The Sebel Resort and Spa, Windsor review: All downhill for detox Jedi

Peter Vincent falls off the wagon at the first whiff of chocolate and champagne.

It's Friday night and my partner and I are seated at the Harvest Restaurant in the Sebel Resort at Windsor, on the first night of a weekend away. I'm explaining why, despite the excellent wine list and groaning buffet tables, we cannot, must not, break our detox. We have endured three weeks of water over caffeine and alcohol, raw vegies over real meals, nuts and birdseed over treats and chips.

We have walked, cycled, swum, run, boxed and crunched our butts off. We have begun to appreciate the subtle charms of the radish. "Only three days to go," I hear myself say, intoning like a detox Jedi. Then something mysterious and irresistible intrudes on the periphery. There, in the corner of the restaurant, standing like some come-hither temptress, is a chocolate fountain, known throughout the lentil world as kryptonite to a detoxer. I remember the words of my nutritionist, spoken a month earlier: "No chocolate. Ever."

"Well maybe we could take one night off," I tell my partner and we promptly order a lovely bottle of Durif.

We indulge, she eating a main of pork belly and I, baked trout stuffed with wild rice and pine nuts. Then we follow with chocolate-dipped strawberries (and marshmallows) and then, as we've fallen off the wagon, we drain another bottle of bubbly while in the spa before tumbling into a guiltless sleep.

It's just as well the resort has a health spa on site, Villa Thalgo. My partner has a facial and an aromatherapy massage, with essential oils selected for de-stressing (lavender, lime, bergamot and spearmint). I opt for a no-frills one-hour massage. I know it's a silly reaction but when I see the masseuse is a beefy bloke, I have to fight the urge to run.

If you really want to spoil me, a ticket to the Ashes Test at the SCG will do. Here, in the spa, I lay back and think of Australia v England. As Confucius say, when man with big hands knead your buttocks, there is no turning back. Our treatments are undertaken side by side in one of the Sebel's couple's rooms. It's a strange but peaceful experience; enveloped by exotic smells and warbled tracks from what must be the Land of Nod Greatest Hits CD, my brain slows down and I'm transported from my daily stresses. Every so often I look across and see the therapist giving my partner her facial - stroking her face as elaborately as one would play a harp while whispering softly to her in the manner one might when cradling a chick fallen from its nest.

While she gets a massage, I decamp to the adjacent driving range, smiting golf balls as far as possible in a lame attempt to restore my manly sense of control. I return to the resort's spa, where we sit in the steam room for 20 minutes, flushing out our guilty pores, then dive into the ultramarine 25-metre pool, then have an invigorating hydrotherapy spa, where the massaging jets are so strong I feel I've been tenderised.

It's a wet weekend, so any plans to explore the region (including the delicious-sounding Hawkesbury Harvest farm-gate trail and a local arts, artisans and crafters trail) are hampered. We brave the rain and wander through Windsor, admiring the grand two-storey Georgian houses. Windsor was apparently the third settlement in the colony and the town has an air of faded grandeur; I only wish the local council had stricter controls on garish bargain-store signage that pollutes the gentle ambience.