That achy feeling after skiing is about to be a distant memory when you check into Mt Hotham’s Onsen Retreat & Spa.
Located in the Victorian Alps in the Great Dividing Range, Hotham Alpine resort is home to the most relaxing experience. The Onsen Retreat & Spa offers patrons massages, facials, skin and body treatments as well as the outdoor Onsen. After you’ve done a few laps through most of the 66 runs over the 320 hectares, a retreat and spa is the perfect stop off before dinner.
Get comfortable and cosy in the ski village of Mt Hotham.
This Japanese styled Onsen is heated to 38 degrees and sits just outside in the midst of the snow. The warmth of the natural hot springs is said to relieve muscle pain, fatigue and stress.
If you’re staying in the Dinner Plain area, the Retreat & Spa is located smack bang in the middle. However, if you’re 10 kilometres up the road on Great Alpine Road, a shuttle bus can easily take you there and back.
The entry road to Mt Hotham: Great Alpine Road.
What’s Offered?
Bathing
Each bathing session goes for two hours in the outdoor heated Onsen. A single session is $45 per adult and also offers access to the heated plunge spa, sauna, heated lap pool and fitness centre.
Guests can also opt for a Private Geisha Bathing, priced at $110 for 30 minutes. Instead of using the communal Onsen, they will be lead into a private room with a spa containing only the purest alpine water. Guests can choose from an array of customised bath salts to maximise the experience.
Sink into the 38-degree hot springs.
Unlike a traditional Japanese Onsen, the Retreat & Spa requires patrons who are using the communal bathing facilities to wear swimwear. Before your session, you’ll be given a warm fluffy robe and slippers to drape over you walk between each area.
Spa Packages
The packages that Onsen Retreat & Spa have available range from $199 to $760 (couples) and offer a wide variety of treatments. Each package offers a complimentary session of Alpine Onsen Bathing.
Enjoy the light touch of their signature massage and organic facials to get you feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. Most of the packages include a light tasting platter in case your stomach starts rumbling throughout that body exfoliation and wrap.
Please note that while some guests prefer to undress entirely for their treatments, whereas some leave on underwear. The Onsen Retreat & Spa explains that they will accept whatever is comfortable for you.
Massage Therapies
With a mixture of massage therapies available to patrons, it’ll be tough to choose the favourite. With remedial, volcanic hot stone, muscle focus and Moroccan remedy options, each one will bring you ultimate relaxation. If the classic suits your interests, then the signature massage with customised aromatherapy will do the trick.
Body and facial therapy are well performed as well. With organic facials both for men and women, it will replenish, brighten and be a natural anti-aging agent for the skin. And if you’ve ever dreamed of a body wrap, the mineral detox therapy will do you wonders.
The exterior of the Onsen Retreat & Spa.
When to Go
The best time to visit the Onsen Retreat & Spa is right after you’ve spent some time skiing or snowboarding on the slopes. The treatments are incredibly therapeutic and performed by professionals.
During the winter season, the centre offers fitness and wellness classes. Sign up for a Mountain Yoga session before your dip in the outdoor or indoor spas. A single class will only set you back $15, which is an absolute steal considering the location. The instructor is an experienced yogi who will cater for all ages and health levels. The class will be about healing your physical, mental and spiritual body.
Nearby Restaurants
When you’ve finished up your afternoon delight at the Onsen, hop down to the local eateries to replenish your bellies.
Hotel High Plains is located in Dinner Plain, so very close to the retreat. The menu is full of delights from the Chicken Schnitzel Saltimbocca to the Prawn Okonomiyaki (Japanese Pancake).
And just up the road in Mt Hotham sits The General . They’re well known for the quirky woodfired pizzas. Order up a Flu Fighter or even a Pelly Pond and it’ll have your taste buds dancing.
Getting There
When heading straight from Melbourne the drive to Mt Hotham will take roughly 4 and a half hours. Whereas Sydneysiders, get yourself strapped in for a long 8-hour road trip.
The journey from Melbourne is 4 and a half hours driving.
For those who hate to drive that long, HothamBus offers discounted express coaches heading to the Victorian snowfields. The bus departs from three major cities, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.
HothamBus also offers day trips for central Melburnians straight to Mt Hotham. The overnight service departs at 1:50 AM, offering guests a whole day of swooping along the snowy ravines and relaxing in the Onsen retreat.
Open 10 AM to 6 PM Monday through to Sunday, these expansive services are offered every day.
