What was great;

The house is wonderful and very tastefully decorated. The beds are amazingly comfortable and the rooms are spacious. The house has fly screens everywhere and windows that create airflow throughout the house on hot days. The front door has a code instead of a lock, which is very handy with multiple people in the house doing different activities.

We enjoyed sitting outside on the deck early in the morning and later at night. We are birdwatchers and there was a lot to be seen from the deck. During the day there is not enough shade to be sitting outside and we gladly used the day to go swimming or kayaking.

The kayaks are a great feature of the house as the lake is perfect for kayaking adventures. Once we found the seats to the kayaks we started kayaking to the boat house, and even to sandbar.

The overall area around Smiths Lake is beautiful. We enjoyed several of the beaches and we also drove into Wallingat National Park, which was a stunning and lush place to visit. Highly recommended.

Rebecca has even gone through the trouble of setting up a Xmas tree for us which was such a lovely gesture.

What was not so good

The neighbours throw their empty bottles out at 7.15am every day. As the houses in Smith Lakes are built right on top of each other this means it’s a very noisy start to each day.

The kayaks permanent home is under the house. The path to the waters edge is very steep and it was a nearly impossible task between my elderly parents and a young child to carry them back up to the house as they are very heavy.

The house doesn’t have “essentials”. At first we thought this only meant "no sheets" Most people may not be in a position to bring linen from overseas and my own single household didnt' have enough sheets for the big house we had rented. This confusion was kindly and helpfully addressed early with the owner and we came to an agreement about the sheets and towels. We found that ‘no essentials” also meant other things like; not enough toilet paper for the entire stay, no foil for baking in the oven, and we had to ration our dishwashing tablets to last till the end.
In context of the very price tag that comes with the house, it feels that an extra $100 spent on essentials and having sheets and towels provided would have changed our overall perception of our stay.