We had a poor experience at this property.
Location & Connectivity: The drive into the house was around 1.5 km from the main approach road & was unpaved with no lighting at all. We reached the property late evening & navigating into the property itself was a terrible experience. The listing never mentioned the remoteness of the location & that there is almost no mobile coverage at the property. We were traveling as a family of 4 with 2 young kids & when we approached other hosts on airbnb they were upfront if the property location was remote, had poor mobile network or not particularly friendly for a small family with young kids but our host never mentioned it once.
During the trip one of my kids was unwell & we had to spend 2 nights in a place where if we needed any urgent assistance nothing was around & mobile didn’t work properly.
Safety: On the 1st night there was a lot of rain and in the early hours of the morning there was a huge banging noise coming from outside the house. Upon checking I found that in the living room downstairs a small door next to the fireplace was not closed & was banging due to the strong wind. This entrance is large enough for a person or animal to sneak into the house & we had to lock ourselves in the bedroom till morning & hope that our safety was not compromised. Whether it was the last guest or the cleaners who left the door next to the fireplace open it potentially compromised the safety of the incoming guests. This was conveyed to the hosts on multiple occasions and was ignored every time, No explanation was provided or mistake admitted.
Once we brought these issues to the attention of host they did offer us an alternative accommodation but the location of the proposed alternative was in Dunsborough over 40km away from our location. All our Holiday plans were based around the Margaret river town or further down south. If the host had given us an alternative which was located reasonably close to Margaret River we would have gladly taken you up on the offer but this was not the case.
The host need to understand that Margaret River is now an international holiday destination which attracts tourist from all over the world not just Australia and hence the conditions which the local Australian tourist might consider standard might well be exceptional for an overseas visitor. To treat expectations of a local vs overseas tourist as the same is poor sign in hospitality industry.
Unfortunately for us the host lacked any empathy, gave irrelevant solutions to our problems and regularly made poor comparisons instead of understanding our issues. We had to cut short our stay and move to an alternate accommodation at an additional expense to maintain our peace of mind.
I hope this review helps other travellers make a more informed decision as the reality of the stay at this property is far away from what the listing depicts.