Victoria's secrets

FROM experiencing the high life on a London Eye-style observation wheel, to the hottest new hotels – here's what's fresh and funky to Victoria in 2008.

FROM a London Eye-style observation wheel, to the hottest new hotels – here's what's hot and happening in Victoria for 2008.

HOT SPOTS

You could say it's a "wheely" big year for Melbourne with the opening of the Southern Star Observation Wheel at Waterfront City. As tall as a 38-storey building, the London Eye-style wheel will convey 21 air-conditioned cabins, each carrying up to 20 people, in a scenic 25 to 30-minute loop.

The Melbourne Story at the Melbourne Museum, three years in the making, will open in March, featuring a look at the city during key periods in its development; there will be an early-1900s house, a cinema showing films from the 1920s-'40s and treasures from the Melbourne Great Exhibitions.

In regional Victoria, taking the waters will be a focus with stage two of the Peninsula Hot Springs development on the Mornington Peninsula and the reopening of the Hepburn Mineral Springs Bathhouse.

Not to be outdone, Melbourne will see the Melbourne Aquarium unveil its Antarctica exhibition, featuring king and gentoo penguins.

HOT BEDS

Melbourne's landmark Rialto building, a gothic-romanesque confection created in 1891, has been a hotel for more than 20 years, but it will gain new life as an InterContinental in 2008.

At the other end of the city's Collins Street, the Grand Hyatt is undergoing a $40 million renovation, while out of town the extravagant Glenn Murcutt-designed Moonlight Head Lodge will open a 75-room boutique hotel to share the Great Ocean Road property with the two luxury lodges already on the site.

And at Creswick, 20 minutes from the spa town of Daylesford, the $250 million Novotel Forest Resort will open in March among the fairways and greens of the 90-year-old Creswick golf course, which is being redesigned by top Australian golfer Robert Allenby.

Visit Tourism Victoria for more information