Abandoned mills and forgotten paper plants are finding second lives – and helping redefine a city long underestimated.
Just 15 years ago, Federal Mills was a very different place. Once among the most significant industrial sites in Victoria, the historic woollen mill was one of a dozen that operated in Geelong at the industry’s peak in the mid-20th century, helping the city earn its title as ‘wool centre of the world’. But by the 1960s global competition and the rise of synthetic fabrics led to the slow decline of the industry, and Federal Mills finally shuttered its doors in 2001. Within a few years, the abandoned North Geelong grounds had become makeshift pastoral land, with cows and goats grazing among the overgrown grass between the empty red-brick warehouses. It was a forgotten pocket of the city, all but two klicks from the bustle of the CBD.
Geelong has shed its industrial identity to become an innovative urban hub with reimagined heritage spaces. (Image: Ash Hughes)
Federal Mills: from forgotten factory to creative precinct
Today, the century-old complex stands reborn. The distinctive sawtooth-roof buildings have been sensitively restored. An old silo is splashed with a bright floral mural, landscapers have transformed the grounds, and the precinct is once again alive with activity. More than 1000 people work across 50-plus businesses here. It’s so busy, in fact, that on a sunny Thursday morning in the thick of winter, it’s hard to find a car park. The high ceilings, open-plan design, and large multi-paned windows – revolutionary features for factories of their time – have again become a drawcard.
Paddock Bakery and Patisserie is housed within the historic wool factory. (Image: Gallant Lee)
At Paddock , one of the precinct’s newer tenants, weaving looms and dye vats have been replaced by a wood-fired brick oven and heavy-duty mixers. Open since April 2024, the bakery looks right at home here; the building’s industrial shell is softened by ivy climbing its steel frames, and sunlight streams through the tall windows. Outside, among the white cedar trees, families at picnic benches linger over dippy eggs and bagels, while white-collar workers pass in and out, single-origin coffee and crème brûlée doughnuts in hand.
Geelong: Australia’s only UNESCO City of Design
Paddock Bakery can be found at Federal Mills. (Image: Gallant Lee)
“A lot of people are now seeing the merit of investing in Geelong,” says Paul Traynor, the head of Hamilton Hospitality Group, which redeveloped Federal Mills. A city once shunned as Sleepy Hollow, and spurned for its industrial, working-class roots and ‘rust belt’ image, Geelong has long since reclaimed its ‘Pivot City’ title, having reinvented itself as an affordable, lifestyle-driven satellite city, and a post-COVID migration hotspot.
And the numbers stand testament to the change. In March 2025, and for the first time in its history, Greater Geelong became Australia’s most popular regional town for internal migration, overtaking Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Current forecasts suggest Geelong will continue to outpace many other Australian cities and towns, with jobs growing at double the rate of the population.
Tourism is booming, too. The 2023-24 financial year was Geelong and The Bellarine region’s busiest on record, with 6.4 million visitors making it one of the fastest-growing destinations in the country. It’s not hard to see why: beyond the city’s prime positioning at the doorstep of the Great Ocean Road, Geelong’s tenacity and cultural ambition stands out.
As Australia’s only UNESCO City of Design, Geelong is swiftly shaking off its industrial past to become a model for urban renewal, innovation, sustainability and creative communities. The signs are everywhere, from the revitalisation of the city’s waterfront, and the landmark design of the Geelong Library and Heritage Centre and Geelong Arts Centre, to the growing network of local designers, architects and artists, and the burgeoning roster of festivals and events. That’s not even mentioning the adaptive reuse of storied old industrial buildings – from Federal Mills, to Little Creatures’ brewery ‘village’ housed within a 1920s textile mill – or the city’s flourishing food and wine scene.
The rise of a food and wine destination
Restaurant 1915 is housed within a restored former boiler house. (Image: Harry Pope/Two Palms)
Traynor credits now-closed local restaurant Igni, which opened in 2016, as the turning point for Geelong’s hospo industry. “[Aaron Turner, Igni’s chef-patron] was probably the first guy, with all due respect, to raise the bar food-wise for Geelong,” he says. “People now treat it really seriously, and there’s clearly a market for it.” While Igni is gone, Turner now helms a string of other notable Geelong venues, including The Hot Chicken Project and Tacos y Liquor, all within the buzzy, street art-speckled laneways of the CBD’s Little Malop Street Precinct. Many others have also popped up in Igni’s wake, including Federal Mills’ own restaurant, 1915 . Housed within the cavernous boiler house, 1915’s interior is dramatic: soaring, vaulted ceilings with timber beams, exposed brick, a huge arched window. The share plates echo the space’s bold character, playing with contrast and texture, with dishes such as a compressed watermelon tataki, the sweet, juicy squares tempered by salty strands of fried leeks, and charred, smoky snow peas dusted with saganaki on a nutty bed of romesco.
