If the thought of another six weeks of winter is enough to make you choke on your mulled wine, then swap your scarf and beanie for a snorkel and bikini, and hightail it to a romantic hotel on the Great Barrier Reef.

For a blissful back-to-nature stay in a breath-snatching setting, try luxury camping on Wilson Island, a petite paradise that’s just a 45-mnute boat ride from Heron Island. All Robinson Crusoe-style fantasies will be fulfilled by this idyllic island escape, where sugar-white sand, dazzling azure waters and serene seclusion tick all the tropical hideaway boxes.

This tiny coral cay is home to just six castaway-chic tents, so you’re never stuck for a private stretch of sand or an out-of-the-way cove for cheeky dips in the sea. Dotted throughout the island, the permanent tents are set on raised wooden platforms – no slumming it in the sand here – with king-size beds, a veranda with deck chairs and all manner of luxe accoutrements. With names such as Isolation, Tranquility and Rapture, well, you get the idea...

While your days are spent à deux snorkelling, bushwalking or simply chilling in your hammock, you’ll have the chance to mix it with the other guests at meal times, when everyone converges on the Long Room for sunset drinks and sensational dinners (a picnic lunch is your best bet for noon noshing). Naturally, seafood is the star, with typical tastes including fresh-caught barramundi with a Vietnamese salad, or a zesty prawn and Moreton Bay bug salad.

It’s not just the inhabitants of the other five tents that you’ll be sharing with, however. Wilson Island is a nature-lovers wet dream, with a kaleidoscope of fish, sea turtles, whales, dolphins and migratory birds calling the surrounding waters and the island’s shores home.

In fact, Wilson Island takes its eco-credentials so seriously that the hotel is closed throughout February to make way for hordes of nesting birds. With a balmy year-round temperature of 26°C, there’s no time like the present to set course for this seductive island playground.

To book Wilson Island or any of Mr & Mrs Smith’s boutique hotels on the Great Barrier Reef, visit www.mrandmrssmith.com or call the Travel Team on 1300 89 66 27, 24 hours a day, five days a week.