This was published 12 years ago
Gibraltar Hotel Bowral, review: A room with a fairway
Gibraltar Country Club & Spa.
Bruce Elder finds a new hotel in Bowral with golf and a fine grill.
When the railway line finally reached Bowral in the early 1860s, the area became a desirable summer holiday destination for Sydneysiders almost overnight. Like the "hill stations" in the Blue Mountains, the town attracted the affluent, who built large mansions as retreats from the heat and humidity of the coast (Milton Park at Bong Bong and Hillview at Sutton Forest are the most notable examples). Winter was never the best time in the highlands.
So, to keep the hotels busy, a range of self-conscious winter tourist attractions have been devised. In the case of the newly opened Gibraltar Country Club Hotel & Spa, this involves Christmas in July every Saturday night in July, with Geoff Harvey (remember him?) and his elves performing Christmas carols and, at a special Sunday roast lunch on July 24, the long-time Channel Nine music director will be tickling the ivories.
The inside view.
The Gibraltar Hotel is a sparkling new addition to the old Bowral Country Club golf course. The dining room, once a popular location for large local gatherings (Malcolm and Tamie Fraser were once guests of honour here), has been modernised. It stands at one end of the elegant six-month-old hotel that overlooks the fairways.
The new restaurant, Gibraltar Grill, has pleasant views over the golf course and up to Mount Gibraltar, known locally as "The Gib".
A Sunday lunch gazing across the fairways, observing the shortcomings of the local golfers' skills, listening to the idle chatter of Bowral matrons and admiring the bare branches of the winter trees is the essence of this pleasant southern highlands break.
The Grill specialises in steaks - 300-gram T-bone, 200-gram beef eye fillet, 400-gram rib eye - but we choose barramundi and Atlantic salmon, both of which are cooked precisely to our instructions. A small but excellent range of wines and simple desserts (including creme brulee with rhubarb, and apple and cinnamon crumble withhoneycomb ice-cream) complement the main meals.
This being a modern hotel, the refurbished restaurant is a study in charcoal and taupe. There are charcoal tables, chairs and fittings - even charcoal pictures of fruit and vegetables on the walls. Taupe walls bear panels of wallpaper featuring images of floor-to-ceiling birch trees. The only hints of colour are slender, red Chinese vases decorating the sideboards. Fresh white roses on each table add an elegant touch.
Half the hotel's rooms look over the golf course and half look over the car park. The car-park rooms are called "Woodland" rooms.
We book a Woodland Spa Deluxe. It costs $245 a night and includes an excellent bain-marie-style breakfast with fresh croissants, a hearty European-style yoghurt and muesli mix, scrambled eggs, mushrooms, hash browns, tomatoes, bacon and sausages.
However, a fastidious attention to detail is lacking. The floor of the restaurant, covered in charcoal and olive carpet, shows every crumb and morsel of culinary detritus. The entrance to the lift on the first floor is chipped and looks unfinished. The receptionists give us our plastic key cards but fail to tell us whether to turn right or left when we exit the lift - and there is no sign indicating where the rooms are. To add to the confusion, our room number, 207, suggests we are on the second floor. In fact we are on the first floor. There is no second floor.
Our room is eulogised online as a "superior room luxuriously appointed with Super King bed ... Bathroom with walk-in shower and oversized spa bath. Marble floors and luxury finishes" and an array of extras: large LCD television, hair dryer, iPod dock and so on. There is no mention of the large open space (no glass, just a gaping hole in the wall) between the bathroom and the bedroom.
This lack of bathroom privacy seems the strangest, most thoughtless of design features (I have, at other places, experienced a bath in the bedroom). It might be charming to gaze at your beloved in a spa but there are other bathroom functions that are best kept private and sound-proofed. Why expose your good companion to a repertoire of earthy sounds and aromas?
Apart from this, the room is large and inviting. The bed is deliciously comfortable and the balcony catches the late afternoon winter sun.
There is something very blokey about the hotel's marketing of a range of packages that include accommodation and rounds of golf, with the strong suggestion that this will appeal to the "boys". For the "girls", the hotel has the on-site Bowral Day Spa, a gym, an indoor pool and Pilates and yoga classes.
For golfers, a "Stay and Play" package costs from $197 a person a night on the weekend for a round of golf, a golf cart and accommodation. There's even a club membership golf package for $700, which includes a night's accommodation and a year's membership.
VISITORS' BOOK
Address Corner of Centennial Road and Boronia Street, Bowral.
The verdict Large, comfortable rooms and excellent dining facilities, though it probably needs another six months to settle in. If you like bathroom privacy choose a room without a spa bath.
Price From $195 for a Woodland Deluxe room at the weekend, to $490 for the 110 square-metre Gibraltar Suite.
Bookings Phone 4862 8600, see gibraltarbowral.com.au.
Getting there Bowral is 110 kilometres from Sydney. Drive off the Hume Highway onto Old Hume Highway to Bowral and Mittagong. In Mittagong turn left into Bowral Road, which becomes The Highlands Way. Turn right into Lyle Road and right again into Centennial Road.
Perfect for Those who like snuggling up on a frosty night in the southern highlands or a bracing game of golf.
Wheelchair access Yes.
While you're there Enjoy the Bowral Country Club golf course ($30 for nine holes, $40 for 18 holes on the weekend), explore Bowral's famous Corbett Gardens, visit the Bradman Museum and enjoy the views from Mount Gibraltar.
Weekends Away are reviewed anonymously and paid for by Traveller.
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