While some Sydney hotels have sidestepped into a quarantine role in the past year, at Q Station on Manly’s North Head a historic quarantine zone has been transformed into a hotel. 

Q Station is only 30 minutes from Sydney’s CBD but as you pass road signs to slow down for endangered bandicoots and watch Billy the resident echidna waddling by city life just melts away. 

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Spread out over 30 hectares of national park Q Station is part museum, part boutique accommodation with heritage rooms and cottages, and according to ghost hunters is one of the most haunted spots in Australia. 

The Q in Q Station stands for quarantine and from 1833 to 1984 it was used to do just that. The Spanish flu, bubonic plague and other deadly diseases claimed the life of more than 500 people on the site and while you could join a history tour while the sun’s up, at the nightly ghost tours you can grab a lantern for a spookier history lesson. 

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The first time I stayed at Q Station I started with dinner at the Boilerhouse Kitchen & Bar, joined the ghost tour that gathered outside the restaurant, and then spent the night in a three-bedroom cottage. Alone. 

Sleepless in Manly is an understatement. 

When I recently returned for a second stay the black and white photos of people wearing masks during the Spanish influenza no longer felt like a foreign concept from another time. And something else had changed. One of the old cottages had been turned into the G&Tea House.

From Fridays to Sundays the G&Tea House works with liquid spirits from the Northern Beaches’ first artisan distillery, Manly Spirits, to create tea infused gin cocktails, and has four high teas on offer with traditional, sparkling, cocktail and children’s to choose from. 

As well as serving a pretty and delicious high tea the cottage is a visual feast with huge flowers and other paper art by Q Station’s artist in residence, Paper Couture’s Jo Neville mingling with heritage pieces from the 1800s. 

With views out over the harbour the G&Tea House is a top spot to enjoy a cocktail before going down to dinner at the Boilerhouse and joining a ghost tour. But this time around I simply ate cake. And sipped cocktails. And then returned to our cottage with a friend where we watched a storm roll in from our front room. 

And I slept like a baby.

Q Station G&Tea House is open Friday to Sunday for High Tea. For bookings, head to www.qstation.com.au/

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