Tonic

This boutique-hotel review needs to unfold chronologically because Tonic in Australia’s Hunter Valley doesn’t make a sudden appearance. It dawns on you gradually – just like when you wake up knowing something great happened to you yesterday but can’t remember exactly what.

At the end of a dusty, creamy, unsealed drive are four corrugated steel-clad cabins and a house, still and unconcerned by the unforgiving Hunter Valley sun. If this had been the Home Counties circa 1944, it could have been the sleeping quarters of a WWII fighter squadron. There are three double rooms and a communal guest lounge to each block. The house belongs to Nici and Leroy. Nici is the owner and Leroy is a large grey cat who thinks he’s the boss.

There is no check-in at the Tonic (nor, as we later discover, is there an official check-out). Mrs Smith punches the last four digits of the credit card into the keypad of our room – number seven – and the door swings open. We step in and, as the door clicks shut behind us, we hear faint music drifting idly across the sitting room. A lamp is on. Air-con soothes. A pair of shaggy, Chewbacca-like slippers peeps out from beneath a simple leather armchair. Mrs Smith opens the fridge door and shouts: ‘Look at this!’ But I can’t. I’m reading the chalked script on a floor-to-ceiling blackboard that says ‘Hi Viv and David. Welcome to Tonic.’

The only-just-off-white walls seem to move outwards wherever the eye falls. The rose taupe polished concrete floor is heated – for winter. The music is coming from a brushed satin unit next to a matching TV. Mrs Smith shows me the stacked shelves in a fridge, which thinks it’s a small deli. There are organic fruit juices, muesli, fresh fruit and yoghurt, smoked salmon, locally grown rocket and Binnorie Dairy feta cheese, free-range eggs, fresh milk, butter, croissants, breads, jams and honey.

On the enormous and comfortable bed, we can choose pillows that are latex-filled, micro-fibre non-allergenic or made from alpaca wool. The bathroom is large enough to house a medium-sized car and is sufficiently speck-free for bypass surgery. And you could live in the bath sheets. All this is ours for two nights (and we’re still whispering to each other).

The best thing, though, is the view. The room looks out across a lake to the Brokenback mountains. When we step out on to the expansive wooden deck, we can see two wallabies looking back, straightening up and smiling back at us before a couple of currawongs embark on their faraway haunting calls. (How did the resourceful Nici manage these touches?)

There’s no restaurant at the hotel so, that evening, we eat at Mojo’s, where we experience some of the friendliest service we’ve ever come across. Our 18-year-old waitress is ridiculously sweet and, between courses, shares her life story with us. Mrs Smith’s response to the oaky and vaguely minty 2005 Merlot we have with our meal also confirms the itinerary for tomorrow: a short drive to Hunter Valley’s Pepper Tree Winery.

The next day, after a delicious breakfast chosen from the provisions in the fridge, this is exactly what we do. We taste and do some serious buying at Pepper Tree before setting off to visit more of the Hunter Valley and the oldest vineyards in Australia. But we don’t get far. Our attention is drawn to a white, clapboard church named The Lovedale Wedding Chapel, and we while away an hour, savouring the shade under a circle of broad-leaved trees before we hit the road again.

From the top of a steep hill, we find ourselves looking down on a chocolate factory. I’m speechless: premium hand-made chocolate is to Mr Smith what multi-award-winning Cabernet Sauvignon is to his other half. We take a quick look, but the heat, and the lure of the cooling waters in Tonic’s saltwater pool, stops us from overindulging in lemon and passion fruit fudge.

That night, just before we retire to bed, we stand on the deck outside our room and – no chocolate pun intended – look up to see the powdery white canopy of the Milky Way. The following morning is our last at Tonic, and I feel sad that we haven’t been able to meet Nici (who’s away on business) and congratulate her on the wonderful sanctuary that she’s created in the New South Wales countryside. However, as Mrs Smith points out, it does feel as though we have met her – her ingenuity and style, evident throughout the hotel, is firmly ensconced in our brains. A stay here is just the, ahem, tonic for fast-paced, 21st-century living.