The Woolstore is a new restaurant and bar housed within a century-old warehouse. (Image: Amy Carlon)
The Woolstore , one of The Hamilton Group’s most recent hospo projects, opened in February. It occupies a century-old riverside warehouse and exudes a more sultry, fine dining ambience. Much like Federal Mills, the blueprint was to preserve the original brickwork, tallowwood flooring and nods to the building’s former life. That same careful consideration extends to the well-versed, affable waitstaff as well as the kitchen. Head chef Eli Grubb is turning out an eclectic mix of ambitious and indulgent mod Oz dishes that deliver: strikingly tender skewers of chicken tsukune, infused with hints of smoke from the parrilla grill, and glazed with a moreish, sweet gochujang ‘jam’; nduja arancini fragrant with hints of aniseed and the earthy lick of sunny saffron aioli; and golden squares of potato pavé, adorned with tiny turrets of crème fraîche, crisp-fried saltbush leaves, and Avruga caviar, to name but a few stand-out dishes.
Woolstore’s menu is designed for sharing.
Breathing new life into historic spaces
On the city’s fringe, hidden down a winding side road with little fanfare, lies a long-dormant site that’s being gently revived. Built from locally quarried bluestone and brick, and dating back to the 1870s, the complex of original tin-roofed mill buildings is lush with greenery and backs onto the Barwon River and Buckley Falls; the audible rush of water provides a soothing soundtrack. Fyansford Paper Mill is one of few complexes of its time to survive intact. It feels steeped in history and spellbindingly rustic.
“We were looking for an old industrial place that had some charm and romance to it,” explains Sam Vogel, the owner, director and winemaker at Provenance Wines which moved here in 2018. When he first viewed the building with his former co-owner, it was in such a state of disrepair that the tradie tenant occupying the space had built a shed within it to escape the leaking roof and freezing winter temperatures. “To say it was run down would be an understatement,” he notes. “There was ivy growing through the place; the windows were all smashed. It was a classic Grand Designs project.”
Provenance Wines moved to Fyansford Paper Mill in 2018. (Image: Cameron Murray Photography)
The team has since invested more than a million dollars into their new home. Where paper processing machinery once sat, wine barrels are now stacked. Vaulted cathedral ceilings are strung with festoon lights, and hidden in plain sight lies a shadowy mural by local street artist de rigueur Rone – one of only three permanent works by the artist.
While the award-winning, cool-climate pinot noir, riesling and chardonnay naturally remain a key draw at Provenance, the winery’s restaurant is a destination in itself. Impressed already by whipsmart service, I devour one of the most cleverly curated and faultlessly executed degustations I’ve had in some time. It’s all prepared in a kitchen that is proudly zero-waste, and committed to providing seasonal, ethical and locally sourced meat and produce under head chef Nate McIver. Think free-range venison served rare with a syrupy red wine jus and a half-moon of neon-orange kosho, shokupan with a deeply savoury duck fat jus (a modern Japanese take on bread and drippings), and a golden potato cake adorned with a colourful confetti of dehydrated nasturtiums and tomato powder, and planted atop a sea urchin emulsion.
Bell’s handcrafted functional pieces on display.
The complex is home to a coterie of independent businesses, including a gallery, a jeweller, and its latest tenant, ceramicist Elizabeth Bell, drawn here by the building’s “soul”. “There’s so much potential for these buildings to have new life breathed into them,” says Bell, whose studio is housed within the old pump room. “Even people in Geelong don’t know we’re here,” she says. “It’s definitely a destination, but I like that. It has a really calming atmosphere.”
A Melbourne transplant, Bell now feels at home in Geelong, which offers something Melbourne didn’t. “If this business was in Melbourne I don’t think it would’ve been as successful,” she notes. “It’s very collaborative in Geelong, and I don’t think you get that as much in Melbourne; you’re a bit more in it for yourself. Here it’s about community over competition.”
Ceramicist Elizabeth Bell has a store in Fyansford Paper Mill.
