can be found covering the interior of the town’s community hall, from the door frames to the electrical outlets.

Anderson painted the whole thing for the princely sum of $1 in 1951; it’s now estimated to be worth about US$30 million. “We once had a mayoral candidate who didn’t much like it and said that he’d paint over it if he was elected,” tour guide Tony DiFatta from the Walter Anderson Museum of Art (walterandersonmuseum. org) tells me wryly. “He didn’t win.”

Anderson isn’t the only famous resident around these parts. I’m staying at boutique hotel The Roost (hotel.qantas.com.au/ theroostoceansprings) and its speakeasy-style bar, The Wilbur, is notable for its giant painting of Al Capone, a tribute to when the notorious gangster used Ocean Springs as a hideout, stashing contraband liquor and cash during the Prohibition era. Today, the town bustles with low-key gentility: drivers politely give way to pedestrians, families gather for burgers and beers and live music

at Mosaic (mosaictapasrestaurant.com) and cob salads at Eat, Drink, Love (eatdrinklovecatering.com) overlooking the bayou.

But the raw-throated Cajun strains of those singers reminds me that there’s an edge to this Deep Southern town.

MOBILE, ALABAMA

Finally I make it to the port city of Mobile, which is closer to the Florida state line than it is to any of Alabama’s other large cities, such as Birmingham or Montgomery. At just under 200,000 people, it’s more like a country town than a city so you get all the Southern pleasantries (ladies are addressed as “Miss Pinky” or “Miss Suellen” and I get called “Ma’am” at every opportunity) without the tourist crowds of places like New Orleans or Charleston.

The city was founded in 1702, making it older than the state itself, and the architecture draws from French, Spanish, British and West African influences. The Victorian townhouses and ornate 1920s Saenger Theatre in the downtown area are delightful.

While Mobile looks staid, locals are taking advantage of its relative under-the-radar status. “Our chefs have a bit more freedom to do what they want because a guy who might have to be a sous chef somewhere like New York for decades can rise to be head chef fast here and start experimenting,” says Andrew Felts from Mobile’s tourist board, proving his point by taking me to The Noble South

(thenoblesouthrestaurant.com), where the modern fit-out with exposed brick walls wouldn’t look out of place in hip Portland, Oregon.

We fill our table with pivoted Southern classics like pimento cheese on cornbread with sweet apple and barbecued sweet potato, devilled eggs with salmon roe and bacon, and a cocktail that has more layers than a Southern belle’s hoop skirts: mezcal, Campari, grapefruit, lime, cherry brandy and Angostura bitters.

I spend most of my time in Mobile eating. If you haven’t enjoyed a Crab Louie omelette, bananas Foster French toast and eggs Benedict topped with Conecuh sausage and crawfish sauce in one sitting then you haven’t really done the Gulf States. But on my final day, I realise that I’m missing something. I’m in the swamplands but I haven’t seen the swamp.

I cross Mobile Bay and head for a waterway that’s promisingly called Alligator Alley. A timber boardwalk was built across it so you can look for the toothy terrors below. I’m barely three metres from the car when two chunky alligators glide noiselessly beneath where I’m standing, their bloodless eyes staring unblinkingly up at me.

On the way to the airport, a radio report tells me a couple of tornadoes are gathering in Texas and might be fixing to sweep along the Louisiana coast to Alabama. Nervously, I message Andrew Felts but he’s entirely unconcerned – tornadoes are pretty regular around here and they dissipate without doing much damage. If the west of America is wild, I’ve just driven through its stormy, surprising south.

LAX Qantas flies from Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney to Los Angeles. qantas.com

True north

Witness the world’s most spectacular lightshow or bask in hours of endless sunshine. Cruising through Norway brings big adventures and leaves a smaller footprint.

Sail away

Cruise through Norway’s arctic waterways in a new class of eco ship.

Did you know?

Hurtigruten offers the original Northern Lights Promise. If the magical lights do not appear during your auroral season Hurtigruten cruise, you’ll receive a six- or seven-day classic voyage for free.

Hamnoy, Lofoten Islands, Norway.

It’s a place where mountains preside over glassy fjords and colourful villages paint polka dots of colour along a sparsely populated coast. Myths of Norse gods, stories of Vikings and ancient rituals echo, growing louder as you cross the Arctic Circle. And when the timing is right, the sky transforms into swirls of colour.

Cruising company Hurtigruten first sailed the waters of Norway in 1893 as a community connector between the north and south of the famously long coastline, carrying local passengers, goods and mail. Soon, Hurtigruten was bringing travellers to explore the wonders that can be found in the region, from summer’s midnight sun to winter’s Northern Lights.

Today, Hurtigruten runs luxury journeys on its cruise ships – trips include The Original Coastal Express, The Svalbard Express and The North Cape Express – with sustainable practices at the forefront.

In 2018, Hurtigruten banned all single-use plastics from its vessels. It also plans to launch its first emissions-free ship by 2030. “Our goal is zero emissions across the company,” says Hedda Felin, Hurtigruten Norway CEO. “Until then, we must do what we can to cut emissions

Presented by

Hurtigruten Norwegian Coastal Express

with the best technology available today and extend the service life of the iconic ships in our fleet.”

The largest upgrade in the company’s history will be finished in 2023. Three of Hurtigruten’s seven ships will convert to hybrid vessels and updates on the other four will drastically reduce emissions.

Fittingly, the first hybrid ship is named in honour of the captain who established the original Norwegian Coastal Express 130 years ago. MS Richard With is powered by large battery packs and low-emission engines, which reduce fuel consumption and CO 2 emissions by 25 per cent. Even more impressive is the reduction in NOx emissions (greenhouse gases) by 80 per cent.

Hurtigruten is deploying a raft of other environmental improvements across its fleet,

including state-of-the-art wastewater treatment plants, new propeller blades, gears, generators and bulbous bow and hull optimisation to make the ships quieter and more efficient. It’s also switching to certified biofuels on a large scale.

“This is one of the largest environmental vessel upgrades undertaken in Europe,” says Egil Haugsdal, president of Kongsberg Maritime, the Norwegian technology leader that designed the hybrid updates.

All sights are set on the future of cruising. “Our vision is bold,” says Damian Perry, managing director, VP Sales & Marketing, Asia-Pacific. “Everything we do today is designed to build a stronger and more sustainable future as we target zero-emission cruising and maintain our commitment through initiatives that make a real difference.”

Gourmet ports of call

Hurtigruten’s route along Norway’s coast sees some 50 suppliers bring fresh produce to the ship’s chefs. It’s known as Norway’s Coastal Kitchen and guests are given a taste of the finest local and seasonal products while supporting growers and makers in small communities.

For example, Inderøy Distillery supplies the unique Golden Aquavit, a spirit that uses only Norwegian ingredients (including caraway, watercress, dandelion and spruce shoots). Molta Farm makes cloudberry jam and Arctic flora honey, while Trøndersopp Mushrooms delivers oysters and shiitake fungi.

Under the spotlight

Soak up the midnight sun or embrace the arctic temperatures under the swirling Northern Lights. Norway’s bucket-list adventures are calling...

Fjords and Northern Lights

The North Cape Express

16 days

16 departures between September 2023 and March 2024

MS Trollfjord

Northern Lights Promise : if the magical lights do not appear during your auroral season Hurtigruten cruise, you’ll receive a six- or seven-day classic voyage for free.

Your chances of seeing the shifting colours of the Northern Lights dramatically increase aboard the MS Trollfjord. Rooms are equipped with direct-to-cabin aurora alarms so you can catch the dancing lights in all their splendour.

You’ll set sail from Norway’s vibrant capital, Oslo. Before you depart, head to the neighbourhood of Grünnerløkka for cool bars such as Bettola (known for its Aperol Spritz) and to Aker Brygge for fine dining along the boardwalk, looking out to Oslofjord. Onboard, you’ll sail past Norway’s oldest lighthouse at Lindesnes on the country’s southern tip before cruising almost 180 kilometres

along Hardangerfjord, one of the world’s most epic fjords. Go dog sledding to the Tromsø ice domes, try Arctic ice fishing or simply watch orcas and humpbacks in silence aboard a specially designed hybrid-electric tour boat, complete with warm lounges and panoramic windows.

Spend a full day in charming Honningsvåg, the voyage’s northernmost destination. A much-photographed globe monument sits at North Cape, which is reached by snowmobile (thrillseekers can take a quad biking tour). Soak in the views of the Barents Sea under the polar night sky before the journey back south begins.

Presented by Hurtigruten Norwegian Coastal Express

Summertime sunshine

The Svalbard Express 10 to 16 days

22 departures between June and September 2023

MS Trollfjord

Drift back in time on one of Norway’s historic coastal sailing routes, The Svalbard Express, which first took to the sea under the midnight sun in the summer of 1968. Northbound trips start in Bergen, known as the city between seven mountains on Norway’s west coast. Spend a day exploring historic Vågen bay and UNESCO-listed Bryggen quarter, with its cute cobblestone streets and boutiques.

Watch Bergen’s colourful seafront buildings shrink to specks as you sail into the Norwegian Sea aboard MS Trollfjord, with a glass of Linie, Hurtigruten’s special aquavit,

in hand. You’ll visit Træna, a rocky archipelago on the edge of the Arctic Circle that’s largely uninhabited, save for the many sea eagles and one of Norway’s oldest fishing communities.

In Tromsø, the historic gateway to the Arctic, visit a Viking homestead and spot razorbills, puffins and skuas in the small city of Honningsvåg. When you reach Sarnes, sample local delicacies such as king crab served in soft bread with mayonnaise and lemon.

In Svalbard, the midnight sun begins shining in mid-April and doesn’t stop for 99 days. Take an excursion to Advent Valley and Camp Barentz to meet huskies and their “mushers” (sled drivers). Stop and munch on waffles while you learn about the dogs’ life in the High Arctic.

Onboard, bask in the all-day glow as you sail across famed fjords. Keep an eye on the inky surface for walruses, polar bears, white beluga whales spyhopping and perhaps an Arctic fox or Svalbard reindeer on land.

Win a trip on The North Cape Express

Experience the magic of Norway on The North Cape Express. You’ll win a trip for two, valued at $18,060 per cabin twin share, between September 2023 and March 2024. The prize includes accommodation for the duration of the voyage, all meals and international airfares to Norway. To enter, visit qantas.com/hurtigrutencruise Terms and conditions apply.

Start exploring at hurtigruten.com.au

Entries open 01/12/2022 at 00:00 AEDT and close 31/12/2022 at 23:59 AEDT. Australian residents 18 years and over only. Winner drawn 10/01/2023 at 11:00 AEDT at Level 1/83 Bowman Street, Pyrmont NSW 2009. Winner’s name published 25/01/2023 on qantas.com/travelinsider. Unclaimed prizes drawn 25/01/2023 at Level 1/83 Bowman Street, Pyrmont NSW 2009. Unclaimed prize draw winners’ names published 15/02/2023 on qantas.com/ travelinsider. Total prize pool valued at $18,060. Full terms and conditions available at https://www.qantas.com/travelinsider/en/trending/win-cruise-norway-hurtigruten.html NSW TP/02262, SA T22/1751, ACT TP 22/02123.1

Partnering for the future of flying

Introducing the founding members of Australia’s first coalition program to help decarbonise aviation through sustainable fuel. Learn more at qantas.com/safcoalition

Kristoffer Paulsen Cartier

STORY BY RACHEL LEES PHOTOGRAPHY BY PIER CARTHEW

SLOW BEAM, HOBART

A design-led house surrounded by bush in the Tasmanian capital encourages guests to hibernate.

Tucked in among gum trees on a West Hobart (nipaluna) hillside sits Slow Beam (slowbeam.com; airbnb.com.au). With its black plywood walls and ceilings, plus a collection of modern Australian art and furniture, the two-storey box-style house was awarded Best Designed Stay at Australia’s Airbnb Host Awards in 2021.

But winning prizes wasn’t the intention of Melbourne-based photographer Lauren Bamford and her musician and graphic designer husband, Keith Mason, who built the house with the help of design practice Hearth Studio. “We just wanted something small for the two of us when we were in Hobart visiting family,” says Mason. Then there was a surprise. “We had a child, which was not part of the original brief,” he says of daughter Dot, now four.

Mercifully, the cosy hideaway offers respite to both its owners and guests. “People book the place expecting to go out in Hobart but they end up spending more time in the house.” Especially in winter. “You can see the sun come up over the Derwent River from bed and when you go downstairs, the view is laid out through floor-to-ceiling windows in the lounge room – you see the colours gradually change from pink and purple to gold and yellow.”

Steal away from the Grant Featherston chaise longue and the vista and you might still lose yourself in pieces by realist painter Ebony Truscott and photographer Jo Duck, among others. “The artwork is so personal to our tastes, it gives visitors a one-of-a-kind experience. It feels right pairing abstract and Expressionist works with the wild and unpredictable Australian bush.”

And there’s one last element that makes guests reluctant to leave: wallabies bound around the steep acre block. “It’s an escape; time slows down here.”

Creative Process

ARI ATHANS

STORY BY NOELLE FAULKNER PHOTOGRAPHY BY LOUIS LIM

With a background in geology, this artist and fine-jewellery designer seeks out beauty in the rough.

“I was one of those resourceful kids,” recalls Sydney-born, Brisbanebased artist and jeweller Ari Athans. “I came from migrant parents who just worked to put food on the table so it was a very small world. But within that world, I played with what I had.” Creativity and curiosity fed each other, she says. “I remember grinding down sandstone rocks, making earrings out of paperclips; I found ways to be creative.”

From her past life working as a geologist in mining and gold exploration to her practice today, where she creates stone-like layered sculptures and elegant fine jewellery, Athans is guided by her wonder-filled relationship with found and unearthed objects. “I was always artistic but I went into science because I had a fascination with materials, where they come from and what they tell us. It’s been my passion all my life.”

