Add some romance with a mystery flight
By Eloise King
December 02, 2008
THIS would have to be, hands down, one of the most exciting, stress-free, and fun holidays I’ve ever had the pleasure to organise.
It all started with my partner’s 33rd birthday. Struggling with that special thing to get him, I began the hunt for an experience instead and settled on a surprise party.
Not terribly original, I know, but he hadn’t seen his mates for ages. What I wasn’t expecting was one of them to RSVP directly to him (obviously not one of the sharpest in the bunch), which not surprisingly, cancelled the surprise element and the party along with it.
My second wave of inspiration was better anyway; a mystery flight package for two. Punching the words into Google brought up the following:
“Welcome to www.mysteryflights.com.au. Imagine flying off to an unknown destination just waiting to be explored. Where you go is a mystery, what you do when you get there is entirely up to you. You might choose to shop, swim, wine and dine or simply relax at the hotel. The choice is yours.”
This was feeling good.
The website revealed three mystery packages: a day trip to one of 11 possible destinations, or a one- or two-night stay at one of 17.
I scanned the alluring list and drifted off into a plethora of birthday holiday possibilities: the Whitsundays (island hopping), Capricorn Coast (scuba diving with turtles), Hobart (log fires and hiking), Melbourne (caffeine fuelled shopping), Adelaide (hills and village living), Townsville (the heat).
And then I hit Canberra and thought this exercise has the potential to go horribly wrong.
Reading on, however, I learned: Canberra is automatically excluded for Sydney departures, and Mystery Flights leaving from Brisbane are not sent to Ballina/Byron Bay, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast or Fraser Coast. You can also nominate one place you won’t go.
Two minutes on the phone, and our two-night mystery sojourn was booked.
A few days before departure, a big, black, sealed folder with a tantalising white question mark scrawled across the cover arrived by mail. Sticky-taped to the front was a piece of paper with our airline, flight number, and 6.15am departure time. No destination.
The temptation, of course, was to rip it open to find out where we were off to. By refraining, it meant I had the absurd task of packing clothes to cater for every possible climate combination under the Australian sun. Swimmers, thongs and beach towels sat next to our winter jackets, hiking boots and scarves.
On departure day, the birthday boy rose at 4.50am to drop my mum and me off for a supposed mother-daughter trip to visit family in far north Queensland.
As he hauled the luggage out of the boot, I passed him the sealed black folder and surprise! asked him to divulge where on our sunburned continent we would be celebrating his 33rd. A thick wad of colourful tourism books, leaflets and pamphlets spilled out to reveal the Fraser Coast. And we were off.
The brochures provided good flight fodder for exploring what the Fraser Coast and our designated Hervey Bay Mantra Hotel had to offer. (Mystery Flights Australia guarantees three-star or better accommodation.)
Still a bit delirious about the early morning events, we stepped onto the Hervey Bay tarmac and were shuttled to our hotel where we dumped our bags, admired the view of the boating marina, checked out the bar fridge, dived onto the bed and laughed.
Hervey Bay, we discovered, is a fishing town of 57,000 people in the midst of development and increasing tourism. A two-hour drive north of Noosa’s bustling boutiques and bistros, it has remained relatively untouched until the airport was dropped onto the extended airstrip in 2005 and Peppers Pier Resort squeezed itself in between the sleepy waterfront fibro shacks to open last year.
The relaxed pace of Hervey Bay, regarded as the gateway to Fraser Island, wound us down so quickly that we couldn’t even pay a visit to the island just a short ferry ride away. Next time.
Instead, we spent time walking the never-ending esplanade, being massaged, reading, dining, relaxing by the pool, and catching up on some Zs.
The Mantra was a decent walk from the main esplanade.
At some point, a generous local told us the local RSL would pick us up for a drink and drop us wherever we needed to go afterwards which turned out to be a very confused little French restaurant. We definitely hadn’t landed in Melbourne.
(Tip: Word has it that most Mystery Flight accommodations are fairly close to the hub of the holiday spot, but Townsville gets complaints for being a bit further removed than most.)
Not usually big on resorts, another surprise was that one of our Hervey Bay trip’s highlights was the relaxed but indulgent birthday meal we had at the Peppers Bayswater Bar and Bistro restaurant. It provided good food, expensive wine, some careless after-dinner liqueurs, and this time a wobbly walk home.
Our mystery flight experience was a mystery no more.
More More: www.mysteryflights.com.au, (02) 8231 6617
The Sunday Telegraph
