If you ask Hannah on what she thinks is the biggest highlight of this vacation – even though there are still two more days left to go in this 11 day stay in Western Australia – she’ll say without hesitation, “animal feeding at the farmstay”! I reckon as exciting as as wild flowers, Karri trees, water rushing down rock cascades, the beaches and numbers of sea shells the two kids picked, the different flavors of ice-cream we had, nothing they have experienced at this point comes close to the experience of feeding tame farm animals. So much so that we worked out check-out day itinerary around today Thursday’s animal feeding so that the kids could have a second go at it.
Oddly, there aren’t that many well-known farm stays in Margaret River, with what seems to be the most famous one being the Sunflowers Animal Farm which apparently has a larger range of animals, but some of the apartment types in MR Hideaway are newer and more modern. In any case, Sunflowers wasn’t available over our travel dates to the region and across a five day stay, which was just as well.
MR Hideaway is situated at Osmington Road, which itself is a short 5-6 minute drive from MR town center. From MR town center, you continue along Bussell Highway, and turn a 90 degree right along Osmington Road where you’ll drive for another 2 minutes or so. The road between the two spots is fairly easy to understand and drive on – but be warned: there are no street lights along Osmington Road, and this stretch has very few properties and even fewer vehicles using it at night. Nights were settling in early over this winter period, and driving in near pitch darkness beyond the vehicle’s headlights and trying to find where the farm was was a little unnerving the first night until we got the hang of it.
Like all the stays we’ve been to this trip, MR Hideaway & Farmstay was a wonderful experience where things went overwhelmingly well, with just a few things we had to adjust to. We stayed at the Studio Apartment for five days, and our comments:
There are seven standalone cottages, and two studio apartments that are constructed as a single building. Units are spaced far apart enough for cottages, while the two studio apartments are adjacent to reach other, which meant that guests can hear the other unit if noise is loud (we had peaceful neighbors throughout our stay).
The studio apartment is pretty new (constructed a year ago?), and despite the farm being a popular place of stay, the apartment has remained in good shape and well-taken care of so far. In fact, it feels designed like a luxury condo apartment unit, especially its use of parquet flooring and toilet and bathroom fixtures!
The kitchen is open-concept and includes a large oven. The toilet is a separate unit from the bathroom.
There are lots of little thoughtful gestures; including the ubiquitous Ikea (!) child seats for the dinner table and Ikea (!) child stool in the toilets. On the first day, there was also baked bread, a complimentary bottle of wine, milk and orange juice in the refrigerator too.
There are two bedrooms, with both double beds on rollers. Very convenient so that we could move the kids’ double bed to one side of the room (lest Peter rolled off the bed while sleeping).
The living/dining room has an inverter-type air-conditioning unit which we used to heat up the common areas, but individual bed rooms are unheated.
There are laundry, and dryer machines near the reception.
The farm animals really do roam around during the day time, and they seem to have settled into a daily routine where to move during the non-feeding days.
The farm animals were also very tame, and the sheep and cows will allow you to pet them if you approach them slowly. The three Alpacas were a different story though: they were very timid, and the farm hosts repeated numerous reminders to us that we must never pet or approach them from behind lest you want to be spat on, or worse still, receive their powerful hind kicks! One Singaporean guest received a painful kick during the first feeding day as she’d accidentally stand to close to one of the Alpacas.
Our two hosts and co-managers of the property – Andrew and Hanisi – were very friendly, and their farm dog – Archie – was a huge hit among all the kids who were at feedings!
There are two common access gates that allow vehicular and human traffic, and must be closed at all times – lest the animals escape and probably become road kill on Osmington Road.
The animal feedings on days 7 and 9 of our vacation respectively were a lot of fun, and I’ve blogged about it separately already here and here .
If there is one annoyance, it’s the Internet reception. It was, surprisingly, poorer than what we got at Forest Lodge Resort, even though Pemberton is more remote than Margaret River. There were frequent Internet drop-outs, and low download speeds even when I could stay connected. I don’t think it’s the fault of the property, and they are at least very upfront about it in their welcome note explaining that the Internet access is as good as they can get at this point. To be clear: 4G coverage was not much better and at times even worse – i.e. no connection at all. It’s a wonder I could even do any posting of photos – and it sure took a lot of patience and repeated attempts to post the few hundred photos I selected for sharing on Facebook and this blog over the five days!
We had fairly dry weather in the first half of our stay. At midpoint though, the region experienced a heavy downpour and slight drizzles over subsequent days – which meant that a bit of mud started forming on the ground. This is a farm, so it’s expected – but for mommies who have to clean children’s sandals and crocs over the kids when they traipse all over over the farm, be warned LOL.
The total price of our stay was a shade under AUD1.1K for the four nights – a little more expensive than typical downtown properties, but it was worth the money. Though if we’re ever in the region a third time and looking for a farm stay again, we’d probably want to try Sunflowers Animal Farm – just for variety!
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