Me-time by the seashore: A wellness break on NSW's South Coast

Just a (pumice) stone's throw from the restaurant that put the little NSW South Coast town of Mollymook on the map, I am being turned into a human fruit salad. The Spa by the Sea's signature facial involves a parade of organic Hungarian-made products endorsed by the likes of Chris Hemsworth and Jennifer Lawrence. Ingredients such as blueberries and mangosteen, coconut and apricot are in creams, oils, milks and sprays being applied to my face in an indulgent 90-minute session.

It began with a "welcoming" half-hour back massage from practitioner Sophie, who also massages my arms and hands at some point during this ritual designed to "reveal radiance". She also applies two masks - one a bamboo age corrective, the other concocted using stonecrop, a succulent plant whose subtle, sweet smell is completely new to me.

Am I relaxed? Oh, yes. Eyes closed, senses of touch and smell fully engaged and regulation spa tunes tinkling in the background, I day dream of winning the Lotto, and doing this every day, with my own on-staff masseuse. I'm in the Shoalhaven, an area of southern NSW that boasts 100 beaches and 49 towns and villages, for a weekend of wellness; some me-time by the seaside.

Mollymook is one of those 49 towns, and it's my first time in this particular pocket of a truly sensational part of Australia. I'm doing it in style, too, staying at Bannisters by the Sea, a fresh and breezy haven atop a steep headland that has evolved in the past 20 years from old-school motel to barefoot-luxe landmark, complete with its on-site pamper palace and celebrated Rick Stein restaurant.

My first-floor room overlooks a lawn (where, the next day, a wedding ceremony takes place in blazing sunshine) fringed by bushland and the big blue sea beyond. I SMS a selfie to my partner back at home who agrees that my elaborate spa treatment has indeed revealed some radiance and I look at least a week younger. My hair is glossy with apricot oil, thanks to a scalp massage from Sophie, as I head for dinner at Small Town Food + Wine in Milton, a historic town full of lovely shops less than 10 minutes' drive inland. At 7.30pm on a Friday, diners are pouring in to the compact neighbourhood bistro. I sit at the bar, close to all the kitchen action and the rose on tap, and order a toasted lobster roll. It is so very delicious - the brioche crunchy and buttery and the lobster dressed in mayo with fennel pollen and dill on top - that I order another.

Wellness is all about food too, right? And the Mediterranean-style, share-plate food here is so good it won a hat in the 2023 Good Food Guide awards. The barbecued octopus I tuck into next - featuring no less than eight ingredients, from white beans and anchovy to goats curd and pangrattato - is equally divine. The drawback of me-time is the absence of a dining companion with whom I can try more dishes, because alas, the octopus has pulled me up. No room for fried zucchini flowers, duck prosciutto with stone fruits and macadamia, or the saffron and squash risotto.

Back at the hotel, I go to sleep with the sliding door to my veranda open, so I can hear the waves crashing on the rocks below.

Things are getting serious. I have been instructed to fast for two hours prior, to avoid caffeine and to arrive on time and with an open mind for my 10.30am appointment at Life Centre Holistic Health and Wellness. It's a 30-minute drive north in the hamlet of Bewong, where I pull into the driveaway of a brick home at the end of a cul de sac, a screen of towering gum trees behind it.

Over the next two-and-a-half hours, Tyson Tindall - in the backyard he ran around in as a kid with his brother and now business partner Kirk - leads me through a succession of practices aimed at helping people leave here feeling grounded and relaxed, "more in their body, not so much in their mind, and with a bit more of a sense of clarity," Tyson explains.

The session starts with at least 30 minutes of breathwork, where the breath is held before exhaling slowly, or expelled with gusto, and many other combinations besides. There is the aroma of lavender and lemon in the room and I am lying on a very soft and cosy blanket. "I feel breathwork really brings you back to presence and to yourself," Tyson says. "Often times we are all trying to get somewhere so fast in fight or flight mode ... and I just feel the breathwork brings us back to our centre."

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Next up is time in the infrared sauna hut for as long as I can hack it, before a dip in the magnesium-enriched backyard pool and then - the real and scary test - immersion in an ice bath, temperature 12 degrees. "Women are the toughest with the cold therapy," Tyson says, leaving me with no choice but to get in there. He tells me to concentrate on my breathing and I indeed discover that taking long, deep and deliberate breaths helps greatly with the horrid task at hand.

I do a couple of hot and cold rounds to "work the nervous system", increasing my time in the ice bath - with the help of Tyson's distracting conversation - to a couple of minutes, about which I feel a genuine sense of achievement. My reward is a half-hour session of float therapy inside a gleaming white floatation pod filled with 1000 litres of water (this time it's at human body temperature) and 600 kilograms of epsom salts. Freed from gravity and sealed shut from the world, my mission is to become one with the water. I'm not sure about that, but I'd be happy to float here all day.

Instead, I head back to Mollymook and take a long walk along its beautiful beach, surely one of the best wellness tonics of all.

Getting there: Mollymook is a three-hour drive south of Sydney, and less then three hours from Canberra.

Getting well: The 90-minute Bannisters signature facial at Spa by the Sea is $245. Massages start at $170 for 60 minutes, and facials at $185. At Life Centre Holistic Health and Wellness, the two-and-a-half hour Breathwork + Ice Bath + Sauna + Pool + Float is $250. A one-hour float therapy session is $89.

Where to stay: At Bannisters by the Sea in Mollymook, expect to pay from about $500 a night for an Ocean Deluxe room, which come with a pair of binoculars to help you spot dolphins, seals and whales.

Explore more: shoalhaven.com/wellness

The writer was a guest of Shoalhaven Tourism.