Citing her seamstress mother and tradie father as the inspirations for her love of hands-on craftsmanship, Athans also credits the moment she laid eyes on a classroom workshop of tools. “It’s a fossicking process,” she says of her work. “I look for materials anywhere, from the street, the bush, op shops or the big gem fairs.” Once she’s found her piece, whether it’s a pearl or a fragment of glass, creative reasoning begins. “I ask, ‘What can I do with it? How can I change it?’. Some things can be turned into jewellery. Others form part of sculptures. I call it ‘making rocks’ because you’re cooking materials again, turning them into something else.”

Pivoting from geology to her artistic passions isn’t as big a leap as you might think – at least in sensibility. For Athans, it’s always been about an appreciation of earthly treasures. “We’re all drawn to beauty.”

Studied at: University of Technology, Sydney; Gemmological Association of Australia, Brisbane; Sydney Institute of Technology.

Exhibited at: International Handwerksmesse, Munich; Santiago Museum of Contemporary Art, Chile; Melbourne Museum; QUT Art Museum, Brisbane; Object Gallery, Sydney; Triennale di Milano Design and Art Museum, Milan, Italy; Brisbane Powerhouse; Edwina Corlette Gallery, Brisbane. Her next solo show is at Edwina Corlette Gallery from 21 March.

Breakthrough moment: “In 2001, I was selected for Schmuck, an international jewellery show in Munich, and in 2007, the Freestyle exhibition that travelled to Milan.”

What the critics say: “Athans’ jewellery is beguiling in the simplicity of its form and expression.” – Alison Kubler, editor-in-chief, Vault magazine

Foundations

SAN GIOVANNI BATTISTA, MOGNO, SWITZERLAND

Friends and I drove to Switzerland on a Mario Botta pilgrimage. He is an eminent Swiss architect known for his institutional buildings like museums and churches. I was on holiday with my husband and two girls after the Venice Biennale, staying in a little house on Lake Como with architect friends. We rented a car and drove twoand-a-half hours from Italy to Switzerland to see some of Botta’s buildings, including the amazing Church of San Giovanni Battista.

The church replaced a 17th-century chapel that was destroyed by an avalanche. It’s in Mogno, a picturesque alpine village, with sheer granite hills, log cabins and Swiss-style houses made from stone with pitched roofs. The avalanche was in 1986 and the church was completed in the 1990s. While it’s a small building, it’s exquisitely built and beautifully detailed. It uses two contrasting local stones, white marble and a darker stone called gneiss, which is like granite.

What isn’t often apparent in photos is that the space is rectangular. Externally it presents as a cylinder but inside it has four walls, then as it moves up, it curves and becomes circular. The entire roof is glazed and light pours into the space, which gives an uplifting feeling. It almost has the same light levels as if you were outside, which is unusual for a place of worship, yet the scale and strength of the architecture also make you feel cocooned and safe.

Mario Botto included links back to the original chapel. The church is 17 metres high, the height of the original building. After the avalanche, the only things that could be salvaged from the rubble were two bells so Botta repurposed them outside the new building. Most people walking through would only notice how it makes them feel but it’s one of those buildings that, as architects, we get extremely excited about.

I’m always interested in how spaces make people feel. My practice does a lot of residential architecture and often clients say, “We don’t know why we feel so good in this space but the reason we love it is because of the way we feel in it.” That’s all-important in a place of worship. This church is only about 120 square metres but it’s the most remarkable experience. I’m not a religious person but it has a kind of spiritual magic; you’re in awe of the space.

Clare Cousins established her practice, Clare Cousins Architecture, in Melbourne in 2005. She is a life fellow and past national president of the Australian Institute of Architects.

AS TOLD TO RACHEL LEES

PHOTOGRAPHY BY FEDERICA GRASSI

A shape-shifting chapel in the Swiss Alps proves small buildings can make a big impact, says Melbournebased architect Clare Cousins.

EAMES LOUNGE CHAIR AND OTTOMAN

This Mid-century Modern masterpiece is a symbol of enduring style.

It debuted on national television in 1956 on NBC’s Home show and was lauded as the ultimate luxury lounge chair for aspirational Americans. Almost 70 years on, the Eames lounge chair and ottoman still has star power, having appeared in five James Bond films (M was a fan), every season of the sitcom Frasier and in sci-fi movie The Matrix Resurrections.

Husband and wife Charles and Ray Eames were already famous for their modern plywood chairs when they unveiled the lounge chair (model 670) and ottoman (671), a groundbreaking silhouette that still pops up in tattoos on Instagram and Pinterest.

A short film made by the industrial designers demonstrates the ingenious construction; veneered plywood shells cradling sumptuous upholstered leather cushions, swivelling on a die-cast aluminium base in a state of permanent recline.

“We had one in our lounge room from the very beginning,” recalls film-maker and artist Eames Demetrios, one of the couple’s grandchildren. “I remember spinning around in it and thinking that was pretty awesome.”

The piece was a deeply considered commission: to create a comfortable, high-end, mass-produced alternative to a club chair. It’s been manufactured, virtually unaltered, since 1956 by Herman Miller and also by Vitra from 1958. Across the decades, it’s stood for impeccable style and, at about $9000, remains a collectible item.

“Furniture is the new sneakers,” Herman Miller archivist Amy Auscherman told The Washington Post earlier this year, noting the lounge chair’s cult appeal with TikTok-ing Gen Z.

“As a young architecture student, I couldn’t walk past a vintage furniture store without stopping for a moment to be enveloped by the chair’s leathery softness,” says Eva-Marie Prineas of Sydney architecture practice Studio Prineas. “We’ve owned ours for more than 10 years and it gets better with age.”

For Demetrios, the design is singular – “just one makes a complete room” – and has a legacy that his family and the chair’s makers strive to protect. “We know people save a long time to get their lounge chair. And we want to make sure it’s just as wonderful as they thought it would be.”

BRIGHT SPARKS

’Tis always the season for diamonds and gems. Your treasure hunt starts here...

STYLING BY ELIZABETH HACHEM PHOTOGRAPHY BY KRISTOFFER PAULSEN HAIR AND MAKE-UP BY JOEL PHILLIPS

The Look

(Opposite page) Cartier Panthère de Cartier necklace, $37,800. Tiffany & Co. Schlumberger Sixteen Stone ring, $19,700. Bracelets worn on model's left arm, from wrist : Cartier Panthère de Cartier, $40,800. Canturi Primavera, $76,300. Paspaley Dive Charm, $4880. Bvlgari Serpenti Viper, $84,400. Bracelets worn on model's right arm, from wrist : Tiffany & Co. Schlumberger Circle Rope, $21,100. Ole Lynggaard Nature Bangle, $8660. Chopard Ashoka cut diamond, $550,000. J Farren-Price ruby diamond, $34,950. Musson Diamond Road two rows, $14,500. Bvlgari Serpentine pouch, $4240. Wedgwood Short Stories glass, $269 for set of two.

(This page) Rings on table, from left: Tiffany & Co. tanzanite, $47,400. Cartier Panthère de Cartier, $62,500. Musson Aella, $46,000. Rings worn on model's left hand, from ring finger: Tiffany & Co. Victoria Diamond Vine, $38,000 (top). Chopard Yellow Heart, $730,000 (bottom). J Farren-Price Fancy yellow diamond, $149,500. Musson Entwined band, $3000. Rings worn on model's right hand, from index finger: Ole Lynggaard Snakes, $9580. Bvlgari Serpenti Viper, $17,600. Paspaley Julia rose-gold, $2180 (top). Cartier Panthère de Cartier, $12,600 (bottom). Iittala Ultima Thule pitcher, $249.

Tiffany & Co. Edge Circle pendant, $33,000 (worn by model). Necklaces on table, clockwise from top right: Cartier Panthère de Cartier, $37,800. Paspaley Dive Charm, $9880. Bvlgari Serpenti Viper chain, $12,200. Tiffany & Co. Victoria graduated line, $109,000. Van Cleef & Arpels Vintage Alhambra, $36,000. J Farren-Price Pasquale Bruni Giardini Segreti, $89,340. Canturi Primavera, $107,300. Bvlgari Serpenti bag, $4510, and Serpenti Viper necklace, $33,000 (on bag). Wedgwood Gio Gold teacup and saucer, $149.

Stockists: Bulgari bulgari.com Canturi canturi.com Cartier 1800 130 000 Chopard (02) 8197 6007 J Farren-Price jfarrenprice.com.au Musson musson.com.au Ole Lynggaard olelynggaard.com Paspaley paspaley.com Tiffany & Co. tiffany.com.au / 1800 731 131 Van Cleef & Arpels vancleefarpels.com Wedgwood wedgwood.com.au Shot on location at Seta Sydney

Bvlgari Serpenti Viper ring, $51,400. Van Cleef & Arpels Perlée Sweet Clovers bracelet, $24,600. Earrings on table, clockwise from top right: Ole Lynggaard Snakes, $4150. Van Cleef & Arpels Perlée Clovers hoops, $22,900. Musson Butterfly, $22,500. Tiffany & Co. Schlumberger Flame, $21,100. Paspaley Wild Keshi, $18,800. Chopard High Jewellery, $478,500. Cartier Panthère de Cartier, $45,800 (on glass). J Farren-Price Petit Garden, $13,080 (on glass). Canturi Primavera, $65,300 (on tray). Wedgwood Elegance Belle Coupe glass, $169 for set of two.

Call it the blues

Chambray’s origins date back to the late 1500s, when the cloth –a heathered yarn of blue and white cotton weighing less than denim – was thought to have been first made in Cambrai, a region in northern France.

In 1901, the United States Navy authorised chambray to be used for working uniform shirts and by World War II every sailor wore theirs with denim jeans. Factory workers in the US adopted the look and the term “blue collar” was coined.

Made in the USA

Legendary American label Levi Strauss established its roots in denim workwear and started producing chambray shirts in 1913, the fabric varying in hue from dark greys to tans and even stripes. The chambray shirt was soon almost as iconic as Elvis Presley and appropriated by Hollywood to symbolise

rugged manhood. Clint Eastwood wore one under his poncho in the 1964 Western A Fistful of Dollars and Paul Newman turned it into stylish prisonwear in Cool Hand Luke (1967). The shirt also took on feminist connotations when it appeared on Rosie the Riveter –the character celebrating women’s contribution to the war effort –in 1943 and when Geena Davis wore hers ripped at the sleeves and tied at the navel in 1991’s Thelma & Louise.

Hooked on classics

When Australian label Country Road turned 10 in 1984, its founder, Steve Bennett, marked the brand’s origins as a women’s shirt company by designing a blue cotton unisex shirt that featured square pockets set low on the chest, faux horn buttons and a belt tab on its back yoke. The chambray shirt’s democratic appeal

meant it was embraced by disparate groups: Matthew McConaughey channelled his Texan roots wearing it open to the mid-button at movie premieres; chambray – along with flannel – formed part of the “oversized” grunge aesthetic; and it became the go-to casual-Friday outfit for preppy New Yorkers, who wore their Ralph Lauren or J Crew iterations with a white T-shirt and chinos.

With chambray shirts trending once again, the latest versions come in a variety of washes, lengths and styles. Country Road’s 2022 take is a replication of the original but it’s slimmed down, with about 10 centimetres missing from the back. Which means it won’t bulk up if it’s tucked in and worn with jeans – the current trend seen outside haute couture shows on the streets of Paris.

The chambray shirt Hollywood, the Navy, grunge culture, preppy office workers... this American staple has been adopted by all and now it’s making a comeback.

The perfect cup

Start every day with the aroma of coffee drifting through your home. Swiss manufacturer Jura’s Z10 coffee machine is the first fully automated model for both hot and cold brews, making an impressive 32 coffee specialties via the 4.3-inch touch display. Tight on space? The Jura ENA 8 Touch is compact and packs a mighty punch, delivering 20 specialties. Thanks to its twin-spout design, it can deliver two coffees at once.

Taste the world at home

The original kamado, since ’74. Learn more at biggreenegg.com.au

Music to their ears

The music-lover in your life will sing hallelujah when they unwrap the NuraTrue Pro headphones on Christmas Day. Designed in Australia, these wireless earbuds offer the highest quality Bluetooth audio customised to the listener’s hearing, active noise cancellation technology, spatial audio, eight microphone voice calls and have an all-day battery life with a wireless charging case. They’re comfortable, too, with sensors that detect whether the earbuds are positioned correctly, ensuring you hear the tunes crisp and clean every time.

NuraTrue Pro, $499

A new take

How the arts world is rebooting after its rockiest period yet. By Eugenie Kelly

Consensual Hallucinations (2020) by Serwah Attafuah

To say that the past three years has had its challenges for the arts industry is a little like saying Shakespeare was a tad dramatic – it’s true but doesn’t come close to telling the full story. When the pandemic blanketed the world in lockdowns, the arts sector was among the most devastated.

But as Shakespeare himself knew well, out of adversity comes opportunity –he lived his life in the shadow of the bubonic plague and with theatres closing regularly between 1606 and 1610, he used the downtime to write Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra . Similarly, over the past few years the arts and culture landscape has taken the chance for a reset, with arts leaders reconsidering the type of works people want to engage with, the role technology can play in reshaping the sector and the fresh possibilities ahead. Here are four of the biggest shifts unfolding today.

THEN NFTs were a novelty

NOW

Serious collectors are in the market

Three years ago, they were nicher than niche. One year ago, they were everywhere – even if a concrete understanding of them was thin on the ground. For the uninitiated, NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are digital assets, such as videos, artworks and games. Buyers receive a certificate of authenticity stating ownership. NFTs peaked in January, according to crypto research firm Chainanalysis, but with the recent volatility of cryptocurrencies, sales have slumped. Still, experts reckon that as with all nascent technologies, it’s a space with more potential.

