Expect pared-back polish with a tropical lilt at this child-free haven of island escapism.
I wake to a horizon washed in pink and gold. I fall asleep to waves lapping the shore and wallabies grazing outside my room. So goes my daily routine at Beach Club, Hamilton Island’s secluded adults-only resort – best known for its direct beach frontage, personal service and horizon-grazing infinity pool.
Beach Club emerged as the adults-only counterpoint to the island’s broader, family-friendly appeal – a deliberate retreat within a retreat. The low-slung sanctuary on Catseye Beach has always traded on intimacy and low-key elegance. Now its recent lobby and garden refresh signals a new chapter: lighter, brighter and more design-led, yet still anchored in that original promise of exclusivity and ease.
Where is Beach Club hotel?
Beach Club sits right on Catseye Beach. (Credit: Courtney Atkinson)
Perched directly on the powder-soft curve of Catseye Beach, Beach Club occupies prime, toes-in-the-sand real estate in the heart of Hamilton Island. The hotel feels deliciously tucked away, yet it’s only a few minutes’ buggy ride from the island’s marina and restaurants.
Private VIP transfers from the island airport are included and the lovely staff even transport guests’ luggage directly from baggage claim to your room – meaning I step off the plane and am poolside with a glass of bubbles in hand within minutes of touchdown. Stress-free mode activated immediately. The hotel also offers an included point-to-point chauffeur service if you haven’t hired your own golf buggy to get around the island.
To one side of the resort, you’ll find the island’s buzzing main pool precinct, tour desk and a glorious spread of eateries. Just five minutes’ walk to the other side, you’ll find the start of Hamilton Island’s hiking and mountain biking tracks. And in between are Spa wumurdaylin and the island’s fitness centre. However, when presented with Catseye Beach’s sweep of white sand and improbable blues mere metres from your room, you’ll be hard pressed to step a foot beyond the resort.
What is the style and character of Beach Club hotel?
Beach Club Restaurant offers poolside dining with ocean views. (Credit: Nikki To)
Beach Club hotel's beautiful lobby lounge. (Credit: Eleanor Edström)
The lounge area flows through to Beach Club Restaurant. (Credit: Eleanor Edström)
Boutique and beautifully self-contained, Beach Club trades the island’s family-friendly hum for a calmer, more curated tempo. The mood of the newly refurbished, open-plan lobby lounge is pared-back polish with a tropical lilt. Think timber floorboards, warm beige textiles, rough-cut stone tables and abstract wall art nodding to the tones and textures of island life. It feels grown-up but not austere.
Champagne arrives swiftly after check in – cold, bright and just what I’m craving in the tropical humidity. We sit down on a lounge and sip, already feeling relaxed, as one of the staff members gives us the lowdown on the hotel’s facilities. Guests draped in linen drift between pool and shoreline; palms shift lazily in the breeze. There’s no soundtrack beyond the soothing lap of water and the low murmur of conversation – and best of all, no noisy children splashing in the pool.
What are the rooms like at Beach Club hotel?
Beach Club rooms are bright and breezy. (Credit: Kara Rosenlund)
The hotel has plans to redesign the guest rooms soon – bringing them in line with the new lobby’s contemporary sophistication – but even now the aesthetic leans into relaxed refinement. Interiors are bright with pops of sapphire blue and sliding doors dissolve the boundary between inside and out, inevitably pulling your gaze towards the Coral Sea. My bathroom features stones in volcanic shades of grey, a luxe freestanding oval bathtub and Aesop amenities.
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Beach Club offers beachfront privacy. (Credit: Lean Timms)
The bathrooms feature grey stone and Aesop amenities. (Credit: Kara Rosenlund)
Lower floor rooms open out to private patios.(Credit: Kara Rosenlund)
All 57 rooms of the resort are near-identical in layout and size, which lends a pleasing sense of equality: wherever you land, you’re guaranteed a stunning sea-facing view. Guests can choose from an outdoor patio on the ground floor separated by privacy screens or a balcony on the second floor. My cushy patio day bed becomes my favourite perch: here I watch in awe as wallabies with joeys in their pouches nibble on grass just metres away, framed by spectacular island views, and let the waves and lorikeets lull me into sweet afternoon repose. I can’t imagine it possible for anyone to feel anything but utter relaxation when staying here.
