There is a great deal to recommend Chirnside Park. We chose the property for its spaciousness - because it could sleep our family of four over the Christmas period and had large enough common areas in which to celebrate the family matriarch’s 89th birthday gathering with a much larger extended family, which it did very successfully.
The four bedrooms have extremely comfortable beds and are all air conditioned - essential given the very hot weather at the time of our stay. The bedrooms were clean, as were the bathrooms. The bedding was very high quality and the linen excellent.
The views from the front verandah and kitchen over the valley below are breathtaking and the location peaceful and quiet. There is a shopping centre 10 minutes away by car. There are really great river swimming/recreational areas about 15 minutes by car, and plenty of wineries and eateries around the Valley, all in close proximity.
The kitchen has a great stove and oven and the crockery, cutlery and cooking utensils are adequate, although notable omissions were that there is no coffee pot or coffee machine and no proper kitchen knife. The fridge is a relatively new, very efficient side by side fridge-freezer with plenty of capacity, which worked extremely well in the hot weather.
Overall we had an enjoyable stay and with some provisos, I would recommend the property to other Airbnbers.
The main drawback for us with the property was the inadequate cleanliness and lack of air conditioning in many of the common areas.
The rear garden area was dirty. The garden is depicted in the photographs as lush and cool and an invitingly pleasant space in which to spend time. Not withstanding it was high summer, the garden area was in fact dusty, dirty, and full of cobwebs. The garden seems not to have been watered for some time. Many of the plants were dying or had died. It took an hour to clean the barbecue to make it useable. The furniture in the garden all had to be washed down and the whole area swept before it could be used.
At the front of the house, the front verandah table was not safe to use, and consequently our family did not use it, due to the narrowness of the verandah and the very distinct possibility of serious injury from the chairs (and their occupants) tumbling backwards down a half metre drop. The front verandah was the coolest area of the entire house but it meant unfortunately, that our family could not sit outside and enjoy the beautiful cool early mornings.
Inside the house, there were dead flies lining the skirting boards of some of the the common areas (not the bedrooms) and in the cupboards. This is a rural property, where horses are kept. Flies are a fact of life. We understood that. But it wasn’t acceptable that many of the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen had dead flies and other matter in them, nor that the flies on the carpets had not been vacuumed. We had to clean them as well as the cutlery and crockery before use. The coffee table in the TV area was coated in dust, as was the clothes line.
The two main dining areas and sitting room, beautifully depicted in the photographs, were not useable due to the extremely hot weather at the time we were at property and the fact that none of these areas have any air conditioning, so we’re too hot to sit in.
Our host was a lovely, friendly person. His communication was generally good, on one occasion less so. Admittedly it was over the festive period, but when I tried multiple times to make contact by phone and text, it took quite a while for him to respond. He apologised later, admitting that his phone was turned off. That said, the owner did on another occasion, very promptly inform us when a grass fire started in a distant paddock, to assure us that it did not present any danger (it was extinguished very quickly), which was greatly appreciated.
So all in all, we enjoyed our stay, our mum had a great birthday, surrounded by extended family she had not seen for many years, many of whom had come from the US for the occasion. Had the cleanliness of the garden and common areas of the house been better attended to, I’d recommend the property without hesitation.