Natasha Bazika

Anyone who has dabbled in Australia’s east coast wellness scene has likely heard of Soak Bathhouse. With locations across New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria, the popular spa sanctuaries have become a godsend for those seeking a bit of RnR. Now, the team behind Soak are taking things a step further in the Gold Coast hinterland, launching retreats involving breathwork, fire ceremonies and some serious soul-searching. Niki and Alexis Dean, the couple behind Soak Bathhouse, have just bought EcoView Retreat – one of Australia’s most spectacular wellness destinations in the Tallebudgera Valley. About 25 minutes from Gold Coast Airport, the property has 15 eco cabins sleeping up to 30 guests, a panoramic pool overlooking the hinterland and Gold Coast skyline, infrared saunas, indoor and outdoor gyms, a yoga pavilion and private bushwalking trails. There's also an oversized fire pit for evenings spent around the flames. Photograph: SuppliedEcoView Retreat But this isn't just a case of sunrise yoga followed by a smoothie. The Deans are planning six signature retreats, called Trip, Joy, Quest, Dream, Rise and Love – each with its own focus. First up is Trip – Go Beyond Wellness Retreat, which brings together holotropic breathwork, meditation, music, movement, guided shamanic journeying and fire ceremonies. The idea is to explore consciousness and personal growth without drugs. It's certainly a more involved approach to switching off than putting your phone on silent and booking

The whole point of escaping the city is to see something other than streetlights at night. Ideally, that means a sky full of stars, not three lonely dots and a plane. If you’re keen to camp under truly dark skies, Hipcamp – the world’s #1 app for discovering and booking campsites – has updated its map with new NASA satellite data, making it easier to find spots with less artificial light and a better view of the night sky. The new feature is free to use; simply open Hipcamp’s search map and select 'Layers' → 'Night sky'. You can browse more than 500,000 campsites worldwide, filtering by budget, camping style and facilities.  Photograph: Supplied | HipcampDark sky map So how does it work? Well, the map uses NASA’s latest 2026 Black Marble satellite imagery that accounts for moonlight and atmospheric effects to show how much artificial light is around after dark. All you have to do is pick a site in the dark spots. “We’re using satellites looking down at Earth to help more people look up,” says Alyssa Ravasio, Hipcamp’s founder and CEO. “A night under the Milky Way can change how you feel about a place. We want to make it easier to find those skies and give more people a reason to care about keeping them dark.” There’s some research to back up the appeal of getting away for a few nights, too. In the Caravan Industry Association of Australia’s Real Richness 2026 study, nine in ten campers said camping helped relieve stress. Australians took 17.3 million caravan and camping tri

Chess, cocktails, live music and soft serve. Sundays in Canberra are about to get a major upgrade! A new interactive art experience called Clubb Chess is taking over the city for three Sundays in November (as part of the 2026 Craft + Design Festival), and you don’t need to know your rook from your bishop to get involved. Hosted by the legends at Such and Such – one of our favourite Canberra restaurant and wine bars – Clubb Chess puts a twist on the usual gallery rules. Step inside this interactive exhibition to discover custom chess sets, card games and board games reimagined by eight contemporary artists, including Jaquie Meng, Mark Brook, Shaun Hayes, Harry Townsend, Hands on Studio, Olivia Kidson, April Phillips and Nathan Nhan. The overarching idea is art you can actually touch, play with and, if all goes to plan, use to absolutely destroy your friends. Pre-booking a session online is recommended, but you can also join the waitlist on the day.  Photograph: Cassie AbrahamOlivia Kidson   Outside, Legislative Plaza is joining the party with more games, music and room to hang around. You can scan one of the QR codes and play your mates or other randoms on chess.com. Or if you don’t want to spend an entire Sunday thinking about chess, simply soak up the vibes and live tunes. Trust FM will handle the daytime sessions, while live bands will keep the party going until 8.30pm, including Tee Vee Repairman and The King Hits on launch night. As for food and drinks, Indigenous-own