I retreat back inside only to snag a snack from the mini bar area. The area is spatious and equipped with a cocktail shaker, pod coffee machine and selection of treats from dark chocolate almonds to wine. There’s even an optional ‘turn down’ service each evening, where candles are lit and sweet dreams tea and chocolates are left in rooms – a small yet thoughtful touch.
What facilities does Beach Club hotel have?
Beach Club’s infinity pool is a hotel highlight.
Ask any guest what the hotel’s pièce de résistance is, and the unanimous answer will be the infinity pool – a palm-fringed body of water whose glassy surface merges almost imperceptibly with the Coral Sea. Here you’ll find plush loungers overlooking the island’s iconic Passage Peak, poolside service and a blissful adults-only policy. Unlike many other pools on the island, this one is reserved for in-house guests only, making it a quiet hideaway.
Just steps down onto the sand is a private stretch of beach dotted with shaded sun loungers for guests who prefer to be closer to the ocean. I love that the loungers have built-in head rests and that you don’t have to fight to find a free one. Feeling peckish, I order truffle and parmesan fries from the scannable QR code that are promptly delivered to my chair.
Alongside use of island facilities including the nearby gym, the hotel offers complimentary access to all non-motorised sports equipment – whether you’re keen to hop on a catamaran, windsurfer, paddleboard or kayak. And when you return from your water adventures, make sure to stop by hotel reception – where a sunglasses cleaning service is even offered.
What is the dining like at Beach Club hotel?
Enjoy smashed avo toast at Beach Club Restaurant. (Credit: Eleanor Edström)
Try the Talk & Taste experience at Beach Club. (Credit: Eleanor Edström)
Daily breakfast is included and à la carte, either at poolside Beach Club Restaurant (which reopens for lunch and dinner) or delivered to your room. While the menu ranges from a nutritious Buddha bowl to buttermilk pancakes with praline butter and nasi goreng, I fall into the habit of ordering the smashed avo toasted with Persian feta, dukkah and heirloom tomatoes, coupled with the always-refreshing cold pressed juice of the day.
Meanwhile, lunch brings casual bites including Wagyu beef burgers, battered soft shell crab sandwiches, lemon pepper squid and house-cured salmon. And should you get thirsty throughout the day, you can make use of complimentary barista coffee and non-alcoholic drinks from the bar.
Beach Club Restaurant is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
At dinner, the grilled Queensland prawns with smoked compound, local fried curry leaves and lime is a serious standout – the zesty-ness pairing delightfully with the prawns’ sweet flesh. While the duck breast with baby beetroot is tempting for the main, I opt for the lamb rump served with pea ragout and parsley Paris mash. It’s homey, indulgent and layered with flavour.
The service is warm, too – yet discreet. Our waiter Marco tells us that the tiny decorative starfish on our table are there to help the staff remember whether we prefer sparkling or still water, so they don’t have to bother us by asking every time they top up our glasses.
For wine-curious guests, the hotel also offers an intimate Talk & Taste experience where elegant native-inspired bites are paired with a selection of Australian wines, either all white or all red.
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Does Beach Club hotel have access for guests with disabilities?
The hotel has some accessible facilities, and the common areaslocated on the ground level are wheelchair accessible. Hamilton Island’s nearby Main Pool has ramp access, too.
Is Beach Club hotel family-friendly?
Beach Club is an adults-only hotel designed as a calm, child-free sanctuary. If you are travelling with children, Hamilton Island has many family-friendly hotels, such as chic new The Sundays and iconic Reef View Hotel.
The details
Best for: Couples looking for a boutique, adults-only sanctuary providing front-row living to one of Australia’s most coveted coastal panoramas.
Eleanor Edström is Australian Traveller’s Associate Editor. Previously a staff writer at Signature Luxury Travel & Style and Vacations & Travel magazines, she's a curious wordsmith with a penchant for conservation, adventure, the arts and design. She discovered her knack for storytelling much earlier, however – penning mermaid sagas in glitter ink at age seven. Proof that her spelling has since improved, she holds an honours degree in English and philosophy, and a French diploma from the University of Sydney. Off duty, you’ll find her pirouetting between Pilates and ballet classes, or testing her friends’ patience with increasingly obscure vocabulary.
Under wide-open outback skies, discover a fossicking gem that’s managed to slip under the radar.
While the name Clermont may feel new to even the most intrepid traveller, its gilded history stretches back centuries. You’ll find it just off the highway, humming quietly under the hazy veil of Queensland’s outback sun. It’s here, hemmed in by mountains and perched atop soil heavy with the earth’s treasures, that one of Australia’s most accessible outback adventures awaits.
