Travel: Hillside Beach Club, Turkey

“Ok Josh, that’s nice, very nice,” cooed Hakan nodding his head appreciatively to the beat of Party Rock Anthem. “Now blend in the next track nice and smooth.” Josh counted the beats, then deftly slid the controls, one up, one down, and the tracks merged. They high-fived and I could tell that the turntablism (that’s DJing to those not cool enough to know) was going well.

My youngest son Freddie, five, is still easy to please, but Josh, 11, and Ben, nine, had begun to look aghast at the mention of the kids’ club on recent holidays. “But it’s boring,” was the regular reply. Then I heard about the Hillside Beach Club in Turkey, which is making a huge effort to provide exciting activities for pre-teens, that tricky age group of nine to 12-year-olds who are too old for making paper-plate masks and too young to hang out with the teenagers.

I reeled off just some of the activities, DJing, street dance, wakeboarding, water polo and mixology (mock-cocktail making) and my sons had their bags packed.

It’s an hour’s drive from Dalaman airport to Fethiye, then just a short meander over aromatic pine-clad hills to the resort, which nestles in the foothills on a secluded beach. I felt instantly relaxed and a million miles away from ‘civilisation’, even though it’s a large place, brimming with 800 guests. The rooms are staggered up the hills, blend cosily into the environment and there’s a funicular to transport those who have rooms at the summit. Our suite was elegantly furnished in simple white and had two bedrooms and a large shady terrace, which serves as an al-fresco living room with dazzling views over the bay.

For breakfast we steered clear of the very busy main restaurant, opting instead for the resort’s coolest hang-out, Pasha on the Bay, a chic whitewashed adult-only restaurant by night, which serves breakfast from 10am to noon. How civilised. The only scramble we had to deal with there was of the egg variety and our orange juice and coffee were brought to us. The buffet is still a feast and I piled my plate high with Turkish bread, wobbly goat’s cheese, tomatoes and olives the size of golf balls, promising myself that I’d skip lunch.

We scanned the Hillside Tribune, the handy daily activity leaflet, to discover that junior club was kick-starting the day at the watersports centre, where Josh and Ben would be towed at speed through the deep on a baffling array of inflatable rings, chairs and bananas. Freddie whispered to me that he liked the idea of making an octopus gonk at Kidside, the club for four to seven-year-olds, so we went off to explore. Here we found a lovely children’s pool with multicoloured stripy slides and a lime-green hut where tables were set out with craft activities, at which Freddie settled happily to make his gonk.

The junior club lived up to expectations too. “Is this all for kids?” asked Ben, eyes growing wide as we took in the comfy sofas, dance platform, drinks machine, iMacs and the simulation area with PlayStations and Wii consoles. “Awesome,” was the conclusion. There was no time to glue himself to a PlayStation, though. He had a date with an inflatable banana.

That left Neil and I free to chill out for a couple of hours. There are two adult-only beaches, suitably named Silent and Serenity. You can walk to both but there’s also a boat, scattered attractively with lilac and orange cushions, which shuttles guests to and from Serenity Beach. As time was of the essence we chose to lie on one of the floating decks near Silent Beach, where we were soon gently rocked into a blissful state of child-free relaxation.

The beach is shingle, which was something of a disappointment for sand-castling building champion Freddie. However, the sea was as warm as bath water and so clear you didn’t even need a snorkel to see the schools of darting silvery fish. We made the most of the free catamarans and canoes, which surprisingly we never had to queue for, setting out daily to paddle along the bay, stopping occasionally for the boys to abandon ship with whoops and splashes for a quick dip before clambering back aboard for a mum versus dad canoe sprint.

The food in the buffet-style main restaurant is predictably pleasing for those with kids – grilled meats and fish, pasta and rice dishes. For me, the highlight was the salad bar with its sumptuous choice of traditional meze and the amazing aubergine dip. One evening we dined stylishly at Pasha on the Bay, while the boys played football at the kids club, but most nights we opted to eat al fresco at the Beach Bar, which has an Italian menu and a lovely location on the water’s edge, where fish pop up for morsels of bread.

When the heat got too much we retreated to the shade. At Artside, a workshop for all things creative, we painted T-shirts and on another afternoon we all had a go at DJing. Neil and I weren’t very good at counting out the beats or remembering when to cue the next track; my mixing was deemed “rubbish”. After half an hour Ben wearily suggested that perhaps we’d like to go back to the beach to read our books …

Anyway, I had other things to keep me busy. Each morning at 8:15am I snuck out and headed to Silent Beach for the sunrise yoga class. It’s an idyllic way to start the day, with the lap of the ocean and constant click of the cicadas as your natural soundtrack, and it made a welcome change to do my sun salutations to the actual sun. Just behind the beach is the Sanda Nature Spa, built in Balinese tree house-style. The emphasis here is on pampering in contrast to the Turkish Day Spa, where you can be scrubbed to within an inch of your life in a traditional hamman. Treatments such as Sanda Active and Sanda Shape Up sounded alarmingly energetic to me, so I wimpishly opted for a blissfully fragrant flower bath.

We took a sunset cruise on Holiday M, one of the yachts that can be chartered from the resort. We watched as an immense crimson sun sank slowly behind layers of undulating misty hills and sipped our wine contentedly, while Gokhan, one of the crew, set the boys up with fishing rods. Within minutes Ben was squealing with delight as he reeled in a bonito (like a small tuna), which can grow to about 65cm. They caught three in all which were dispatched to the Beach Bar on our return, and grilled for our supper.

By the end of our stay Josh and Ben were masters of the turntable and were allowed to try out their moves on the more sophisticated decks at hip Club Pasha. Josh looked quite at home standing under the mirror ball in the red and black booth as he spun a track in reverse. But if you’ve ever wondered why a DJ only wears his headphones over one ear, never ask a cocky nine-year old. “So they can hear both tracks. The one they’re playing and the one they’re mixing mum, duh!!!!!” came the exasperated reply. I had to face it: the only beat I was making was a hasty retreat back to the beach.

THE FACTS

Rates for the 2012 season for a family suite start at E110 per person per night, all inclusive. Children up to six stay on a complimentary basis, 7-12-year-olds are discounted at 50 per cent, visit www.hillsidebeachclub.com for more information. Thomas Cook operates flights to Dalaman (one-hour transfer to Fethiye) from Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Prices from £98.99 return, www.flythomascook.com/dalaman