For anyone who’s watched Australian house prices climb and concluded that home ownership is a pipe dream, there may be some good news. You can still buy a house for less than $300,000. You might just have to rethink your postcode. New data from realestate.com.au has identified 26 Australian suburbs with some of the country’s lowest median house prices, against a national median of $974,000. The research shows Queensland has the most suburbs boasting median house prices under $300,000, with 11 outback locations on the list. New South Wales follows with 7, while South Australia features four times, including Coober Pedy with the lowest median house price of $68,750. Cheaper doesn’t necessarily mean a property market going backwards either. Many suburbs in the under-$300,000 group recorded annual price growth to September. In regional NSW, median house prices in Coonamble rose 13.1 per cent to $198,000, while Whyalla Stuart in South Australia saw a 46.3 per cent price increase to $300,000. Of course, a cheaper house can mean fewer local jobs or a longer drive to essential services, and moving somewhere purely because you can afford a house is a fairly big life decision. Still, with prices like these, it might be time to expand the search radius. The Australian suburbs where a house still costs less than $300,000: Coober Pedy, SA – $68k Coonamble, NSW – $198k Rosebery, TAS – $202k Bourke, NSW – $205k Tara, QLD – $205k Queenstown, TAS – $220k Nyngan, NSW – $225k Charleville, QLD

Planning a multi-day hike can involve an annoying amount of map-juggling. AllTrails is hoping to fix that with new backpacking functionality that lets hikers combine multiple trail sections into a single route. The new tool is designed for overnight and multi-day hikes, making it easier to map out longer adventures without having to stitch together separate trails yourself.  To mark the launch, AllTrails has revealed its top backpacking routes in Australia, based on navigation data from its users. From alpine adventures and volcanic landscapes to coastal hiking, here are the top ten to bookmark for your next big walk. Photograph: Supplied | AllTrailsSnowies Alpine Walk: Main Range Walk 1. Snowies Alpine Walk: Main Range Walk, NSW Go deep into Kosciuszko’s high country with this 23-kilometre loop walk. Starting at Charlotte Pass, the trail crosses treeless alpine country, passing glacial lakes and enormous granite boulders before climbing towards Mount Kosciuszko, Australia’s highest point. Conditions can change quickly at this altitude, even in summer, so come prepared for the weather. Photograph: Supplied | AllTrailsMount Feathertop via The Razorback 2. Mount Feathertop via The Razorback, VIC This is one of the shorter ways to get yourself onto Victoria’s second-highest mountain. The 9.2km trail follows the Razorback towards Mount Feathertop’s 1,922m summit, passing snow grass, snow gums, and low shrubs before hitting exposed rocky country. There’s a 608m elevation gain,

A $1 million fish is swimming around the Northern Territory right now. No, seriously. Season 12 of Million Dollar Fish kicked off on October 1, sending anglers into the Top End in search of one very lucrative barramundi. The rules are simple: reel in the single red-tagged barra and you'll walk away with $1 million. Another 100 red-tagged fish are worth $10,000 apiece.  You don’t have to be a professional angler to get involved. All you have to do is register, grab your fishing gear and head to the Top End. You can fish on your own, book a charter, join a guided trip or make a few days of it at a fishing lodge.  The competition runs until March 31, 2027, giving fishers six months to cast a line in the Top End’s rivers, estuaries and waterways. There’s another incentive this season, too. Catch one of the $10,000 fish on an eligible Tourism Top End charter between December and March, and the prize doubles to $20,000. Photograph: SuppliedMillion Dollar Fish The prize money is already well into the millions. Since the competition launched in 2015, anglers have caught more than $2.4 million, including the first million-dollar barra, landed by Territory local Keegan Payne in 2024. On Friday, October 1, just 45 minutes into fishing at Hardies Lagoon, Darren Kenny landed Season 12’s first $10,000 barra – a 62cm catch with a red tag. It’s Darren’s second winning catch at the same spot and the Kenny family’s third; Darren’s Dad happened to catch the first fish of season 11 last yea