Thanks to deposits of gold, copper and gemstones – souvenirs left by exploding supernovas and the heave of tectonic plates – Clermont became a centre point of Queensland’s Gold Rush. And now? Australia’s fossicking capital is yours to discover.
Getting there
Take a drive through Queensland’s Mackay Isaac region. (Image: Sean Scott/ TEQ)
You’ll find Clermont in Queensland’s Mackay Isaac region. To get here, it’s an easy three-hour drive over sealed roads from Mackay. Or, if you’re heading from the Sapphire Fields of Emerald, the drive will carve out just over an hour from your day.
Whether you’re road-tripping through outback Queensland or just tracing your way through all that Australia has to offer, Clermont is remote but easily accessible.
Best accommodation in Clermont
Camp by Theresa Creek Dam. (Image: Riptide Creative/ TEQ)
All accommodation comes with a generous helping of country hospitality here. The choice is yours between modern hotels, parking up the camper or pitching a tent.
Theresa Creek Dam lies just outside town. Begin each day with crisp country air and bright outback sunrises. Spend the night under the sparkling country stars and your days out on the dam fishing or kayaking. Even if you aren’t camping, be sure to save space in your itinerary for an afternoon on the red dirt shore.
One does not visit Clermont without trying their hand at fossicking. There are strict rules when it comes to fossicking, so stick to areas dedicated for general permission and make sure you obtain your license beforehand. Try your luck at McMasters , Four Mile , Town Desert, McDonald Flat and Flat Diggings . To increase your odds, sign on for a tour with the expert team at Golden Prospecting . They’ll give you access to exclusive plots and expert advice along the way.
Once you’ve tried your luck on the gold fields, head to the Clermont Township and Historical Museum . Each exhibit works like an archaeologist’s brush to dust away the layers of Clermont’s history. Like the steam engine that painstakingly relocated the entire town inch by inch to higher ground after it was decimated by flooding in 1916. See the tools that helped build the Blair Athol mine, historic fire engines, shearing sheds and all sorts of relics that make up Clermont’s story.
The historic Copperfield Chimney offers a change of pace. Legend has it that fossickers found a solid wall of copper here, over three metres high, kick-starting Queensland’s first-ever copper mine.
See Clermont from above with Bush Heli Services. (Image: Riptide Creative/ TEQ)
For hiking, nearby Dysart is the best place to access Peak Range National Park. Here, mountainous horizons stretch across the outback as if plucked from another world. Set off for a scenic drive along the Peak Downs Highway for access to countless geological wonders. Like the slanting rockface of Wolfang Peak. Summit it, and you’ll find yourself looking out across a scene surely conjured up by Banjo Paterson. Dry scrub dancing in the warm breeze, grazing cattle, eucalypts and the gentle creak of windmills. Don’t miss visiting Gemini Peaks, either, for one of the park’s best vistas, and a blanket of wild flowers after rain.
Then, take to the skies with a scenic helicopter tour with Bush Heli-Services . Shift your perspective and cruise above all the sights from your trip. Spots like Lords Table Mountain and Campbell’s Peak are best viewed from the skies.
Before you head home, be sure to explore the neighbouring townships. Spend a lazy afternoon in the shade of Nebo Hotel’s wrap-around verandahs . The hotel’s 1900s dance hall has since been replaced with one of the area’s biggest rodeo arenas, so consider timing your trip to line up with a boot scootin’ rodeo. Or, stop by a ghost town. Mount Britton was once a thriving town during the 1880s Gold Rush. It’s been totally abandoned and now lies untouched, a perfect relic of the Gold Rush.
Best restaurants and cafes in Clermont
Stop into the Commercial Hotel Clermont.
Days spent fossicking, bushwalking and cramming on history call for excellent coffee and hearty country meals. Luckily, Clermont delivers in spades.
Lotta Lattes Cafe is beloved by locals for a reason. Start your days here for the best caffeine fix in town and an impeccable brunch menu.
For a real country meal, an icy cold beer and that famed country hospitality, head straight to the town’s iconic hotel: the Commercial Hotel (known endearingly to locals as ‘The Commie’). It’s been a staple in Clermont since 1877. The hotel even survived the flood of 1916 when it was sawn in two and moved to higher ground.
Naturally, time spent in the outback must include calling into the local bakery. For delicious pies and a tantalising array of sweet treats, make Bluemac Bakehouse your go-to while in town.
