Elliminook.Credit: Brad Hill
585 Warncoort Birregurra Road, Birregurra, Great Ocean Road, Vic
phone: (03) 5236 2080
web: elliminook.com.au
With a main street wide enough to turn a bullock wagon, Birregurra wouldn't need much tweaking to become a frontier film set.
Drive just out of town, cross a bridge, turn into a green-tunnel driveway and you could be going back even further.
The homestead, built circa 1865, was extended in 1914 and again in 1989, but one of the choicest rooms in this period-furnished, five-bedroom B&B is the original kitchen, complete with built-in oven. The U-shaped complex looks inwards to a rose garden featuring the old household well and outwards onto flowerbeds.
The guest lounge and dining room invite an early sherry or after-dinner port and even, perhaps, musings about "the good old days".
Cost: from $180 for a double room a night, including breakfast. Winter special until August: pay for two nights, stay for three in the Hope or Bromfield rooms (including continental breakfast).
Distance: 140km (2 hours' drive) west of Melbourne.
- Good Weekend
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