This was published 13 years ago
The Beach House, Berrara hotel: Little cottage, big heart
Matt Martel discovers a Tardis-like stay on the south cost perfect for beach-loving families.
Good wicket ... backyard cricket awaits.
THE Beach House cottage in Berrara is the sort of place it's easy to underestimate. You drive along windy village roads, past tiny, gorgeously old-fashioned, wooden cliff top beach shacks with endless ocean views that cost $3 million to buy and you're getting quite excited because the blurb for this place advertises panoramic sea views, too.
Then you get there and it's not even on the ocean side of the road, and all you can see are bits of sea (reasonably big but not panoramic) through the trees on the other side of a car park diagonally opposite.
The cottage seems small. But when you enter you're pleasantly surprised. It's bigger inside than out, somehow.
There are two bedrooms, a long kitchen/dining/lounge area, a sunken second lounge area and a biggish bathroom.
At first, we are puzzled about why you'd enter the house through the bathroom, which opens on to a little deck with an outdoor dining table and roof to shield you from the sun. But it's quite logical, really, when you think that guests are probably coming from the beach across the road: feet, legs, arms and hair are sandy from the surf, from being buried in the sand by smaller guests, from fossicking in the rock pools and running up and down the beach in excitement when dolphins are seen flashing through the waves.
Pockets will be stuffed with rocks, small sea creatures, shells and more sand, and these fall out when guests, especially young ones, remove their clothing to wash the salt off. So, yes, it's sensible having a bathroom as the entrance foyer.
Anyway, there are two other doors if anyone doesn't want to enter through the bathroom.
The cottage seems newly redecorated and has a lovely, nautical-striped white and blue colour scheme, with touches of red. The doonas are crisp. Pillows are plump. The beds are soft and you can actually sleep in them, which means a lot when you're away from home and you miss your own bed.
One bedroom has a double bed; the other has a double bed and bunks. The attention to detail is evident, with little ornaments in each of the bedrooms. If you get stuck with a rainy day, there are plenty of games and DVDs under the television and enough women's magazines to keep a doctor's surgery quiet.
The kitchen is well stocked with any implement you might need. We ate on the deck watching the locals watch us, and watching the biggish bits of sea we could see. We fired up the barbie, which is large and placed conveniently close to the outdoor table in a sheltered little area of its own. The garden is large and flat, and could easily host cricket games and pretend camping.
We could see evidence of kangaroos having visited recently and then we remembered we'd been warned that Berrara and Sussex Inlet are overrun with them. We'd heard apocryphal stories of kangaroos banging on the doors for food.
But when we found them (or was it the other way round?), we had a magical moment. One smallish roo stretched out its paw to our daughter, aged six, who put her own hand in the roo's paw. Gravely, the kangaroo put its other paw on top of our small girl's hand. They stayed peering at each other in stillness for a moment, before the kangaroo wandered off and our daughter remembered to breathe.
We wandered off ourselves in the car to explore and found a road that leads invitingly past a campground and alongside a lake, then a place to park and a path leading to a lagoon. We collected more stuff to turn out in the bathroom - gumnuts, stones, interesting sticks - and looked at the black swans.
We still haven't washed the dirt off the car. When it does wear off, we'll have to go back for more. And we would go back, any day.
The writer was a guest of The Beach House, Berrara, and Tourism NSW.
Trip notes
Where The Beach House, Berrara. (02) 4441 2135, holidaywithus.net.au.
Getting there Take the Princes Highway towards Sussex Inlet. Turn left onto Sussex Inlet Road, then right onto Old Berrara Road. You can also drive into Sussex Inlet township itself and turn right onto The Springs Road, driving through Swanhaven and Cudmirrah to Berrara. Either way is about three hours' drive from Sydney.
How much Low-season weekends, $370 for two-night minimum stays. One week, low-season, $600.
Style statement Crisp white and cream walls with polished floors and good use of space in a small, scorched beachside setting.
Perfect for Lovely, low-key holidays with kids.
Don't forget To bring real coffee, there's an espresso machine in the kitchen.
Shame about The garden - bleak and surrounded by a sagging wire fence.
Kudos Firm, unbroken insect-proof coverings on every outside opening.
Take the kids. Yes, yes, yes.
- Sun-Herald
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