We stayed here for 3 nights in June 2022. Shona is a good host, very friendly, polite and makes you feel welcome. Shona invited us to meet with her rescue pets and it was a marvellous experience. The property is just a 5 min drive away from the Manly beach, closer to restaurants and cafes. It’s a pet friendly property and we had 2 dogs who found the backyard a useful place. Laundry and dryer availability is a plus point too. The toilet was well equipped with toilet paper. A private entrance makes it easy to access the property at any time. It’s a five star for Shona but personally we expected more from the property for the price that we paid for.
Overall the property’s location is a plus point, but the property being old needs some work. The bed was comfortable, however We found the bedroom claustrophobic, as there was no space to move about after you put in your luggage, as there was another single sofa, work desk and chair. The main door is not insulated and the lounge area turned very cold due to the draught coming in. There was no heating in the lounge and that made it difficult to stay put in the living room in the evening. The couch in the lounge area is pretty old and worn out and hence we didn’t feel like lazing on it.
There is no kitchen in the lower area and this we found this disappointing as there was a kitchen mentioned in the listing. The kitchenette cabinet was very basic (as mentioned in listing) was very dusty and had to wash the cutlery and dishes before using them. The cutlery stand itself is pretty old and rusted. The sink to wash dishes was little inconvenient to use every time you needed to do dishes, as you had to open a door with loose hatches to access the sink.
The wardrobe in the bedroom did not have any hangers and so could not hang any clothes in there, so we managed out of our suitcases. The mirror in the bedroom was difficult to manage as you had to move the mirror every time the blind had to be opened or closed. The mirror was in a pretty tight spot.
Bathroom was not equipped with shower gel as mentioned in the listing and had an old inverted shampoo bottle with little shampoo.
Overall a good property if you are not staying the property much.