According to Michelle Grey, co-founder of NFT curator platform and creative agency Culture Vault (culturevault.com), “There are now technologies, like ‘dynamic’ NFTs, emerging – you’re able to connect the metadata of an NFT to things like the weather or days of the week. Imagine an image or a video that changes when it’s raining or with the days of the week. This combination of AR [augmented reality] and AI [artificial intelligence] with digital art has endless creative potential and is something you don’t get with mediums like painting or sculpture.”

Grey’s pick of Australian names to watch include Serwah Attafuah and her surreal cyber-dreamscapes, Chris Yee,

who specialises in “pen and paper” methodologies with a focus on his Chinese cultural heritage, and Injury, a creator of fashion, music and art pushing the boundaries of the metaverse aesthetic.

And while the NFT ecosystem is evolving rapidly, the high-profile sales continue to come thick and fast. “Culture Vault has sold 10 of Australian artist Reko Rennie’s NFTs this year,” says Grey. “Christie’s sold Beeple’s NFT for US$69 million and the NGV purchased two of Damien Hirst’s NFTs and another by Refik Anadol. One of Culture Vault’s artists, New Yorker Shantell Martin, was also the first NFT artist purchased by LACMA [Los Angeles County Museum of Art], which is one of the US’s most important institutions.”

these big hitters but the NGV is tweaking its approach, experimenting with what to program alongside them.

McColm gives this year’s Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto as an example. “That was incredibly successful but we paired the exhibition of a historically important female fashion designer with Bark Ladies: Eleven Artists from Yirrkala . We’ve always had a huge demand for Indigenous art but what was fantastic was that the audience who was coming for Chanel also experienced the important stories from these Northern Territory women. Pre-COVID-19, would we have done that?”

THEN

Blockbuster exhibitions were all about the Euro heroes

NOW Local masters share equal billing

Since the 1970s, Australian galleries and museums have relied on blockbuster exhibitions to drive visitor numbers – the opportunity to see a van Gogh, Botticelli or Matisse, no passport required. According to Donna McColm, assistant director of Curatorial and Audience Engagement at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV; ngv. vic.gov.au), there’s still a huge appetite for

McColm believes programming is now about balancing the tried and tested with the new. “During COVID-19, people’s horizons broadened, taking art classes and listening to talks online. We launched our online learning programs, which garnered a global audience.”

NGV’s next blockbusters – Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse (launching this month) and Pierre Bonnard: Designed by India Mahdavi (slated for 2023) – are expected to draw record crowds but at the same time, attendees can also experience the gallery’s “responsive collecting”.

“Responsive collecting is about acquiring works that reflect what’s happening in the world now and showing them as soon as we can,” says McColm. “That’s been incredibly important in the COVID-19 era.”

She points to Requiem to New York, an exhibition of Australian photographer

NFT artist Serwah Attafuah (above)

Quantum Memories: Noise B (2020) by Refik Anadol (top right)

Baby Halo by Chris Yee (right)

Ashley Gilbertson’s work that’s on now, as an illustration. “It captures Manhattan in the early days of the pandemic. These are incredibly moving images.”

THEN Gallery design was an homage to classicism NOW Art spaces fuse with the surrounding landscape

Although the 19th-century Neoclassical façade of the Walter Vernon-designed Art Gallery of NSW (artgallery.nsw.gov.au) has made it one of Sydney’s most beloved buildings, when the $344-million threestorey Sydney Modern Project opens this month, the extension will mark a new era (see Culture Trip on page 27). The original building is now a corner of a sprawling empire. Connected by a public art garden, the stand-alone Sydney Modern (designed by Pritzker Prizewinning architects SANAA) is a cluster of rectilinear limestone-clad pavilions with a soaring glass backdrop. As the buildings slope down to Woolloomooloo Bay, visitors take in an expanse of sea, sky and nature.

“This doubles our exhibition space and creates a porous connection between the indoors and outdoors,” says Michael Brand, director of the Art Gallery of NSW. “The new open spaces will have 24/7 public access – the past couple of years have demonstrated that high-quality public open space is essential.”

The architecture of our cultural institutions has long been as iconic as the art that they house. But further proof that the environment they sit in is just as integral is Bundanon (bundanon.com.au), Arthur and Yvonne Boyd’s gift to the Australian people, which was reimagined earlier this year.

Located on 1000 hectares by the Shoalhaven River near Nowra on the NSW South Coast, it reopened in March with a new fire- and flood-resistant subterranean art museum and dramatic

James Moffatt, Tom Ross

Bark Ladies: Eleven Artists from Yirrkala at the NGV in Melbourne (top and above); the end of the trestle bridge at Bundanon on the NSW South Coast

trestle bridge addition, both designed by Kerstin Thompson Architects and costing $33 million. The additions sit in a landscape of rocky escarpments and fertile river flats, with CEO Rachel Kent describing a visit to the property as an immersive experience. “This appreciation of landscape in a regional, remote location is a different approach to the traditional standalone building in the middle of the CBD,” she says.

“Out here there’s no light pollution, no traffic noise, no congestion and the design incorporates exemplary sustainability features in line with our net-zero ambitions.” These measures include solar panels, passive temperature management, blackwater treatment, harvesting and storing of rainwater, as well as the use of local materials such as blackbutt.

THEN Ticket sales were driven by subscriptions

NOW

Cultural institutions are getting innovative

This shift has seen major changes to the Ballet’s marketing. “We’re creating short, intense campaigns to raise awareness of a season and using more digital marketing in addition to traditional media.”

Opera Australia (opera.org.au) lost a quarter of its workforce during COVID and endured cancellations. Its return to “normal” last New Year’s Eve didn’t go as planned when 60 members fell ill. But the tide is turning. “Although subscriptions aren’t in bad shape, there’s been a shift to last-minute ticket purchasing,” says CEO Fiona Allan. “It’s nailbiting but with tourism resuming, it should improve.”

“Traditional galleries rely on airconditioning to protect their artworks but because we wanted to reduce our reliance on fossil-fuel sources, the way it’s been built has allowed us to limit air-conditioning. We want to be a role model for other cultural organisations –a blueprint for the future.”

While workers are trickling back into CBDs, audiences are behaving differently than they were pre-pandemic. Once we keenly caught performances after work and committed to annual subscriptions to the ballet, theatre and opera. Now, we’re making last-minute purchasing decisions. “Single-ticket campaigns are more stressful – and COVID-19 has increased the trend to buy late – but we understand people are reluctant to commit to going out until the last minute,” says Libby Christie, who’s stepping down as executive director of The Australian Ballet (australian ballet.com.au) this month after almost 10 years in the role. “It’s still reassuring to know that we have a solid foundation of subscribers to complement those single ticket sales in any season.”

Allan’s also optimistic that sales of its open-air performances will continue to exceed expectations. “There’s an audience sector who are confident doing things outdoors. Our current Carmen production at Cockatoo Island ticks that box and allows us to tap into new markets: younger experience-seekers after a festival-like moment.” The healthy advance sales for Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, scheduled for March, is evidence that opera under the stars has never been more popular. 1309087 2022-11-02T15:51:55+11:00

Look to the stars

Björk headlines a wealth of international and local artists coming to Perth in 2023 for Australia’s longest-running international arts festival.

Perth is set to come alive this summer with a galaxy of stars – including the other-worldly art-pop musician Björk – ready to descend on the Western Australia capital for the 70th anniversary Perth Festival, from February 10 to March 5 2023.

“Festival time in Perth is the perfect opportunity to come together and enjoy the best arts experiences, feel something entirely new and extraordinary, and find inspiration in the most unexpected ways,” says Iain Grandage, the festival’s artistic director.

The festival reaches out beyond theatres and concert halls to embrace the city’s outdoor lifestyle with events at Langley Park, Lake Joondalup, City Beach and even in the Perth Hills. Artists include American indie-folk

band Bon Iver, Cameroon musician Blick Bassy and the legendary Kronos Quartet.

The festival’s theme, Djinda (stars), comes from the local Noongar people, who present the free public opening event, Djoondal (held over three nights) on Lake Joondalup. “Distilling meaning for our lives from the stars is central to cultures around the globe,” says Grandage. “For Noongar Custodians, a multitude of stories connect Djinda to Country.”

The line-up includes the WA Ballet under the stars and lights beamed into space from the Art Gallery of Western Australia rooftop. Also on the program are a fun-filled Family Day, the Writers Weekend at Fremantle Arts Centre and the popular outdoor Lotterywest Films season (BYO and picnics welcome).

The star highlights

Cornucopia

In an Australasian-exclusive event, Björk’s extravaganza will be performed in an elaborate custom-made pavilion in Langley Park. A feast of vivid colours and spectacular landscape imagery will inundate audiences as Björk performs alongside musicians and choirs of flutes and voices. Catch her on March 3, 6, 9 and 12.

Djoondal

Cutting-edge technology and ancient storytelling combine to tell the Noongar story of Djoondal, the spirit woman who created the Milky Way. The free immersive show opens the festival from February 10 to 12, linking the stories of the cosmos and the beauty of Lake Joondalup to its surroundings.

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

The Sydney Theatre Company’s adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s chilling mystery is an unmissable production at His Majesty’s Theatre from February 11 to 18. Witness the forefront of theatrical and cinematic design led by virtuosic actors Matthew Backer and Ewen Leslie.

Lotterywest Films

The Lotterywest Films season at the University of Western Australia’s Somerville Auditorium is already up and running and features a 19-week line-up of the best new Australian and international films, including Tim Winton’s Bluebac k, the feel-good Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom and the satirical black comedy The Triangle of Sadness

For bookings and festival info, visit perthfestival.com.au

Presented by Perth Festival

164 Learn from world-class teams in sport, the arts and science

172 Why B Corp status means everything to this CEO

185 What makes a company a great place to work post-COVID?

Principal dancer Ako Kondo of The Australian Ballet

DREAM TEAMS

They’ve mastered strategy and collaboration and conquered sport, the performing arts and science. What can business learn from these three worldclass teams? Jane Nicholls gets their top lessons.

WILD OATS XI

The record-breaking supermaxi has won the unpredictable Sydney Hobart Yacht Race nine times and is hoping to hit double digits later this month. Although most of its crew follow the regatta season around the world, a tight group returns to Wild Oats XI – owned by the Oatley family – every year for “the Hobart”. Mark “Ricko” Richards has worked with the family since the 1990s, when he began developing racing yachts with the late Bob Oatley, and has been skipper of Wild Oats XI since day one.

Daniel Boud, Salty Dingo, Dion Robeson

OCEANOMICS AT THE MINDEROO FOUNDATION

A philanthropic endeavour of Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest and his wife, Nicola, the Minderoo Foundation has invested $2.6 billion in initiatives ranging from fire and flood resilience to cancer research. Partnering with CSIRO, its OceanOmics project is building a DNA reference library of Australia’s 5500-plus marine vertebrates, including fish, reptiles, mammals and seabirds. It collects eDNA – environmental DNA shed by all living organisms – from buckets of seawater and sequences the samples aboard Minderoo’s Pangaea Ocean Explorer research vessel. The samples are matched to DNA codes and species profiles to build a picture of biodiversity in a marine area and achieve accurate species monitoring at scale, which has never been possible before. The results will be openly published, giving invaluable data to support conservation efforts.

THE AUSTRALIAN BALLET AND ORCHESTRA VICTORIA

Australia’s national dance company marked its 60th anniversary this year. While that makes it a relative youngster – the Paris Opera Ballet was founded in 1669 – The Australian Ballet is one of the busiest companies in the world, touring nationally and internationally with as many as 200 performances annually. Orchestra Victoria plays to more than 170,000 people a year as a performance partner of the ballet and Opera Australia. The ballet collaborates with The Australian Ballet School on regional tours and school events, and attracts international guest dancers.

01

EXHAUSTIVE PREPARATION BOOSTS TEAM CONFIDENCE

Preparation, said Alexander Graham Bell, “is the key to success”. Nicolette Fraillon, music director and chief conductor of The Australian Ballet, subscribes to that maxim. “Rehearsals are highly pressured,” she says. “You have maybe three rehearsals, a dress rehearsal and then the curtain goes up so there’s no time to waste and no option to defer.”

Fraillon ensures “we have prepared everything immaculately so that our highly skilled team has everything they need to do their job. There’s a lot of prep trying to anticipate the likely difficulties and a lot of that responsibility lies with the conductor, working with the concertmaster and section leaders. It’s even making sure the material that the orchestra has is legible so you’re not wasting time on relatively mundane things that we could have resolved in advance.”

There’s no “one way of dancing” so Fraillon – who is retiring this month after almost 20 years with the company – practises multiple interpretations. “The orchestra has to trust their leader because they can’t see what’s happening onstage. Often you’ll feel them go, ‘Why on earth is she doing that?’, but if they trust you, they’ll go with you because you haven’t let them down. There’s quite a lot of blind faith, as well as experience. It’s a strong parallel for business because it’s scenario planning but also having the right mix of experience and expertise.”

Yacht racing also focuses on tight preparation. “We have a very stringent training program and we go into the Hobart very well prepared,” says Wild Oats XI skipper Mark Richards. Given the nature of the ocean, the crew plans for the worst. “We rehearse potential crisis situations – what’s going to happen if the mast comes down, who cuts this, who does that,” says navigator Adrienne Cahalan. “It’s the basic concept about identifying risks and finding a strategy should that risk eventuate.”

When extreme things happen out at sea, the preparation and training kicks in and the team pulls together. “We batten down the hatches to whatever degree we need to and we get through it,” says Richards. “It’s a very satisfying thing.”

