SPONSORED BY STONELEIGH // ALL THOUGHTS ARE OUR OWN

Let’s set our usual mid-week scene: On autopilot we normally finish work, heat up some leftover lasagna, pour a wine and sit on the couch with our laptops clearing our emails, updating Instagram, scrolling through Facebook and keeping one eye on The Daily Show and getting hung up on the latest world drama.

We know, we’re wild.

All this on-screen stimulus normally has our heart rates going without us lifting more than our phone to our faces. It’s definitely not the recipe for a relaxed night in.

So few weeks ago, mid-facebook scroll, we looked at our lives at bit and realised that perhaps we might need some kind of yoga/meditation/serious tech break and so started our journey looking for places that could specifically help us chill out and most importantly log off.

Most people who live and work in Sydney already know that the key to a long happy relationship with this city sometimes means taking time out.

Which brings us to…

BILLABONG RETREAT

41 McClymonts Road, Marayla, NSW

+61 2 4573 6080

Billabong Retreat is only an hour away from the Sydney CBD, nestled in the lush native tree forests of Marayla. The whole estate consists of a couple of large main rotundas for yoga, meditation and dining, with a spattering of about 12 charming treehouse log cabins, each overlooking a large waterhole. Some with their own outdoor bathtubs (a really nice touch).

Retreat owner Paul von Bergen had long been involved in the Bondi yoga and meditation community but it wasn’t until the death of loved one that he felt the push to create a zen oasis of his own. So committed to the cause, it took him about a year to finish off the first few buildings, if only to find all the right recycled timber materials to ensure that not a piece was sourced from illegal timber farming.

He said he knew as soon as he saw the land that Marayla was the place to build. With its grey gums and picturesque views over the water, we can see why.

DAY 1

We arrived straight from a CBD photo shoot and after navigating the highways of the outer Sydney we were definitely still in ‘work mode’. The first moment you realise you’re at a retreat and not checking into a hotel is there are no room keys.

This is a place of peace. There’s no need to lock yourself off.

Food is a big thing at Billabong. From chef Angie’s pre-meal introductions to the nourishing benefits of each course to our mind-blowing hour with the on-site naturopath, you learn a lot about the benefits of treating yourself to a slow cooked meal.

We’ll add here that chef Angie is a bit of a catering superstar in the retreat business and a few tastes of her pumpkin slice with roasted tomato will have even the most staunch meat eater contemplating switching teams. If you’re fussy, never fear, she’s up for a challenge, although we wager you’ll enjoy the experiment of trying her different taste combinations. She opened our tastebuds to chia porridge with vanilla and coconut flakes and we don’t think our guts have ever been happier (TMI? If you’re trying to unwind it turns out your gut is a good place to start).

(For those looking for a little organic food-inspo, Angie posts a lot of her recipes here).

The idea at Billabong is to dine communally and it’s a perfect opportunity to get to know your fellow retreaters. We imagined that we’d all swap war stories or end up playing the game of ‘Who Has The Busiest Life?’. We’re happy to report that mostly we all agreed that you can be stressed no matter what you do for a living, whether you’re a school teacher or, in our case, a creative team who also wrangles the internet for a living.

Crystal Bowl Meditation. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? Perhaps you’ve done it? Perhaps you feel like it’s a little touchy feely? Trust us, you’ve never experienced anything like CBM at Billabong.

For the uninitiated, a leader guides a group using Japanese singing bowls, vibrating them to produce a precise frequency, along with two audible harmonic overtones. We’re going to go full hippy at this point so gird your cynicism but there’s something about the vibrations that have an incredibly soothing effect, almost like your ear drums or brain is getting a massage from the inside out.

It’s hard to explain how it feels but we’ll try: For the wine drinkers here, imagine someone rimming their glass of red with a finger. It’s like that sound but (obviously) much MUCH more effective. For a couple of people who had never been able to sustain so much as 5 minutes of meditation, we went for a full hour.

It occurred to us later that it had been a long time since we had dinner and then lay still for an hour before bed. Who here can honestly confess to ever doing that? Needless to say, we slept pretty well.

Number of times phone checked? Once.

Okay, maybe thrice.

DAY 2

We woke to the sound of bird song and pondered how long it’s been since we weren’t jolted awake by the not-so-soothing squawks of the Ibis family that live in the palms outside our apartment. Seriously, Sydney’s Ibis community NEEDS to take a break of their own.

You underestimate how enriching it is to hear Kookaburras laughing through the trees until you haven’t heard them for a while. “So we DO live in Australia” we joke on the way up to breakfast (a delicious and filling baked egg frittata btw).

The rest of the day was a blend of long chats with other guests, hour long yoga, reading and exploring the bushland. Essentially a world away from our regular lives of coffee meetings/coffee/shooting/editing/emails/texts/scheduling/more coffee.

We broke ranks with the guests in the afternoon, taking time out to enjoy some quality time with the outdoor tub.

With some BYO’d some blue cheese and a couple of bottles of Stoneleigh, we got lost in conversation (with each other and NOT with the internet, as is all too often the case) as the sun faded down.

The lesson that evening was on the mind/body connection. Simply put, what you think affects how you feel. Did you know emotional and mental imbalance can manifest in stress-induced headaches and tight shoulders? Yes?

How long since you checked into how you’re feeling? Simply assessing how your physical state is altered by your mental state can reduce unhealthy weight gain or loss, insomnia, and high blood pressure.

Now we know the scientific explanation why 8 hours trawling social media each day can sometimes have a withering rather than uplifting effect.

It was around this time we could feel our faces redden as though we were part of the problem and not the solution (being digital content creators and all).

Still, the message sunk in.

Day 3

Only a half day of breakfast and yoga but ultimately it’s enough. We felt ready to re-enter society, rejuvenated and relieved to know that we could return any time. It’s only an hour after all.

We also noticed a distinct physical distance between us and our mobile phones. Reception be damned, we’re ashamed to admit that normally we’d still be cloying with our arm in the air for just a single bar of 3G to get through.

Not so much after Billabong, It’s not that we stopped caring about the outside world, more that we had learned the benefits of selective switch off.

Maybe it’s completely fine for people to wait an hour for a response? Maybe it’s actually okay to miss a few Instagrams in the feed?

We’re not saying we’re completely cured but we might have figured out a few tactics to sticking to one screen only.

For the record we still make time for The Daily Show. Some habits die hard.

Find out more about Billabong Retreathere and follow them on Instagram @billabongretreat

This post was made possible thanks to STONELEIGH WINES.

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