qualia

Bob Oatley bought Hamilton Island in 2003, the year after he sold the Rosemount wine business, and set out to give the Whitsundays a resort of the kind he could not find there. qualia opened on the island's northern point in 2007. The name is the philosophers' word for the qualities of a sensation, and the resort is built around a handful of them: the Coral Sea, the pavilions, and the silence of a part of the island where no one under 16 is admitted.

History

Hamilton Island had been a package-holiday island since the 1980s, with high-rise apartments and a marina, when the Oatleys acquired it. The family rebuilt the yacht club, started Hamilton Island Race Week on a new footing and commissioned qualia as the island's flagship. Oatley's son Sandy Oatley has run the island since; Bob Oatley died in 2016. qualia has collected most of the Australian hotel awards available since opening and has become the reference point for island hotels in Australia.

Architecture and design

The Queensland architect Chris Beckingham designed the resort as 60 freestanding pavilions scattered on the hillside among native trees, with the Long Pavilion at the crest and the Pebble Beach restaurant and pool at the shore. The pavilions are of timber and stone under flat roofs, with full-height glass that slides open to a deck, and they are set apart so that none overlooks another. The Long Pavilion is a single long room on timber columns with the sea on three sides, holding the restaurant, the bar and the library. Interiors use Australian timbers, linen and pale stone.

Rooms and suites

The 60 pavilions divide into Leeward and Windward. Leeward Pavilions sit on the hillside among the trees with a deck and views over the Whitsunday Passage; Windward Pavilions are at the water's edge with a private plunge pool on the deck. The Beach House is a separate two-bedroom residence with its own pool, kitchen, lawn and beachfront, taken for honeymoons and families with older children. Every guest has a golf buggy to move about the resort and the island.

Dining

Long Pavilion is the main restaurant, with a menu built on Queensland seafood and produce and a long list of Australian wines, served on the terrace above the sea. Pebble Beach, by the lower pool, serves breakfast and lunch at the water's edge and dinner at a more relaxed pitch. Private dinners are set on the pavilion decks, the beach and in the Beach House.

Wellness

Spa qualia occupies its own set of treatment pavilions in the trees, with a relaxation deck, steam room and a yoga and fitness room, and uses Australian products. There are two pools, the main one at Pebble Beach and a second by the Long Pavilion. The resort sends guests out to the reef by helicopter and seaplane, to Whitehaven Beach by boat, and on to the island's golf course on neighbouring Dent Island.

Weddings and events

qualia hosts weddings, celebrations and executive retreats. Ceremonies are held on the beach, on the lawn of the Beach House and on the Long Pavilion terrace, and the resort can be taken over entirely for a wedding of a hundred or so guests, housed in the pavilions. For companies there is the Long Pavilion and a meeting room suited to boards and small leadership groups rather than conferences; the island's convention centre handles the large events. The age restriction applies to weddings too.

Location

The resort occupies the northern tip of Hamilton Island, in the Whitsunday Islands off the coast of Queensland, inside the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Hamilton Island Airport, with direct flights from Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Cairns, is on the island, and qualia meets guests at the terminal for a ten-minute drive; the resort is reached by its own road past the Hamilton Island marina. Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island is 30 minutes by boat, and the Heart Reef is a short helicopter flight. As a resort on Hamilton Island it is the one guests choose when they want the island without its crowds.