IT’S ABOUT THE WHOLE TEAM, NOT THE ONE SUPERSTAR

The corps de ballet – the group of dancers who perform together – is a dazzling display of collaboration. “What’s shown on stage is the teamwork of unity, precision and execution,” says The Australian Ballet’s artistic director David Hallberg, a former principal dancer who took the company reins in 2021. “Among principal dancers, it’s evident who has gone through the corps de ballet and who hasn’t. Sometimes when they’ve had a really fast ascent to principal roles, dancers don’t have a general sense of the bigger picture of working with a team.”

When Hallberg was in the corps de ballet at the American Ballet Theatre, “it was so valuable to my general view of the show when I was a principal because I’d gone through every step of the ranking. It helps your performance and the bigger picture.”

That said, there’s no point holding back someone who’s destined for greater things. While most dancers will begin with the corps de ballet, says Hallberg, sometimes their stay is brief. “When the talent is really obvious and undeniable, they go quite quickly through the rankings. But they need to keep a sense of teamwork – it’s not just about them in the spotlight.”

VALUES AREN’T JUST WORDS ON A POSTER – THEY MUST BE LIVED

Minderoo’s OceanOmics team has come together over the past two years, attracting a diverse group of scientists from around the world. They’ve been helping to design and oversee the building of the new Minderoo OceanOmics Centre at The University of Western Australia, while at the same time developing a new research program.

The set of values prescribed by Andrew and Nicola Forrest has been the team’s guiding light. “It’s our responsibility to translate the Forrests’ vision into actions,” says head of operations Dr Priscila

Daniel Boud, Simon Eales

The Australian Ballet’s music director and chief conductor Nicolette Fraillon (above) and artistic director David Hallberg (below)

Goncalves, who joined OceanOmics in 2020. “Having the values and vision shared among all of us has given us the backbone for it to come to fruition.”

The principles are communicated from the word go. “Values and culture are added to the recruitment process,” says head of research Dr Julie Robidart, former group head of ocean technology and engineering at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, the UK. “The recruitment is, of course, around skill sets but a huge part is how your values align with the vision of the organisation.”

She says they’re looking for people who clearly have a Plan B in the face of challenges, a drive to collaborate and a passion for change – all of which fit with the Minderoo values of courage and determination, empowerment, humility, generating ideas and enthusiasm.

“I’ve worked in other companies where most of us wouldn’t have known the values,” says research officer Dr Sebastian Rauschert, who says his job interview focused on a number of the foundation’s values. “There’s a lot of work done to make our values available – and lived. Getting along with people here is much easier than anywhere else I’ve worked because so much effort is put into the cultural fit, right from recruitment.”

Other Minderoo standards are frugality, family, integrity, stretch targets and safety. Yes, they’re posted everywhere but Rauschert says that’s not why they’re meaningful. “The values are like a sanity check when we’re making sure a company or a person is right for us to work with – it’s a tool set we’re constantly applying. It’s really powerful.”

In team meetings, there are “values call-outs”, says Robidart. “At the start of a meeting, someone will be assigned to give a thoughtful two-minute presentation on how one person has been representing one of the values, to inspire others to continue along the path.” Once a quarter, Forrest gives a staffer the NEGU (Never Ever Give Up) Award, with nominations coming from their peers, not management.

a project when you know they have the skills for it, without waiting for approval from the top. That trust from the top enables us to work freely.”

Similarly, yacht navigator Cahalan says respect for individual abilities is critical aboard Wild Oats XI. “Don’t second-guess the crew – let them get on and do their job. Micromanaging is not necessary. A yacht of this complexity requires intricate teamwork and trust. As to what might happen in the business sphere, I think if someone’s watching you do your job, they’re not doing their own job. It’s important to trust people to do their work.”

When The Australian Ballet principal artist Ako Kondo is onstage, “trust is the most important thing to have with your partner”. She says that dancing with her husband and fellow principal, Chengwu Guo, makes her “feel myself the most… I can be free and I’m not afraid to make a mistake or be off balance”.

But, Kondo explains, it’s also necessary to have the same amount of faith with other partners. “Through rehearsals, you get to know this person and build trust in each other. It takes time but when you go onstage you feel you’ve achieved something.”

“Trust comes from good communication skills between the whole team,” says Guo. “We can predict their next move, which really helps to keep the quality and security there on stage. Ballet is society work – it’s not individual.”

LESSON Nº 05

GET RID OF NEGATIVITY AND FOCUS ON A SENSE OF COMMUNITY

TEAMWORK RUNS ON ABSOLUTE TRUST

“The teamwork at OceanOmics is empowered by a flat hierarchy,” says Rauschert. “You can pull in someone for

As well as skippering Wild Oats XI, Mark Richards is CEO of Grand Banks Yachts and oversees about 1000 staff. “There’s no difference between running a big company and Wild Oats. It comes down to the strengths and weaknesses of every person on that team, including the leader, and you’re only as good as the weakest link. I’m a very upfront person and don’t like conflict or negativity. As soon as we see anyone who’s not fitting in, we move on, because it doesn’t work on a boat like Wild Oats.”

A good team that’s been together for a long time “ends up managing itself” and will weed out the “bad eggs”, he says.

The Australian Ballet’s principal dancers Ako Kondo (above) and Chengwu Guo (below)

The Australian Ballet’s Hallberg says international guest artists often comment on its sense of community. “With the dancers here, there’s mutual support and a lack of ego. I was really impressed by it when I came to dance as a guest artist.

“There’s a collective sense of teamwork through the ranks, from principal dancers down to first-year corps de ballet. That equates to a harmonious company culture, which can be equated to teamwork. I think it’s part of Australian culture in a broader sense – I find that ballet companies are like a microcosm of the broader culture where they exist.”

DEBRIEF… WITHOUT BLAME

Having worked as a lawyer in the corporate realm, navigator Cahalan has seen how damaging “ducking and weaving” can be to a team. “In yachting, we have debriefs after every race. Everybody’s honest about what they could have done better and because we all have the same goal, private agendas fall aside. Wild Oats has been so successful at team-building because they have such a good culture of getting everybody on the same page.”

“It’s an open forum, run by Ricko,” says Paul Magee, Wild Oats XI ’s boat captain and shore team manager. “I take notes during the race – I’ve got these wetnotes where I jot down things that might have gone wrong or areas we need to improve. It can get heated and brutal but the more honest – and the sooner we can debrief after the race – the more beneficial it is.”

Nº 07

INVOLVE PARTNERS IN YOUR TEAM’S VISION

“In less than two years we have formulated some incredible partnerships,” says OceanOmics director Dr Steve Burnell. “We don’t want to just buy equipment –we talk to these companies and make them partners in our vision to revolutionise how we understand life in the ocean. People have their own reasons for wanting to support marine conservation – it may be for their own ESG goals – but when those reasons align around the vision, your partners start solving problems with you. They’re doing R&D on your behalf, not just selling you something.”

When the OceanOmics team asked Illumina to supply a DNA sequencer to

operate onboard its research vessel, the vendor’s engineers had plenty of reasons why it wouldn’t work. “They wanted highthroughput sequencing and we said we couldn’t guarantee it would work as the instrument is really sensitive to vibration and heat,” says Angela Heley, senior field applications scientist with Illumina. “But we kept talking and agreed to try.”

In April last year, Heley was onboard when the OceanOmics team set sail on a demonstration voyage to Perth Canyon, west of Rottnest Island. “We didn’t want to test the instrument in the dock – we wanted to stress-test it.” As they rocked and rolled at sea through Cyclone Seroja, the Illumina instrument kept on sequencing marine genomes. “We had excellent results. Now it’s gone past the traditional customer relationship – it’s a real collaboration with joint goals. We’re going to push the science, which will not only benefit Minderoo but the wider scientific community.”

STAY HUMAN

“We start our weekly team meeting, no matter how busy the agenda is, by going around the table with a personal ‘check-in’ on how people are feeling,” says Burnell of OceanOmics. “Whatever’s top of mind for them – the kids are sick or they’ve got exams in their night study. It helps you understand where people are at and why the team dynamic in relation to that person may have shifted temporarily. It rarely takes more than 10 minutes and is worth its weight in gold for team connectedness.”

LESSON Nº 08

LESSON

(Clockwise from left) Wild Oats XI ’s navigator Adrienne Cahalan, boat captain and shore team manager Paul Magee and skipper Mark Richards

Driving powerful change

The road to electric buses requires a collaborative effort across industries and promises to bring benefits that go beyond protecting the environment.

The Australian government has committed to achieving a net-zero economy by 2050. With less than three decades to go, accomplishing this goal is expected to cost an estimated $2.52 to $3 trillion of investment to transform assets, technology and processes, according to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s 2022 Climate Report.

Public transport is one sector en route to an electric transformation. The Victorian and Queensland governments have announced they will not procure new diesel buses from 2025 and the NSW Government has set deadlines to remove all carbon-emitting public buses from the Sydney metropolitan area by 2035.

CBA is seeking to support states on their transition to renewable transport. “Passenger buses represent the second-largest public transport segment in Australia,” says Jake Potgieter, CBA’s managing director of Industrials, Transport and Consumer. “Facilitating the transition away from diesel engines will be critical in helping the states and the country achieve their net-zero emissions aspirations.”

Through CBA’s strong relationships with private and public industry participants, it’s been able to bring together key stakeholders across the zero-emission bus ecosystem – from energy providers to bus manufacturers and government – to share strategies and solutions to overcome the challenges of transition. “This includes an electrical grid upgrade capable of being maintained at peak demand levels, bus depots supplied with sufficient power, storage, floor space and charging capabilities to guarantee continuous bus service. Plus, mechanics and drivers who need to be re-skilled and retrained.”

While the initial outlay for the electrification of the bus network is expensive – an electric bus can cost 30 per cent more than its diesel counterpart – CBA is providing innovative funding solutions that allow capital expenditure spikes to be efficiently managed and potentially accelerate the transition. “Fuel is by far the biggest expense associated with diesel buses and if this cost goes away, the economic benefit is substantial. On current figures from an electric bus trial in the ACT, electric buses save $275,306 over a bus’s life.”

The benefits of a sustainable bus transport system also go beyond the environment. “It can provide social and economic benefits, including increased access to healthcare, education and jobs.”

CBA is looking to the future to help other industries achieve Australia’s net-zero goal. “We’re ready to have the conversation with other stakeholders and interested parties across manufacturers, operators, investors and governments about how we can support them to maximise this transition opportunity.”

Learn more about how CBA is supporting Australia’s transition to a net-zero economy at commbank.com.au/sustainability

This information is published solely for informational purposes. As this information has been prepared without considering your objectives, financial situation or needs, you should, before acting on the information, consider its appropriateness to your circumstances. Commonwealth Bank of Australia ABN 48 123 123 124 and AFSL and Australian Credit Licence 234945.

Presented by Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Making the crew’s families feel part of the team is key to the Wild Oats XI operation, especially with the squad often away racing. “The Oatleys encourage families to be involved – they love that sort of culture around the boat,” says boat captain Magee. “There’s a real family feeling – we’re all mates. Our partners know each other, our kids have grown up together and so on. If we’re up at Hamilton Island, the families will come up and go out on a powerboat to watch the race or fly down to Hobart and watch us come in. Everyone feels included and that’s another aspect to it all gelling.”

LESSON Nº 09

KEEP ON COMMUNICATING

As the crew members of Wild Oats XI spread around the globe following other regattas, Magee makes sure he stays in touch with them “through sporadic phone calls, as well as an email chain”. There’s a strong culture of constantly looking for ways to improve the boat so he consults with his colleagues.

“When we’re working on a particular area of the boat, we’ll have a small WhatsApp group for the people involved in that part to ensure their involvement and keep them current and thinking about our program.

“These guys are world-class sailors on different boats but they’re really happy to jump in with suggestions. That’s how we keep the group together and focused on the end goal. The more communication they get, the more involved they feel and the better we go when we get back onboard together.”

(Clockwise from top left)

Minderoo OceanOmics’ research officer

Dr Sebastian Rauschert, head of operations

Dr Priscila Goncalves and head of research

Dr Julie Robidart; Illumina’s senior field applications scientist Angela Heley; OceanOmics’ director Dr Steve Burnell

LESSON Nº 10

UNDERSTAND THE POWER OF CONNECTIVITY

Virtual working is convenient but nothing builds connection like being together in person. As an external member of the OceanOmics team, Heley says the time that they all spent on the research vessel was invaluable. “We worked long hours together for 10 days – it was an intense period and it really cemented our working relationship.

“I’m not saying everyone needs to get on a boat and live together. But especially these days when there’s so much remote work, it’s super-beneficial to make sure you find a way to get together. It gave us a really strong foundation.”

We’re connecting farmers to carbon market opportunities.

Nicky Sparshott

CURRENT ROLE

CEO, Unilever ANZ

TENURE Two years, nine months

AGE 48

PREVIOUS ROLES

CEO, T2 Tea; vice-president of South-East Asia & Australasia, Unilever – refreshment category; vice-president of Asia Pacific, Unilever – ice-cream category

What does good leadership look like for you?

It’s about having courage of conviction – that sense of what gets you up in the morning, why you’re doing something and then just backing yourself. Sometimes you’re going to get it right and sometimes you won’t but you have to do what’s right, not what’s easy.

You’re a great believer in servant leadership and creating advocates in the business. Has that served you well throughout your career? Good leadership is only as good as awesome followership. I honestly think the best thing I can do is create the right environment to enable the superpowers in the organisation to flourish. I want to bring together people from diverse backgrounds with different perspectives and to harness that in a way that creates something meaningful. That’s where you create real momentum and impact.

And when you identify people who are really great at what they do, how do you empower them?

People talk a lot about psychological safety but at the heart of it is creating an environment where it doesn’t matter where a person sits in the organisation, they still feel they have the opportunity to surface issues quickly, to table solutions and to experiment fast. It’s giving them the space to chase the stuff they’re passionate about in a way that creates value for the business.

