Couran Cove Resort by John Borthwick

There's a man fishing from the balcony of his lagoon-front villa at Couran Cove Resort. As I watch, his rod bows under the weight of a good-sized catch. He reels it in while his young daughter, obviously familiar with this occurrence, runs downstairs to the water's edge and neatly lands the fish with her net.

Couran Cove, on Queensland's South Stradbroke Island (just north of the Gold Coast), looks like a village of well-behaved boathouses dressed in their Sunday best. Decked out in natty blues, whites and pinks, the deluxe apartments and villas cluster around a large central lagoon while broad decks connect the one-and two-storey wooden buildings to the shore. Agile wallabies graze on the lawns and bandicoots scamper across the paths then off into the paperbarks.

The 151-hectare resort is very Australian, but not in some laboured "throw-another-shrimp" sense, but in its spaciousness, its bush aromas, the stands of cabbage tree palms, and the alternating silences and ocean sighs. Amid all this nature, one hardly expects to find four-and-half star luxury — fine food, a great spa, two pools, plenty of fitness facilities, water toys and comfortable, roomy accommodation — however, at Couran Cove, nature and culture come together in style.

Stand on Couran Cove's ocean beach (there is also a still water shore) and you can savour a unique sight — the "before and after" of the Gold Coast. You're standing on "before", an almost virginal 22-km stretch of beach and dunes, while to the south, the towers of Surfers Paradise rise like a CBD on a seaside vacation.

In the morning you can take a 4WD surf-fishing excursion on this grand beach. By evening, overlooking the same shore from the resort's Oceanman restaurant, your sundowner can easily segue into prandial pleasures that may involve prawns and barramundi, a sauvignon blanc or chardonnay, chocolate, coffee, a wee brandy ...