Instead of ticking every box, when I walked into the calm refuge of Wolgan Valley spa I simply draw a parenthesis as large as my enlarged liver around the whole segment of 15 or so boxes and wrote in caps that I will spare you: “Like no tongue can tell.’’
Luckily Tenile my masseuse is used to us overworked types and took it in her stride. And as she worked her magic, there was none of that waking me up every time I fall asleep, which can happen in some spas.

The Timeless Spa gently flows up the hillside next to the gymnasium, or sweating place as I call them, which is itself a short stroll from the homestead. There’s plenty of exposed timber inside and it affords glimpses of the countryside all around you.

As far as the choice of massage goes, you can’t go past the Australian Sunset therapy. After a relaxing bath-soak to unwind, gently fragrant native Australian wattleseed is massaged over your skin. Then, after a refreshing shower, your body is perfectly prepared for the Timeless Signature Body Massage.

The Timeless Spa includes six double treatment rooms and offers a range of relaxation, rejuvenation and beauty therapies drawn from techniques used traditionally in various parts of the world.

To top off the wellbeing experience, Wolgan Valley Resort & Spa features tennis courts as well as a fully-equipped gymnasium, changing rooms, a steam room and sauna (unisex set-up).

A 25m outdoor infinity swimming pool and adjoining jacuzzi are also available to guests, with poolside service and lounge areas offering commanding views of the spectacular Wolgan Valley below.

Science News

Early Celtic rulers of a community in what’s now southwestern Germany liked to party, staging elaborate feasts in a ceremonial center. The business side of their revelries was located in a nearby brewery capable of turning out large quantities of a beer with a dark, smoky, slightly sour taste, new evidence suggests.

Six specially constructed ditches previously excavated at Eberdingen-Hochdorf a 2,550-year-old Celtic settlement, were used to make high-quality barley malt, a key beer ingredient, says archaeobotanist Hans-Peter Stika of the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart. Thousands of charred barley grains unearthed in the ditches about a decade ago came from a large malt-making enterprise, Stika reports in a paper published online January 4 in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.

Stika bases that conclusion on a close resemblance of the ancient grains to barley malt that he made by reproducing several methods that Iron Age folk might have used. He also compared the ancient grains to malt produced in modern facilities. Upon confirming the presence of malt at the Celtic site, Stika reconstructed malt-making techniques there to determine how they must have affected beer taste.
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