Alba on the Mornington Peninsula to be Australia's biggest spa and hot springs retreat

Australia's biggest spa and hot springs retreat has just opened on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula, sharing a postcode with, and bringing competition to the firmly established Peninsula Hot Springs, which is a mere three minutes' drive down the road.

With 31 pools – no two alike – across a 15-hectare property, at Alba, you can bask in the heat, plunge in the cold, paddle about in a small pool built for one or two, or relax with your pals in a larger concern.

The beautifully designed and landscaped property also features 22 spa treatment rooms and an extensive treatment menu as well as Thyme, a 120-seat restaurant by celebrity chef, Karen Martini.

Unlike the Peninsula Hot Springs which puts the glam into glamping with its permanent tented accommodation and which is developing three further eco pod-style lodgings, you can't stay at Alba – yet. Its accommodation is expected to be ready in 2023 or 2024.

But the property has an affiliation with luxury hotel Jackalope in Merricks North, 30 minutes' drive away (though still on the Peninsula). The "Jackalope x Alba: Take Me There" package offers two nights at the hotel and access to Alba's pools with transfers.

Most of Australia's mineral springs are in Victoria and concentrated in and around the Central Highland towns of Daylesford and Hepburn, now synonymous with soaking in benefits of these remarkably therapeutic waters – benefits of which the Dja Dja Wurrung peoples knew long before Europeans began bathing there.

But the Victorian coastline's geothermal water supply is extensive, thanks to the Otway Basin, which stretches for more than half the state's coastline including the Mornington Peninsula and Gippsland. The latter is where the people behind Peninsula Hot Springs are set to open the COVID-delayed, much anticipated Metung Hot Springs on November 18.

See albathermalsprings.com.au