A working property that takes guests.
Not a resort, and not pretending to be one. The cattle are real, the orchard is real, and the tractor starts early some mornings.
What is here
Ninety hectares, running from the road at the bottom up to the ridge. Most of it is paddock and remnant bush and stays that way. The part you will spend time in is the twenty or so hectares around the buildings: the orchard, the yard, the walled garden, and the track down to the creek.
There are cattle on the far paddocks. They are somebody's living, not scenery, and the gates between you and them are shut for a reason. Everything on the guest side of those gates is yours to walk on.
What used to be here
All four cottages were working buildings before they were anything else — a dairy, the original farmhouse, a six-stall stable block, and the house at the top of the orchard that the family moved into when the farmhouse got too small.
Converting them was mostly a question of what to leave. The stone walls, the concrete floors, the openings that were sized for animals and machinery rather than for people — those are the reason the buildings are worth staying in, and none of them would survive a renovation aimed at making the cottages match.
So they do not match. The Dairy is one room with a bath behind a half-wall. Orchard House has four bedrooms and two fireplaces. They are not grades of the same product.
Who you will deal with
Us. There is no front desk and no reception building — check-in is a key in a box and a note on the table, or one of us meeting you at the gate if you would rather. We live at the far end of the orchard, close enough to help and far enough not to hover.
Every enquiry is answered by a person, usually the same day. If something is wrong during a stay, ring; we would much rather fix it on the Saturday than read about it on the Monday.
The practical part
Check-in is from 3:00pm and check-out is by 10:00am. Minimum stays vary by cottage — two nights for most, three for Orchard House, and longer over holidays.
Dogs are welcome at The Stables and nowhere else. Every cottage has good heating and a fireplace or wood heater. Mobile reception is patchy and the wifi is decent, which is the arrangement most people find they wanted.
The full list of policies — cancellations, children, extra guests, whole-estate bookings — is on the policies page.