The Unilever ANZ CEO has just led her company to B Corp Certification and now has the four-day work week in her sights.

View From The Top INTERVIEW BY KIRSTEN GALLIOTT ILLUSTRATION BY MARC NEMORIN

You’ve coined the term “love-bite leadership”. What’s that about?

At the end of the day, we all spend quite a bit more time at work than we do with family and friends. So how do you bring your humanity into the workplace? We’re so good at recognising how we give space to our partners, to our children, to our friendships but we don’t always give ourselves the same licence to bring humanity and love into the workplace. If you show up every day and you feel comfortable, excited, curious and encouraged, you’re much more likely to be good at what you do. That’s where the love bites thing came from: how can you love people enough – in the right way – to give them the space to be curious, to be courageous, to have high performance expectations and follow them through to surface issues when they’re there?

When you have issues with performance, how does that play into love bites?

They’re hard conversations to have but in the same way you love your children, you equally keep them in line and set high expectations for them to aim for. You tell a person when they’re doing brilliantly and you encourage and nurture them but you want to be the stretch and the safety net. I do that with my kids, I do it with my friends and I do it at work.

So does that mean you don’t get frustrated or angry with people? Wouldn’t that be awesome? [laughs] There are times when I feel frustrated but if you go into something expecting it’s not going to be perfect or it might be perfect in its imperfection then you hold things a little more lightly. I go in with the expectation that things might be a little bit messy but where we get to is going to be far better than some sort of neat process that maybe doesn’t push us as far or as productively or constructively.

In August, Unilever ANZ achieved B Corp status. A lot of small businesses go after B Corp but not many of your size, with more than 900 employees in the region. How hard was it?

After I took over at T2 [Tea] in 2016, we went through the B Corp certification process and I learned how empowering it was to rally an organisation around this sense of purpose and something that contributes positively to society. Big business can have a big impact as long as you’re doing things the right way. We reach about 14 million people every day with our products in Australia and New Zealand so the ripple effect can be powerful. It took two years, a lot of conviction and a bucketload of really strong change agents in the organisation who had passion for it. We had to really look at our end-to-end value chain and think about how we were going to do things differently so that we could hold ourselves to the highest environmental standards, the highest social standards and still deliver strong financial performance. That triple bottom line for us is really important.

What was the biggest challenge throughout the process?

Choosing where we were going to put our energy and effort. There are plenty of things you can do but there’s probably only a few things that you should do and what I love about B Corp as a process, as well as a certification, is that you’re never really done. We were fortunate that in some areas we’d already made great progress. We had 100 per cent

renewable electricity in our operations, we’d made some really good progress in plastics reduction across our business and we had already been incredibly passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. The biggest challenge was finding people who were prepared to put in discretionary effort because this wasn’t about bringing together an army of additional resources to get B Corp Certification; this was about leveraging the goodwill and the expertise that already sat in the business.

Obviously B Corp Certification requires ongoing disclosure and transparency. How difficult is that to keep up?

Irrespective of who is in the seat, there is a really clear process for how you continue to keep up that disclosure and transparency. Globally, Unilever already has this very strong DNA of making – at times – audacious commitments about what we’re going to do in the environmental space and in the social space, and then being transparent about our progress. Sometimes we fall short of the targets that we set but telling people why and what we’re doing is as important as setting those targets in the first place.

Your brands include Dove and Rexona. Is plastic one of your biggest pain points?

We believe there’s a role for plastics, just not in the environment. We have a really rigorous program on plastic, starting from could you remove them completely to can you improve the type of plastics? We’re very focused right now on post-consumer recycled plastics, the stuff that’s already in the economy. You bring it back in and use it again. But you can’t look at plastics alone. You have to look at the sustainability or regenerative impact holistically because you can remove plastics but increase food waste. It’s almost like that game of Whac-A-Mole – you fix this issue and another one pops up. I want to make sure that the choices we’re making don’t tick a box over here just to create a problem over there.

One of your other initiatives is trialling a four-day working week in New Zealand. How has that been going?

We’re almost two years into that experiment. We pay 100 per cent of people’s salary and benefits to work 80 per cent of the time to deliver 100 per cent of agreed productivity outputs. The only caveat is that people need to find 20 per cent of track capacity in the organisation to help free up the time. The most interesting thing about the experiment was seeing teams working together to remove inefficiencies in order to unlock time. Inevitably when they did that, they were more energised, motivated and committed, and they made smarter, faster and more collaborative decisions. The results have been really positive. All our financial metrics have gone up, market share metrics have gone up and cultural dimensions have gone up, ranging from operational effectiveness to engagement to feeling purposeful at work.

How has it impacted customers and stakeholders?

We said that while we’re doing a four-day work week experiment at Unilever, it shouldn’t negatively impact anybody else – be that our suppliers, customers, partners or people in the Unilever world where we’re not running a four-day work week. We had to work smartly to make sure we were covering

our bases and serving people in a way that we would have served them before. All the feedback that has come back from our team members and stakeholders has been positive. When you give people more space to get more out of their personal life, you get it back in spades at work. We’re now looking to initiate an experiment for the Australian market, which is a more complex landscape with more people and more functions. We’re really excited to see how this unfolds.

How does it work? Do you stagger teams across different days? We let teams self-organise based on what they know they need to deliver to support the business. We resisted the urge in New Zealand to mandate anything but we do need coverage across the business. We found some people took mornings off or picked up their kids and took the afternoon off. It was unique to themselves but also served the teams that they’re part of. People really supported each other to be able to have the benefit.

You’ve said before that you set very high expectations. How does that tally with this new era of balance?

My mum used to say to me, “Aim for the moon and you might just get the stars.” When you set marginal improvement then you just get marginal thinking, whereas when you set the bar just that little bit higher, you need to think quite differently about what you’re going to do to get there. There’s something about belief – how do you create a belief that it’s possible?

You’ve also said that you’ve taken the road less travelled many times in your career, despite opposition. How do you know when to back yourself?

I’ve always felt most energised when I’ve had a proportion of what I’m doing that’s familiar and, in equal measure, enough that’s different for it to be challenging, a bit provocative and stimulating. So I back myself when I know I can bring a certain amount of expertise to the table but there’s enough newness where I’m forced to leverage a beginner’s mindset and I can’t take for granted that the decisions I might have made in the past will hold true now.

I love your list-making process. Can you share it?

I organise the chaos in my mind by using Post-it Notes and to-do lists. My kids laugh at me because it’s a very old-school way of doing things but I write down what I need to deliver in the next quarter and then I deconstruct it. Then it’s working out how I assign my time, energy and effort to those things in the course of the week and even in the course of a day.

Are you quite disciplined with sticking to the list?

If someone was to ask me for help, of course I would but I do try to be disciplined. Otherwise there would be so many things that I could inadvertently get dragged into. There are times for being 30 thousand feet in the air and there are times when it’s appropriate to roll up your sleeves and get into the weeds and get a bit dirty. Being able to make the choice about when that’s appropriate is something I’ve gotten better at.

You tell people to be brave because the world is changing quickly. What do you do when you’re not feeling brave?

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the difference between bravery and courage but I heard it a couple of years back and it resonated with me. Someone who is brave is fearless; someone who has courage feels the fear but goes down the path anyway. That really helped me because I realised I could make these decisions and that the fear, the ambiguity and the discomfort might just keep me sharp as I embark on something I haven’t done before. And then I’m really good at asking: “What’s the worst that can happen?” If I make a decision and it ends up not being a great one, maybe I can make another decision or I can reverse that decision. Is it a two-way door or a one-way door? I check myself on that.

How do you look after your own mental health? I know you’ve been training to be a fighter…

I like the idea of having a black belt [laughs] so I signed up for jujitsu a couple of years back. I’ve made a bit of progress [laughs again] but you have to be present in the moment or you can get hurt. It’s a really good way of decompressing. Exercise and physical disconnect is quite important for me. If I feel well then I feel better equipped to be able to cope with some of the curve balls that come.

During the pandemic, you played your favourite pop songs at the end of every town hall. Do you still roll out DJ Nicky?

“

Someone who is brave is fearless; someone who has courage feels the fear but goes down the path anyway. I realised I could make these decisions and that the fear, the ambiguity and the discomfort might just keep me sharp as I embark on something I haven’t done before

”

I still do it! Now we publish a Spotify mix for the year and it’s lovely to go back and listen to it because you think, “Oh wow, that must have been a really bad week” or “That must have been a really joyful, high-fiving-each-other kind of week.” Now I have other people volunteering their own tracks. Music is just an incredible universal connector.

And finally, what advice would you give to a brand new CEO? Take a moment to not feel the urge to do but to just learn. My mum used to say to me, “You have two ears and one mouth so use them in that ratio.” I did not listen to that advice as a teenager but it has proven to be exceptionally good advice in my last two CEO roles. Take the time to listen, learn and to give yourself the space to consider things before you come to a conclusion about where you want to focus the organisation’s efforts moving forward.

Set up for success

It’s a given that a good financial adviser can help you navigate the ever-changing world. But research shows the right advice makes a huge difference to your wellbeing, too.

When it comes to comprehensive financial advice, it’s not just about structuring your finances, improving your tax position and making smarter investments to generate long-term wealth. Working with an adviser also makes your day-to-day easier, helping with the smooth management of your cash flow and total balance sheet and keeping an eye on your arrangements as the world around you changes.

Industry research shows that financial advice is also good for your wellbeing. In a recent study*, nine out of 10 people agreed that their financial adviser is a critical partner in their financial success. Many also said that having someone they trust to focus on their finances helped them fulfil other personal goals.

It’s about future confidence and peace of mind, according to Shadforth Private Wealth. Setting long-term goals based on what you want your life to look like and having a partner on hand to keep you on track gives you time back to spend on what really matters.

Trust is the game changer

With almost 100 years of experience, Shadforth Private Wealth focuses on building relationships that last for

a lifetime. The team at Shadforth helps clients create personalised strategies to grow their wealth and keep them on track as their lifestyle, career, family and the economic environment shifts.

Having a financial adviser by your side will help you keep a level head and a clearer eye on the big picture. As recent years have demonstrated, life is unpredictable. You can, however, plan to better handle the unexpected when it happens.

Book your complimentary wealth discussion with Shadforth today. sfg.com.au/booking 1800 501 204

GET EMOTIONAL

Far from being a warm and fuzzy concept, emotional connection can deliver businesses customer loyalty – and referrals.

Taken out of context, the phrase “emotional drivers” sounds hackneyed. But if you want your product to connect with customers’ aspirations and desires, emotion is the secret sauce of business.

Graeme Holm, co-founder and director of Infinity Group, a mortgage broking financial services firm, says learning the emotional drivers of its customers is at the heart of its success. “If you don’t understand why somebody gets out of bed every day,” he explains, “you can’t give them good financial advice.”

Infinity clients, he says, are typically trying to get ahead and, on a deeper level, determined to distance themselves from previous financial trauma or “to get closer to something they believe in”, he says. “It’s always way beyond the home loan.”

The company’s brand voice is that of a financial personal trainer that can help clients rewrite their money story. Its website connects wealth creation to the dour-sounding budget management. Holm says its coaching helps to reduce “financial stress, secrecy and avoidance”,

resulting in clients who have “better marriages, better careers and mortgages paid off well ahead of time”.

This connection to the emotional motivations for building a better life and feeling financially capable and secure has multiple benefits for the firm. Among them are that it fosters commitment to the accelerated repay program and generates referrals and loyalty back to Infinity.

Holm says the firm’s clients who sign up for financial coaching on a subscription basis typically stay with the program for three or four years and reduce the length of their mortgage repayments from 25-30 years to seven-10 years, often saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest payments.

Emotional connection to a brand is bolstered by being able to identify with the business’s founder or its backstory. Holm shares his experiences of growing up in a Housing Commission home in Wollongong, NSW. Customers can relate to that with their own stories of struggle and be encouraged to remain positive.

Storytelling is something Angus Irwin, founder and managing director of Neutrog Biological Fertilisers, also uses to build his business. As the second son of a farming family, tradition meant that Irwin’s elder brother got the farm and he had to come up with an alternative career: fertilisers.

You’d imagine that few products are harder to build an emotional connection with than manure. But Hazel Ashby, marketing manager at Neutrog, says the company’s home-gardener customers are driven to understand how plants interact with soil and nutrients. They want to be informed and report that they read every word of Neutrog’s long newsletters and social media posts. In June, its customers were part of a crowdfunding equity raise to a cap of $3 million, from 784 investors.

Personality is essential to connecting with Neutrog’s customers, says Ashby. Product names such as Whoflungdung, Seamungus and GOGO Juice “seek to make a personal connection”, she says. It’s about, “telling who we are as a business”.

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Upstart

BAIDAM SOLUTIONS

Need to know

Founders

Neil Templeman, 46, Jack Reis, 35 and Pip Jenkinson, 46 (below, left to right)

20

STORY BY JANE NICHOLLS PHOTOGRAPHY BY HANNAH PUECHMARIN

Correctly identifying a market niche and having a purpose-driven mission has led to swift growth for this cybersecurity company, which is helping to lift First Nations voices.

First customer Services Australia, 2018

What’s the startup? An ICT consultancy specialising in cybersecurity, with a focus on social impact. Baidam is 100 per cent Indigenous owned and led, with a mission to give back to Australia’s regional communities and to build pathways to employment for First Nations people. The first employment opportunity Jack Reis, co-founder and CEO, had after he finished school was a contract to play NRL with the Sydney Roosters. “I wanted to be a professional sportsperson because I could see other Indigenous sports stars and role models,” says Reis, a Badulaig man from Badu Island in the Torres Strait. After football, he worked in banking and with Indigenous

Business Australia. He and his co-founders could see a lucrative market in cybersecurity and wanted to dovetail that with building pathways to high-value IT jobs for First Nations people.