There’s something about the warmer months that makes you want to leave town for a while. Not just for a night, either. We’re talking about a proper road trip. And we have just the one…well, actually, ten. New research from car rental company Redspot has evaluated 25 of Australia’s major touring routes to find the ones with the most nature along the way. The study looked at ten measures, including ecosystem diversity, wildlife, coastline, protected land, native vegetation, elevation, water features and access to campsites. The data came from environmental and geographic records, including Geoscience Australia and the Atlas of Living Australia, giving the rankings a pretty solid data set behind them. Photograph: Destination NSWSea Cliff Bridge along the Grand Pacific Drive Taking out the top spot is the Grand Pacific Drive in NSW. The 158.8-kilometre route from Sydney towards the Shoalhaven scored 68.69 out of 100, making it the highest-ranked nature road trip in the country – and the shortest route in the study. It’s a lot of scenery for 158km. Almost 60 per cent of the route sits within 5km of the sea, while there are roughly 19 campsites and 30 named water features for every 100km. It also passes an internationally recognised wetland and features two natural heritage-listed places. In other words, pack snacks. You’re going to be stopping a lot. Queensland’s Great Tropical Drive comes in second, scoring 64.56. The 556.3km route takes you through rainforest and native vegeta

Planning a day at Canberra’s National Gallery of Australia? You can now add breakfast or lunch to the itinerary. Oculus Café x Kitchen by Mike is the new all-day eatery from Sydney chef Mike McEnearney, founder of Kitchen by Mike and the creative director at Sydney’s beloved Carriageworks Farmers Market. It’s located on the ground floor of the National Gallery, overlooking the Sculpture Garden and works including George Baldessin’s Pear – version number 2 and James Turrell’s Within without. So, technically you can peep the art while you eat. Photograph: Zac GriffithOculus Café x Kitchen by Mike Breakfast starts at 8am, with Mike’s sourdough, seasonal fruit, house-made muesli, chia pudding, sourdough pancakes, roasted mushrooms and free-range eggs. There’s also avocado and chickpea miso toast, and a selection of vegetarian and vegan options. However, the bacon butty with Pepe Saya butter and the option to add a spoonful of crunchy chilli oil has us salivating. From 11.30am, lunch switches to a canteen-style setup, with roast meats, quiches, wraps and seasonal salads – featuring produce sourced almost entirely from Canberra and regional NSW. Cakes, tarts and other house-made sweets are available all day, with Australian wines, spirits and beers to wash it all down. Photograph: Zac GriffithOculus Café x Kitchen by Mike The café was designed by Melbourne-based studio, Kerstin Thompson Architects, with furniture by Sydney designer Tom Fereday. Light floods into the space, with

Of course, Australia has been named one of the best places to survive an apocalypse. We’ve spent generations preparing for things that want to kill us: sharks, snakes, bushfires, cyclones and the metal buckle of a seatbelt in summer. Now there’s research to back us up. A new study has named Australia as “likely the most resilient place on Earth” when it comes to surviving global catastrophes – from nuclear war and pandemics to volcanic eruptions and large-scale infrastructure collapse. Published in the journal Global Challenges, the study reviewed 152 academic papers looking at what makes some places better equipped to ride out a catastrophe. Australia scored well for some fairly obvious reasons: it’s geographically isolated, produces a lot of food, has energy reserves, has a range of climate zones and has a long growing season. It was the only country the researchers identified as resilient across all three major categories of global catastrophic risk they examined, including sudden loss of sunlight, large-scale infrastructure failure and catastrophic biological threats such as pandemics. Tasmania gets an extra tick for being, well, Tasmania. It’s an island, has plenty of farmland and a temperate climate. The researchers call it a “refuge in a refuge”. Photograph: Re Walsh via UnsplashTable Cape, Tasmania It’s not exactly apocalypse-proof. Australia still relies on international trade for fuel, medicine and fertiliser, and we have our own regular disasters to contend with,

