This was published 11 years ago
Four Sails, Apollo Bay review: A place in the sun
By Robert Upe
Breezy... Four Sails has it all, including a balcony with a barbecue.Credit: Robert Upe
Robert Upe discovers dog-friendly accommodation with room to move.
The chic, modern, double-storey corrugated-tin house called Four Sails on the edge of Apollo Bay is a rental property that comes with the lot: stylish furniture, polished floorboards, multiple flat-screen TVs, heating and cooling and a spa bath.
Across the road, cows are grazing in paddocks that stretch to the distant Barham River Valley. Beyond the paddocks, a good eye can pick out the breakers at Marengo beach.
The view is best appreciated from the upstairs balcony, where shadecloth shields the afternoon sun and where the barbecue must sizzle on most summer evenings. There's a table and chairs out there, best reserved for warmer months.
The house sleeps six and has three bedrooms. The main, with a cosy en suite, is upstairs alongside the lounge-dining area, with floor-to-ceiling windows, and a kitchen equipped with everything a holidaying family would need, right down to a sandwich toaster.
Downstairs, there are two bedrooms, a bathroom with a spa and a laundry. There is secure parking in a single-car garage and a fully fenced garden where dogs are welcome and the neatly cut lawn provides room for backyard cricket.
And then we ate Breakfast upstairs at the main-street cafe La Bimba (125-127 Great Ocean Road, phone 5237 7411) is a treat. Go early to get a table for two by the window.
Buffs Bistro (51 Great Ocean Road, phone 5237 6403) has the best chilli mussels in tomato broth in town, but the service is hot and cold.
Chill @ the Bay tapas bar (14 Pascoe Street, phone 5237 1006) has mixed reviews online but our experience is of a funky place with flavoursome Spanish food. We'd go back.
Both hotels in the main street deliver honest pub food, from parmigiana to lightly battered fish and chips.
For the barbecue back at the holiday house, we keep an eye out for freshly caught local fish at the Apollo Bay Fishermen's Co-Op and swoop like seagulls when it comes in.
Stepping out A crimson rosella eyeballs me as I'm about to lunge off a platform 30 metres above the ground and whiz along a steel cable towards an unforgiving mountain ash a few hundred metres away.
The bird flies by and looks at me as though I'm crazed but, in fact, I have razor-sharp clarity during that moment at the Otway Fly, about 50 minutes from Apollo Bay.
The zip-line tour I'm doing is a 2½-hour flying-fox adventure, with groups of 12 hurtling from platform to platform high in the Otways rainforest.
There are eight platforms, two swing bridges and six "flights" to negotiate, and it's all conducted with military precision (don't be late) and much emphasis on safety.
The Otway Fly (phone 1800 300 477, see www.otwayflytreetopadventures.com.au) is also home to a treetop walk along steel bridging.
The deal maker We like this modern house for its peaceful rural aspect.
Weekends Away are reviewed anonymously and paid for by Traveller. The author zip-lined courtesy of Otway Fly.
VISITORS' BOOK
Four Sails
Address 22 Seymour Crescent, Apollo Bay.
The verdict A stylish and dog-friendly house on the outskirts of town with rural views. Walk or cycle to the main shops.
Price From $1470 a week.
Bookings Great Ocean Road Real Estate, phone 5237 6258, see greatoceanroadholidays.com.au.
Getting there Apollo Bay is about a three-hour drive from Melbourne via Geelong and Lorne for the scenic route or via Geelong and Winchelsea.
Perfect for Families with dogs.
Wheelchair access No.
While you're there Take a bike ride along Barham Valley Road, which winds past paddocks and Otway Dinosaurs (really). Pedal past the dinosaurs (otwaydinosaurs.com) to Paradise, a picnic site in a gully of tree ferns.
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