How did you get it off the ground? There weren’t many Australian companies in the cybersecurity space when Baidam started out. “We wanted to challenge the status quo,” says Reis. The company began by deploying off-the-shelf products from other vendors for customers and has since grown to building bespoke solutions.

What’s your business model? “Rather than all the profits going into our pockets, we are pushing a significant portion of them towards scholarships and funding cyber certification training for Indigenous and Torres Strait people.” The Baidam Initiative has already provided an endowment for two scholarships to study IT and STEM disciplines. “A single deal in 2019 had enough margin to pay for our first lifetime scholarship at The University of Queensland,” says Reis. A second scholarship has since been established at ANU. “It’s one thing to get in front of customers, the next thing is for them to be happy with our security and our capability – then we can show them tangible community outcomes.”

Biggest challenge? There’s a well-known shortfall of cyber skills in Australia. “We’re all fishing from the same pond and we’re cannibalising that pond.”

Biggest breakthrough? The first ASX-listed company to sign up with Baidam was Flight Centre. This year, Reis was named Young Entrepreneur of the Year at Supply Nation’s Supplier Diversity Awards. “In my acceptance speech, I said, sort of tongue-in-cheek, ‘We’re on table 58, please come over and say hello and introduce yourself!’” A BHP executive was the first to approach and the mining giant is now a client.

What’s next? Baidam wants to be able to offer verification of their reinvestment of profits. “We have been working with Social Ventures Australia to create a multiplier calculator,” says Reis. “From the impacts we’ve generated in the past, they can attribute a multiplier to every dollar spent with us.”

baidam.com.au

Investors Privately held Employees

Headquarters Brisbane, with an office in Sydney and remote workers in Victoria and South Australia

04:55

Alarm goes. I turn on the jug for coffee and do a little warm-up and activation, rolling out and stretching. At 5:15, I drive to Miami Aquatic Centre at Pizzey Park on the Gold Coast.

05:30

I’m in the water. Squad training can be anywhere from four to six kilometres, depending on whether it’s preseason, taper [time leading up to a major competition] or racing. It’s not like athletes are built differently. Getting up at 4:55am in winter is not enjoyable, it’s not fun. I want to stay under the covers. But it’s crazy how humans are creatures of adaptation. If you get up at 7am to go into an office and work all day and it’s horrible, after three months it becomes a lifestyle.

07:00

Drive to Alfred’s Apartment in Mermaid Beach for breakfast with a couple of guys from BMD Northcliffe Surf Club, that I train for. Like all clubs, we compete individually but stick together.

I have a race-car mentality about fuel and the body but I’m not over the top: three or four eggs, toast, avocado, a side of spinach, coffee. I don’t calorie count. In Ironman racing there are three disciplines – swimming, board paddling and ski paddling, all demanding different muscle groups – as well as running and gym. You’re always on the line of overtraining, doing 10 to 12 sessions a week. It’s actually about getting enough food in.

Ironman Matt Poole, close to twice the age of some of his rivals, once ran the last two kilometres of a race with a broken fibula. This elite athlete will ignore extreme pain to cross a finish line but before race day, he heeds every single message his body sends him.

10:00

Photo shoot with a sponsor at Northcliffe Beach. Athletes just want to train but you have to deliver for your brands and sponsors. When I started my career, all a brand wanted was athletes on podiums, winning races and wearing logos. Nowadays, your results almost don’t matter if you have a big following. The best athletes are good at racing but they also know how to sell.

12:00

Lunchtime. Again, nothing crazy: chicken and salad sandwiches, coffee. I drink two to three litres of water and electrolytes when I’m in a heavy training load. Sometimes I’ll have creatine in a protein shake after my afternoon session. A 600-to-700 millilitre bottle of electrolytes in the morning during swim training is non-negotiable.

13:00

I alternate my midday session through the week between gym and running. I’m not trying to build muscle – in my sport, being the biggest guy on the beach is counterproductive. My coach, Wade Leys [at Momentum Sports Performance Centre in Burleigh Heads], keeps me in check, getting all the little things right. At six foot four and 90 kilos, I’m prone to injuries so I make sure I have a strong core and stay mobile through my joints.

Slowing down to get faster is a weird concept for athletes; you want to go as hard as you can go for as long as you can. But little niggles have a ripple effect. If I get a sore left knee, I’ll notice my lower right back will go, then my left shoulder. If you’re in pain, it’s too late.

Reading your body is one of the most difficult things. Many times as an athlete, you’re pushing yourself to extremes. When you’re training in a squad, you’re driven to beat the other athletes, to stay in front. You’re constantly judging yourself against other people and your own past results. Pulling back because you’re run-down or sick sounds like common sense but it is so hard to do. You’re always going, “Am I making a smart decision to let the body heal? Or am I just being weak?”

14:00

Head home, put my feet up. To build the consistency of doing multiple sessions a day, you need to be aware of recovery.

16:00

Back down at Northcliffe Surf Club for ’ski training with the senior squad, for short, sharp sprints and skills in and out through the surf. If it was winter preseason, it’d be a long session out the back to build that base fitness. Physically, the fittest I’ve ever been was at age 25 to 30 but sometimes in sport, experience outweighs everything. In the last four or five years, there’ve been kids who are 19 – injury-free, way fitter and probably faster than me. But they didn’t have that mental IQ to win races.

18:00

Cook, eat dinner and help with Posy [Poole’s five-month-old baby] and the kids [Posy’s mother, Tammy Hembrow, also has Wolf, seven, and Saskia, six]. At 7.30pm, I hop in bed and watch TV.

20:30

Sleep. I’m 34 and I know that my competitive style is slowing up. I’m starting to transition from the athlete

In the zone In Play On: The New Science of Elite Performance at Any Age, author Jeff Bercovici found that athletes who lead the field beyond their so-called “prime” all focus on preventing injuries, managing fatigue and pacing their efforts rather than going all-out all the time. Bercovici adds that mature athletes are better at regulating their emotions than younger competitors. “If you can have the body of a younger person but the mind of an older person, you will dominate your sport.”

I’ve been – selfish in what needs to be done to be the best – into my next chapter, as a father.

I first qualified for the IronMan Series when I was 18 and I’ve never missed a race in 15 years.

As for why I’m still here, when most people pull out of the sport when aged between 26 and 30, I think it’s because I’ve been prepared to do whatever it takes.

On race day, there’s no amount of pain that would stop me from getting to the starting line. I guess I’m prepared to suffer more.

Business Passport

The team behind Vegepod has nurtured multi-million-dollar annual revenue from the ground up. They share four trips that opened doors, closed deals and planted the seed for global success.

In 2015, Vegepod appeared on Shark Tank with a portable, self-watering garden bed – and it changed everything for the Sydney-based startup. “We sold more online in two nights than we had in two years,” says Vegepod’s head of community, Simon Holloway, who co-owns the business with founder Matt Harris and global CEO Paul Harris.

And when it won Best New Product at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show – “the pinnacle in horticulture” – in 2020, Vegepod got a whole new level of global recognition. “Over the past three years we’ve seen growth rates of 200 to 300 per cent each year and, in 2022, we hit record annual revenue.”

Their vision is simple. “With a Vegepod, you can reduce your cost of living but also grow tasty food – and it’s good for the environment.”

Staying in touch with a global market means a lot of time “wheels up” – but these trips have paid back in spades, as Holloway explains.

TOKYO JAPAN

Where: Sydney Tokyo

When: October 2022

“We’ve been wanting to expand into Japan for a long time but we wanted to do it right. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade introduced us to Unitika Ltd as a possible distributor. We wanted to fly over and meet with them, go out for dinner and saké, and build that trust you can only get from being there in person. I lived in Japan as a young pup so I know Japanese but we also hired a translator because we didn’t want to stuff up the business talks. Unitika felt we were a perfect fit so they’ll be our new distributor and Japan is now the 21st country Vegepods are sold in. We used Qantas Points earned through Qantas Business Rewards to book our flights, which was a big cost saving. The extra baggage we get with Qantas flights was also handy because we took over some prototype demos of our new product. We don’t travel light.” Paul

Suesse

USA

Where: Sydney Dallas Philadelphia

When: March 2020

“QVC is number one for TV shopping and the third-largest online seller in the US. They’re huge. But they are notoriously hard to get in front of. So when I had a slight window, I dropped everything and flew to Philadelphia for a half-hour meeting. When I got there, the senior buyer couldn’t make it. My heart sank. By chance, about 10 minutes in, I saw her walking past and knocked on the glass and waved her into the meeting. Of course, it was a fluke but lo and behold, we got the contract. And the fact that I was able to show them the Vegepods from the back of the van while I was there was priceless. That’s why I always go on about Qantas and reliability. It’s not just about the savings you get as a Qantas Business Rewards member. When you travel on the Qantas network, you have a sense of confidence.”

SYDNEY

Where: All states Sydney

When: November 2022

“Each year, we fly all the state reps into Sydney for training and an early Christmas party using our Qantas Points. We regroup for training, talk about our wins, losses and challenges, and we usually do something fun. You want your team to back each other and they only do that when they know each other on a personal level. Our admin team arranges these flights so it’s handy to be able to have multiple people manage multiple bookings through our Qantas Business Rewards account. We also instruct all our staff to enter our ABN, as well as their Qantas Frequent Flyer number, when booking. More points for the business means more trips.”

Where: Sydney Christchurch When: September 2016

CHCH NZ

Is your business missing out on Qantas flight discounts?

Here’s how to get the most out of the Qantas Business Rewards program and ensure you and your team get maximum savings and Qantas Points…

“This was our first attempt at going international. I flew to New Zealand and replicated the same strategy we used to start out in Australia – I got in a campervan and drove around the South Island, cold-calling garden centres and hardware stores. It went ballistic – NZ remains our best sales per capita in the world – and all the store owners kept saying, ‘Mate, you don’t know how much it means for a manufacturer to come visit us. No one does that anymore.’ We did a couple of big sales and it gave us the confidence to take Vegepod around the world. When I fly, I always wear the Vegepod shirt. It starts conversations and it’s free advertising. Particularly in the Qantas Business Lounge, you get to mingle with people that you otherwise might not meet. We’ve made contacts and sometimes we’ve even ended up doing business together.”

Let your business fly

“The savings we get on flights as Qantas Business Rewards members are so important,” says Holloway. “We fly a lot and every buck counts as a small business.”

1. Book via your Qantas Business Rewards account

Store multiple travellers in your account, make bookings accessing flight savings2 and use your business’s points to upgrade.4 You can also manage your company’s upcoming flight bookings and reconcile monthly travel expenses all in one place.

2. Make it easier for your team to book

Add your team as travellers in your account and activate the self-booking feature so they can access your member flight savings when they book their own business travel on qantas.com.2 They’ll earn points for the business1 and themselves.3

3. Unlock more savings

As your business earns Qantas Points from flying, you’ll move through tiers of the program and unlock more benefits. Level 1 members save 6% off the base fare of selected flights, Level 2 members save up to 8% and Level 3 members save up to 10%.2

Find out more at qantas.com/businesspassport

Visit vegepod.com.au or shop using Qantas Points at qantas.com/ rewardsstore

Building trust and delivering excellence is what drives us.

“Achieving excellence requires dedication. I’m proud of the hard work I’ve put in over the years and the relationships I’ve built.

Which is why it’s an honour to partner with a company that continually strives for excellence.

LSH Auto Australia is dedicated to building trust. It’s the place for all your premium motoring needs, where the goal is to deliver an exceptional customer experience.”

YOU COME FIRST. ALWAYS. www.lshauto.com.au

Mercedes-Benz Sydney | Mercedes-Benz Melbourne | Mercedes-Benz Brisbane | AMG Sydney | Mercedes-Benz Melbourne Airport

Stephanie Rice OAM Olympic Champion and LSH Auto Australia Ambassador

StephanieRice Proudly supporting

In association with

Think. is Qantas magazine’s thought leadership series that combines smart conversation with good food and wine. This event, at the recently refurbished Stokehouse restaurant on Melbourne’s St Kilda Beach, featured a panel discussion moderated by Kirsten Galliott, Editor-in-Chief of Qantas magazine and Travel Insider.

Tamara Graham

Three Australian leaders on what the best companies look like in a post-COVID world

Sparkling wines supplied by

The leaders

Dale Connor

Connor joined Lendlease as a graduate in 1988 and became CEO of Lendlease Australia in 2021. He is based in the company’s flagship headquarters in Sydney’s Barangaroo, which has ranked in the top 6 per cent of workplaces surveyed globally by the Leesman Index for design, functionality and effectiveness. Connor is passionate about ensuring that Lendlease gives back to the community.

Vanessa Gavan

Gavan founded Maximus International more than 20 years ago and her background in psychology has informed her approach to leadership development. Today, she is joint MD and the firm works with the boards and executive teams of some of Australia’s biggest companies. Gavan believes the future of leadership is about growing your impact and having a sense of purpose.

Owen Wilson

Wilson has been the CEO of REA Group since 2019 and has spent more than 30 years working in IT, recruitment and banking. Headquartered in Melbourne, REA Group is a global tech business specialising in property and is an ASX Top 20 company. For the past two years, it’s been named the fourth-best workplace in Australia: 93 per cent of its employees describe it as a great place to work, compared with 56 per cent of employees at a typical Australian company.

(Above from left) Owen Wilson, Vanessa Gavan, John Good, managing director of LSH Auto Australia, and Dale Connor

(Left) The dining room at Stokehouse restaurant

We’ve seen momentous change in the past couple of years. I’d like to ask the three of you if you think it will eventually be a good thing for our workforces.