There are plenty of places in Melbourne where you can hear electronic music – but under a freeway, with 5,000 other people, is a new one. The Underpass is Melbourne’s newest live music venue, built beneath an elevated freeway in the city’s inner-west. It hasn’t even opened, but already has Bicep and Fatboy Slim booked to play. The Underpass comes from Novel, the promoter behind some of Melbourne’s better-known bridge parties, including Intercell, Smalltown and A3. The site hasn’t previously been used for electronic music events, and there’s no attempt to hide what it is: a big, raw space with a freeway running overhead. Photograph: SuppliedThe Underpass new site, Footscray Rd The venue will hold more than 5,000 punters, putting it among Melbourne’s bigger outdoor music spaces. So, yes, you’ll be dancing under a freeway – which is a fairly Melbourne way to spend a Saturday night. Photograph: SuppliedFatboy Slim Bicep will open The Underpass on November 1 and 2, with final tickets remaining for the second night, which falls before a public holiday (score!). Then, on March 12 and 13, 2027, Fatboy Slim will play under the same enormous stretch of freeway as part of his grand Australian tour. Keep an eye on their Instagram for updates and to watch it all come together. Stay in the loop: sign up for our free Time Out Melbourne newsletter for the best of the city, straight to your inbox. RECOMMENDED: The best live music venues and pubs in Melbourne A chic, Euro-coded eatery ha

Turns out all those years of complaining about experiencing four seasons in one day were actually just training. A new global analysis has ranked Melbourne the third most climate-resilient major city in the world, behind Chicago in the US and Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. The ranking comes from AlphaGeo, a Singapore-based geospatial AI company that analysed 72 of the world’s largest cities to see how well they can cope with climate-related disasters. And it’s not just about which cities are least likely to get rained on.  AlphaGeo looked at six major climate risks: inland and coastal flooding, heat stress, drought, wildfires and hurricane winds, then assessed how well cities are set up to deal with them. That includes early-warning systems, governance, infrastructure and flood protection. The podium finish puts Melbourne ahead of cities including Barcelona, Ankara, Buenos Aires, Paris, Istanbul and Bogotá. Chicago took the top spot, helped by its temperate climate, access to freshwater and relatively low hurricane risk, as well as decades of investment in infrastructure designed to manage flooding. Melbourne, of course, isn’t immune to climate disasters. The city already deals with heatwaves, floods and severe storms, and climate projections point to more hot days, lower rainfall and more very high fire-danger days in the coming decades. Still, third place is pretty decent going for a city where the weather can serve up four seasons before lunch. The 10 most climate-resilient cit

There’s good steak, there’s very good steak, and then there’s steak that gets flown to Amsterdam to be judged against 470 others for the title of the world’s best. The winner of the 2026 World Steak Challenge is an Australian Wagyu fillet, bred and raised at Torrens Creek in Central Queensland by fourth-generation cattle producers Adam and Hayley Rea. Photograph: Supplied | Paradigm FoodsCattle farmers Adam and Hayley Rea The Senku Pure Wagyu fillet, produced by Brisbane-based Paradigm Foods, took the top prize at the international ceremony on September 10, after more than 60 judges from across the globe assessed the entries blind. If you don’t spend much time thinking about Wagyu, the basic idea is that it’s prized for its marbling: those fine flecks and veins of fat running through the meat. That fat is a big part of what gives Wagyu its rich texture, but getting it there takes some very particular breeding and feeding.This particular animal started life on the Reas’ property before heading to Sapphire Feedlot, where it was finished on a bespoke grain program. Photograph: Supplied | Paradigm FoodsSenku Pure Wagyu fillet “This is the first time we have ever entered the World Steak Challenge, and we've come away with the top title, judged blind against the best in the world,” says Paradigm Foods general manager Nick Thompson. For the Reas, who’ve spent most of their working lives breeding Wagyu, the win is a little hard to believe. “To have an animal we raised on our own