OWEN WILSON (OW): The move to hybrid working has given people better work-life balance and they’re better employees as a result. From a sustainability point of view, there are fewer people commuting. People are spending more time with their families. We’ve broken the myth that working from home meant you were taking a day off.

VANESSA GAVAN (VG): It brought humanity to the workplace. People connect with what they can see and, all of a sudden, we have this visibility into people’s homes, their kids and their other responsibilities. Like anything, there are bright spots and there’s a shadow side. What people went through during lockdowns, we won’t forget for a long time. But I like to focus on the good things, including the role that organisations now play in focusing on the wellbeing of their people.

DALE CONNOR (DC): As Vanessa says, it’s really brought a focus on people. At Lendlease, we had two-thirds of our people dealing with the struggle of keeping the business going forward on construction sites, while everybody else was at home. We need to also recognise that people are really spent. They’re exhausted from going through the COVID experience. Amid conversation of how we get people back into the office, we have a lot of people who never left.

I’d love to hear from you, Vanessa, about the visibility of leadership in a hybrid workplace.

VG: There’s never been a more challenging time to lead. You stack up post-COVID recovery, people’s mindset and fatigue then add the challenges of economic pressures. Being visible means that leaders can signpost; they can create perspective in terms of the stress people are feeling and bring that into context. It’s incredibly important that leaders are highly visible but they can role-model flexibility, too.

What does that look like on a day-to-day basis? Would a leader be in the office as much as possible?

VG: Recent McKinsey studies have most CEOs saying they want their leaders in the office at least three days a week. That’s just about time. It should start with a question: Who does it matter to if you’re here or not? That question relates to the home front and the work front. For an intern, it’s their foundational work experience so it matters to them if you’re there. Equally, if you promised one of your kids you’d be at something then it matters to them.

looking to their leaders and saying, ‘What’s your perspective on this?’, and they expect you to have one.

”

Owen, you’ve empowered your teams to make their own decisions about where they work. Tell us about that.

OW: We were lucky at the start of COVID because, being a tech company, everyone had a laptop and a mobile phone. When we made the call to close the offices, we didn’t skip a beat. Now we treat hybrid working like product design and do it around what we call “the moments that matter”. We asked each team to look at their activities and decide which are performed better together, which are better done on their own and which can be done hybrid. We’ve developed a hybrid working guide but we’ve also said nothing is set in stone. We just completed our third hybrid-working staff survey. There’s good and bad: 94 per cent felt our hybrid arrangements were effective; 78 per cent said they thought it was probably best in class in Australia; but 50 per cent were really concerned about the reduced social connection and relationship building. That’s something we’ve got to work on and we don’t have the answer yet. It’s about making sure we set up the time and space for that connectivity, which has to be face-to-face in the office.

Dale, you talked about construction sites and how flexibility can extend outside the office. How have you managed that with your workforce?

DC: We were focusing on flexible working guidelines for our construction sites even before COVID. A construction site may be 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s not about presenteeism for everybody to be there when the gates are open; it’s about empowering a team to make decisions. You can have a foreman who takes the kids to school on Wednesdays or a site engineer who has sports training on a Thursday afternoon. The team decides the roster and how to focus their efforts on getting a project done. We’re working with stakeholders and union representatives – everybody’s aligned on the wellbeing of people in our industry.

Can you tell us about some of the initiatives with corporate staff, too?

DC: We have Clear Space Wednesdays, where we encourage and empower people to block out 3pm to 5pm every Wednesday, with no meetings. You can use that time to think, go for a walk or strategise. People often say, “I have no time to progress my career or think about learning and development or think about my people.” If we can free up some time for them to have clear space to think, it will do wonders for them –and wonders for our organisation.

“

People see leaders as key to influencing things that we need to progress – the things that people feel are wrong with the world that need correcting. They’re

Vanessa Gavan

Vanessa, with skills gaps and staff shortages, there’s so much emphasis on employee expectations. How do we give employees what they need, without creating a culture of entitlement?

VG: People have really high expectations but it’s all about balance and reciprocity. You’ve got to look at it from the employer mindset and the individual mindset. This is the modern way of working; it’s not going away. You need to embrace it or you’re going to be questioned in terms of whether you’re keeping up with the times as an employer. On the flip side – and putting my psychologist’s hat on – no relationship works without reciprocity. At Maximus, we talk about freedom with accountability – people want more freedom, more ownership and to focus on outcomes. We believe the way to do that is to fuel their passion by focusing on purpose: on enriching, getting the discretionary effort from people and building reciprocity in the relationship.

How do you balance the emotional needs of the workforce with business needs?

DC: Unfortunately, in the construction industry you’re six times more likely to take your life by suicide than to die from a workplace accident. Our focus on physical safety has done wonders in Australia; now it’s about psychological safety. We’ve got a whole range of programs – 900 people in our business have gone through the Mental Health First Aid course to be able to identify those who need help. Leaders need to listen, engage and respond in a positive way.

And how are you helping people grow their careers? What are people looking for?

DC: We’re very fortunate to have a business that’s in the United Kingdom, Europe, United States and across Asia. Coming out of COVID, it’s an attractor that you could develop an international career at Lendlease. I was fortunate to work in China for four years and the United States for eight years and it never feels like it’s one career. That’s an attractive thing to be able to put on the table.

What else do you think that people want from their careers, Vanessa?

VG: Purpose is number one. They want to know you stand for something that’s real. People also want to know they’re growing at an accelerated rate, especially millennials and Gen Z. The challenge for us as executives is that there’s a real risk we can trade off a lot of development because there’s no longer the apprenticeship model happening in the same way in the office. We need to make

”

sure we have ways and means of doing that in a virtual and physical environment.

Owen, is the balance of reciprocity thrown out by the candidates’ market?

OW: I don’t think it is. In the past three years, it’s been the most competitive talent market that we’ve ever seen at REA but it’s slowly changing. Our vacancy rate is the lowest it’s been in about three years. People are voting with their feet and going to larger – what I’ll call safer – quality names like REA, Carsales and Seek. I talk to my colleagues and they’re saying the same thing.

Vanessa, is it helpful to provide a fairly structured career pathway? Does it make it more attractive for people who leave then return?

VG: There’s a lot more leaving and returning happening so it’s important how you create those moments that matter – how someone starts, how you send them off, the reciprocity of the relationship and how it’s set from early on. Having some structure to a career path – providing a visibility of options – is really important. These days, careers aren’t linear but certainly context and perspective around where the opportunities are is important. People are impatient for growth.

Are people driving their own careers or are companies?

OW: We’ve got a fairly structured career planning process but it’s not linear. People are encouraged to think about their areas of interest and if those don’t match their skills, we’ve got REA University that shows you the courses and learning you can do to get those skills. It’s a combination of us providing the wherewithal for them to make those zigzags through the organisation, with the emphasis on the employee sitting down and thinking about what they’re interested in, the skills they’ve got then taking control.

You’re also working with women who have an interest in tech but who might not have tech experience, aren’t you?

OW: REA has 50/50 gender diversity but we don’t have it in tech. We’re probably one of the leaders in Australia, with 30 per cent female tech staff, but we want that to be 50 per cent. Our graduate program tends to bring in an equal gender split so that’s starting to change the balance. We also have a springboard program designed for women who aren’t in tech but want a tech career. That program is full every year and they’re so grateful for the opportunity to change careers that they stick with it. So it’s been very successful.

“ We’ve increased our learning and development budget, peer groups are coming together again to meet in person, which is excellent, and we’re engaging a lot with our clients and government, making sure we are externally facing.

Dale Connor

(Clockwise from above) The Think. panel; guests at the dinner; cars provided by LSH Auto Australia; veal tonnato with smoked tuna dressing, capers and fennel was on the menu

Tamara Graham

Are leaders who are panicking about productivity missing the point?

VG: I think it’s generational. As much as they’re attending to the focus on purpose and culture, boards and management teams still ask a lot of questions around productivity. The challenge is this focus on time, which is a very transactional relationship. The focus needs to be on purpose, discretionary effort and outcomes – you’ll get more from that equation than if you’re purely focusing on time. When I hear those kinds of questions, my counsel is: “You’re not focusing on the right things.”

Owen, I know you feel quite strongly that the days of clock watching are long over.

OW: We think of it in terms of output. That’s why we have Summer Fridays. If you’ve got to Friday lunchtime and your output’s there then you spend the rest of the day on self-development or reading – things that are going to get you set up for the next week. There’s no productivity panic at REA.

Do you feel the same way, Dale?

DC: It’s thinking about benchmarks, metrics and how we can demonstrate that we are the best at what we do. We’re high-performing – it’s part of our purpose. And we want to attract the best people who want to be high-performing. So I do think that there’s a connection there. It’s not hours of work in a productivity sense but it is about demonstrating that you’re an organisation that cares and is also successful. I want to reward everybody for their great connection, their great teamwork, their great effort.

Do you think there could be a shift back to the times when employees were really valued and loyalty was rewarded?

DC: Absolutely. I’ve been with Lendlease for some 34 years. In the early days of my career, I felt that I wasn’t just an employee, I was a part of the business and I was engaging with the CEO. We talked about visible leadership earlier and that’s

“

Remuneration is important and the tech sector is a very competitive market. But the first question a tech employee will ask you is not about money. It’s about your flexible working policy and they want to understand your purpose and know how they’re going to develop in the company.

”

Owen Wilson The

really about connection. You want everybody in your team to feel connected and that there’s a greater purpose in what we’re doing.

What do you hope your legacy will be as CEO of Lendlease?

DC: It’s all in the people. I’ve been in this organisation for so long and you get nothing but the greatest thrill to see somebody who started in the organisation young and see how they’ve risen. Long after I’m gone, the legacy of the place will be in the people who are still there running the organisation.

Vanessa, can I ask you the same question?

VG: It’s twofold. For the communities that we work in – all the leaders – I’m very conscious that those people go on and do something remarkable. We always push for the unreasonable in terms of what we expect them to do in their workplaces, whether that be growth or purpose. Equally, they go home to their families and those families are connected to communities. I hope my legacy and our legacy as an organisation is to leave those people in those communities better off as a result of us being involved. For my team, I hope they look back and say we built something extraordinary and meaningful that we can’t believe we got to be part of.

And finally, Owen, your legacy?

OW: I inherited a spectacular business as CEO so it’s a bit like “Don’t break it!” And, like Dale, I know there are people I worked with 20 years ago who look at where I am today and think, “Wow, I probably played a part in that.” That must be incredibly rewarding. So for me, it’s watching our people grow and take opportunities. It won’t all be at REA – I think there are three ASX CFOs who worked with me over the past 20 years. You think, “Wow, I probably had some sort of influence on that”, and that makes me really proud.

Congratulations to winner of the Mercedes-Benz Melbourne Accelerate Driving Event: J. Christopherson.

Driving positive change

LSH Auto Australia was recently named one of the best places to work in the country. Here, the company’s managing director, John Good, explains how employee engagement leads to external success.

What is LSH Auto Australia – one of the country’s leading Mercedes-Benz dealer groups – doing to ensure it’s a positive workplace for its employees?

We’ve been working towards being an employer of choice for quite some time because we want to attract and retain the best staff. This was recently recognised when we were named a Financial Review BOSS Best Place to Work, the only automotive company to receive this accolade.

We’ve launched a leadership development program and we’re launching a junior sales program later this year. We offer volunteering leave and we have The Choice Awards, where staff can nominate a top-performing colleague to be awarded $500 for a charity of their choice. We’ve seen a high level of engagement since introducing the quarterly awards.

Why is the engagement of your staff so important?

Having passion within the business means that passion will be felt outside the business. The team is then more receptive to developing new initiatives and being able to adapt as the market continues to change.

How is LSH Auto Australia continuing to better its offering to its staff?

I believe in finding a work-life blend, which is why we’ve recently enhanced our parental leave policy. We have an apprenticeship program to attract younger talent and I’m also proud that we have a youthful executive committee. I want to ensure we continue to develop and highlight the talent within the organisation.

Why is giving back to the community so important to LSH Auto Australia?

It’s a core value of the organisation and we know our team wants to work for a company that’s doing something for the local community. For instance, as a company, we work closely with Dr Daniel Nour at Street Side Medics. Now our staff are getting involved in supporting the charity, most recently by providing and packing materials for them. It’s completely voluntary and we’ve seen a huge uptake. By engaging our staff in community-based projects, it’s helped to build trust within our team. Building trust means the whole team has a common goal and purpose – they want to drive the business forward.

Visit lshauto.com.au for more information.

Clockwise from left: John Good, LSH Auto Australia managing director; LSH Auto Australia Leadership Development Program kick-off; sessions at LSH Auto Australia’s Apprentices Open Day.

Pride is in the Air

Qantas is proud to support Sydney WorldPride 2023 and Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, celebrating love, equity and diversity

On board

Premiere movies, hit TV shows and absorbing audiobooks

Movies

There’s something for everyone in this selection of new films.

Beast Ever since that menacing fin zig-zagged across the water in Jaws, audiences have trilled to the gleeful terror of an animal that isn’t simply hungry or a natural predator but a human-hating machine out for revenge. In Beast, that animal is a rogue lion. And he’s not content to just bite people – he wants to take them down like Bruce Willis in Die Hard . He’s been doing just that in Kruger National Park, one of the largest game reserves in South Africa – until the recently widowed Dr Nate Samuels (Idris Elba, above), father of two teen girls, steps onto the savanna. All Nate wants to do is reconnect with his daughters, Meredith and Norah (Iyana Halley and Leah Sava Jeffries) on a safari holiday, show them where he and their mother fell in love and

generate a sense of wonder about the majestic wildlife.

But that plan comes to a screeching halt when the fierce predator decides he wants Nate and his girls for lunch. Just like Jaws, much of the suspense hangs on not knowing where or when the great beast will strike. And that tension is only heightened when night falls and all that separates Nate and his daughters from the wide open mouth of this super cat is the fragile windshield of their 4WD.

Helmed by Icelandic director and actor Baltasar Kormákur (who also made the jittery Everest in 2015), Beast is a suspenseful rollercoaster of a movie that borrows a trick or two from Jurassic Park. And a couple from Die Hard, too. Rated MA15+

Samaritan

Now a nimble 76-year-old, Sylvester Stallone (above) stars as Samaritan, a former superhero who’s working as a garbage collector. But Samaritan is brought out of retirement by an impoverished 13-year-old boy (Euphoria ’s Javon Walton), who he sees being bashed by a small-time crime gang. Functioning almost as the spiritual sequel to Rocky (the working-class ethos, the constant wearing of a hoodie, the jogging in the rain) and directed by Australian Julius Avery, this is for Stallone fans who understand that young doesn’t always equal strong. Rated M

Ruby’s Choice

Jane Seymour stars as Ruby, an independent artist living alone and in denial about her dementia. When her house burns down after she forgets a pot on the stove, Ruby has to move in with her daughter, Sharon (Jacqueline McKenzie, above left, with Seymour) and share a room with her teenage granddaughter, Tash (Coco Jack Gillies, from Mad Max: Thunder Road ). At first, the women are at odds with each other but over time, they come to bond through a love of art and an appreciation for connectedness and the lighter side of life. Rated PG

Words by Natalie Reilly

Barbarian Bill Skarsgård, best known for his portrayal of Pennywise, the horrifying clown in It, plays an ordinary guy named Keith in this absurdist horror movie that begins with that most benign of inconveniences: a double-booked Airbnb. English actor Georgina Campbell (right) is Tess, who has to spend the night in Detroit for a job interview. After finding that the home has also been booked by Keith, Tess decides to stay the night in the locked bedroom while he sleeps on the couch. But when she’s woken in the dark by her door swinging open, Tess, like any good character in a horror movie, decides to investigate, discovering an underground tunnel hidden in the basement and Keith nowhere to be found. When the owner of the property, AJ (Justin Long), arrives, he’s quickly trapped in the tunnel with her. Their only way out? To become children of a deformed creature known as The Mother. Rated MA15+

Jordan Peele directs horror blockbusters these days so it’s easy to forget he was once half of a comedy skit TV series, Key & Peele. He’s a producer on Honk for Jesus (together with the star of his last two movies, Oscar-winning actor Daniel Kaluuya) and that funky blend of silly sight gags and biting satire he’s known for is on full display here. Sterling K. Brown and Regina Hall (left) star as Lee-Curtis Childs, the disgraced pastor of a Southern Atlanta Baptist mega-church, and Trinitie, his long-suffering “First Lady” – a tight-smiling preacher’s wife prepared to forgo basic dignity in pursuit of her return to a literal gold throne. Childs’ path back to righteousness, filmed in mockumentary style, is not easy – his lack of contrition might have something to do with it. Rated MA15+

Honk for Jesus. Save your Soul

Television

Whatever your mood, there’s a show to match.

Minx

It’s the ’70s and Joyce (Ophelia Lovibond), a chipper feminist, wants to start her own magazine. Knocked back by traditional publishers, who find her “too angry”, she meets men’s magazine editor Doug (New Girl ’s Jake Johnson, below, with Lovibond), who offers to publish it for her. What could go wrong? Rated MA15+

Industry

London 2008 and the GFC has just hit. A group of finance graduates – all tight suits and snakey ambition – has landed on the trading floor, slowly realising that their world is unravelling, one spreadsheet at a time. Rated MA15+

House of the Dragon

The prequel to the hugely popular series Game of Thrones is focused on the House of Targaryen: the silver-haired family of dragon lords who once ruled the seven kingdoms of Westeros. Set 172 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen, the Mother of Dragons, it begins with a period of prosperity until the king dies, leading to the outbreak of civil war. Based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood and starring Matt Smith (The Crown), Emma D’Arcy and Milly Alcock (above), this series has plenty of dragons, blood lust and, of course, coupling. Hey, you can’t birth a new kingdom without it. Rated MA15+

Abbott Elementary

A comedy about the worst public school in America, which is only surviving because every teacher there loves what they do (most of the time). Starring Quinta Brunson (left) as Janine Teagues, the relentlessly optimistic second grade teacher, and Emmy winner Sheryl Lee Ralph as Barbara Howard, her reluctant mentor, the show functions like The Office set in a school. Rated PG

Rap Sh!t

From producer Issa Rae, the creator of Insecure, comes a series about hip-hop artists and former friends Shawna and Mia (Aida Osman, left, and KaMillion), trying to kickstart their careers in Miami while juggling day jobs. Rated MA15+

Audiobooks

Tune into these compelling stories.

The Art of Growing Up

In an increasingly complex world, how do parents nurture and guide their children into adulthood? Bringing everything he’s learnt from decades of working with and writing for young people, bestselling author and educator John Marsden presents his manifesto on parenting and childhood in the 21st century. He offers insights into a range of topics, from the role and importance of education to what he defines as a “problem parent” and a “problem child”.

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.

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.

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.

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.

News

Enjoy unlimited access to theaustralian.com.au, afr.com.au and themonthly.com.au when you are connected to Qantas Wi-Fi onboard and in Qantas lounges.

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.

198 Inflight workout

Foot pumps (foot motion is in three stages)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 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.

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: Age 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

Oestrogen 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

During your flight, move your legs and feet for three to four minutes per hour while seated and move about the cabin occasionally Do 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:

Get a good night’s rest

During your flight:

Eat light meals

Wear loose, comfortable clothing and sleep when you can

Stay 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

Go 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:

Drink water and juices frequently during the flight

Drink 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.

Consider 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

On 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

Pack your own luggage

Do not carry any items for another person Carry valuables, approved medication and keys in your carry-on baggage

All knives, sharp objects or cutting implements must be in checked baggage

Security 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: Each container of LAGs in your carry-on baggage must be 100ml or less

All 100ml containers must be placed in a single transparent one-litre plastic bag Plastic bags containing LAGs are to be screened separately from other carry-on baggage

All powders must be screened separately with restrictions on the carriage of inorganic powders over 350ml (350g)

Passengers may still carry prescription medicines or baby products sufficient for the flight

If 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

The 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

Exemptions apply for people with serious medical conditions, infants and small children, and people in wheelchairs

As per advice, the energy exposure is comparable to that from a mobile phone several metres away

There 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 01. Rugby trophy, ... Cup (5)

Lucifer’s lair (4)

City’s club scene (9)

... and dimes (7)

Inspire (5)

Living areas (5)

Evil-looking (8)

Sputnik, for example (9)

Crippling encumbrance (4,3,5)

Phoned (4,2)

Down 01. Man, ... or child (5) 02. Pulp-filled cavity in tooth (4,5) 03. Probe (5)

Fast (car chase) (4-5)

Second of two (6)

Sections of orange or mandarin (8)

Word-for-word (7)

Making garments to fit (9)

Cryptic clues

Put (text) into a foreign language (9)

Close result, ... finish (5)

Be appropriate to (5)

Plummets (7)

Profound transformation (3,6)

Physics, ... and biology (9)

Steepest (8)

Recolours (4)

Aladdin’s lamp servant (5)

Brontë’s pen name, ... Bell (5)

Borneo forest primate (9)

Dessert, ... date pudding (6)

Jobs (5)

Exploiting (5)

Elegance (5)

Across 01. Planet revolved loudly (5) 04. Fiery pit for Michelle when exterminator’s finished (4) 06. Remote ladies to form new group (8) 12. Work at second job listening to a Beethoven sonata (9) 13. Spooner’s light knife provides entertainment after dark (9) 14. Slick north-east change in US (7) 15. Call up Eve about approval (5) 16. Agnes Moorehead goes back to find secret chambers (5) 17. Insert is designed to be threatening (8) 19. Seated fifty in top group for big dish (9) 22. Restraint for convict with links to projectile? (4,3,5) 23. Sprang upon fragment and made a call (4,2) 25. Say I let ribbon be threaded through it (6) 27. What’s obtained with alternating current by most inquisitions (12) 31. Alter ants? Change tongues (9) 33. Foundry worker inexorable in velvet glove? (4,4) 35. Post Office has hot snap (5) 36. Suit order from athlete’s trainer (5) 37. Afterthought about thrust dips (7) 40. New direction in life is each angel’s inner directive (3,6) 41. The science of mutual attraction? (9) 42. Finest sets here about (8) 43. Somebody esoteric uses henna and indigo (4) 44. Information that is magical; sprite to grant three wishes (5)

Down

War Office staff is female (5) 02. Dental therapy origin? Water under the bridge in Venice! (4,5) 03. Dig Dee who’s about fifty-five (5)

“Very quick spy!” he’d said, quoting Spooner (4-5)

Last one offered coffee, right? (6)

Sectors for German guys in sets (8) 08. Changing direction, declare till contents is exact (7) 09. Making to measure tail or wing when starting off (9) 10. Actions outlined in documents (5)

Displaying lack of awareness, UN takes cheats’ hundred notes of debt (11)

English citizen’s topic (7)

Quiet copy of things to come from Wells (5)

Former spouse sat bare (7)

Peanuts? That’s what hens eat (7,4)

Continue to perform response before information received? (3,2)

Seen to hold forth on overturned bale? Just fancy! (9)

Stress pal about evening gown style (9)

Opposition leader called you brown ape! (9)

Said Sorb owns theatre operator (8)

Suffocate her on Tom’s return (7)

Tacky fingers, wicket or beak? (6)

Poles or stakes to start (5)

Applying to sing on 2 July (5)

Fashion flair from YSL and French characters (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.

Match-ups –Comedy movies

Work out the missing parts of these names of funny films and find them hidden in the box of letters. The leftover letters will spell out the title of a popular movie from the ’80s which was remade in 2016 with women cast in the leading roles.

PIE THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY HALL BEST IN BEVERLY COP BIG MOMMA’S BLAZING CITY TO AMERICA GET ANXIETY LITTLE MISS LOCAL MEAN DOUBTFIRE DYNAMITE

OFFICE

PLANES, TRAINS AND ARIZONA RAT REVENGE OF THE TRIP RUTHLESS SCARY SOME IT HOT

THE LEBOWSKI THE BLUES THE PIT THE NAKED THE NUTTY THE COUPLE THE BRIDE THIS IS TAP TRADING WEDDING YOUNG

A N N I E K I L Y O Y H S D H I L L S U B T M E U E S D R E N T U M R R N R L A L O E T A S O O S O G I D G I R L S C V H S M S B D G N C P G N I S I A R O L U R I K P N E R S G E M E N N E M E F D K E H H O S A N C H O R M A N M S T L E C A R P C S W O A A U S N A P O L E O N T R R A G I B S R E H T O R B C F P L A C E S S E C N I R P

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 sports organisation is abbreviated to EPL?

02. What is mole in Mexican cooking?

03. The earth is about how many times wider than the moon?

04. What country occupies the area once known as Upper Peru?

05. And after whom is that country named?

06. What 2006-2011 TV show made Miley Cyrus a star?

07. The fruit lingonberry is also known by what two “animal” names?

08. What is the largest blood vessel in the human body?

09. What gem’s name comes from the French for “Turkish stone”?

10. An atomic number equals the number of what in an atom?

11 Jacqueline du Pré was a virtuoso on what instrument?

12 “Twitchers” partake in what outdoor hobby?

13. What city hosted the southern hemisphere’s first Olympics?

14 What country had the 1960s Cedar space rocket program?

15. What 1992 film and current TV series feature sports team the Rockford Peaches?

16 What is Belgium’s largest port?

17 What artform links Diane Arbus, Annie Leibovitz and Tracey Moffatt?

18 Who wrote Catch-22 ?

19 In marketing, what does CTA stand for?

20. The Large Hadron Collider is beneath the border of which two countries?

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Solutions

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Sudoku

7 9 6 4 8 3 2 1 5 1 8 2 6 7 5 4 3 9 4 5 3 9 1 2 7 8 6 2 7 5 8 3 9 1 6 4 8 6 4 5 2 1 3 9 7 9 3 1 7 6 4 8 5 2 3 4 8 2 9 6 5 7 1 5 1 9 3 4 7 6 2 8 6 2 7 1 5 8 9 4 3

Easy Moderate Hard

Aunt, Aura, Puna, Punt, Purl, Ruin, Runt, Tuna, Turn, Ulna, Unit, Aural, Input, Lunar, Lupin, Pilau, Ruana, Rutin, Tulip, Ulnar, Ultra, Unapt, Unlit, Until, Anural, Nutria, Purlin, Ranula, Ritual, Turnip, Natural, Nuptial, Puritan Nine-letter word: TARPAULIN

Crossword

Match-ups

Y O Y H

I

American Pie, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Annie Hall, Best in Show, Beverly Hills Cop, Big Momma’s House, Blazing Saddles, City Slickers, Coming to America, Flying High, Get Shorty, Little Miss Sunshine, High Anxiety, Local Hero, Mean Girls, Mrs Doubtfire, Napoleon Dynamite, Office Space, Planes, Trains And Automobiles, Raising Arizona, Rat Race, Revenge of the Nerds, Road Trip, Ruthless People, Scary Movie, Some Like it Hot, The Big Lebowski, The Blues Brothers, The Money Pit, The Naked Gun, The Nutty Professor, The Odd Couple, The Princess Bride, This is Spinal Tap, Trading Places, Wedding Crashers, Young Frankenstein Solution: Ghostbusters

Quiz

01.

Sign with red background enlarged.

Woman walking across road removed.

Dotted white lines on road now yellow.

Purple van now green.

07.

“20” sign changed to “22”.