A beautiful hide away retreat to escape to! Friendly service from both the owner and her daughter as well as beautiful, modern rooms and a delicious cooked breakfast in the morning. I will definitely be returning!

We recently stayed at Claerwen Retreat in their guesthouse and could not have asked for a more special experience. The setting is very stunning on a truly beautiful property and the rooms are large and luxurious. Great breakfast and nature walks. Lovely place - definitely highly recommended!

Our one night stay in a suite in the main house was a pleasant surprise. Clean, comfortable and quiet, (but no flat screen TV). We were the only guests, so had the whole place to ourselves. Yes, it is 5 miles up a gravel road but not as daunting as some of the roads we later encountered in New Zealand. We did have to drive back down to have dinner in the lovely town of Apollo Bay. Breakfast was cooked to order and plentiful.
It is disappointing to read the "Terrible & Dirty" review as we were quite satisfied, I can only assume they were in one of the "out buildings" we saw on the property.

I wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone. I wouldn’t give it more than 2 star accommodation. The studio was extremely small, with bugs and spiders everywhere. It clearly hadn’t been cleaned before the previous guests. There was hair all over the bathroom floor and mould growing, the kitchen cupboards had spills on them that hadn’t been cleaned up, and the bed sheets and cover had blood on them! We asked for them to be changed, which when we arrived back to our room after a trip into town, they sheets had been changed, but the same cover was still on there with blood.

The bbq that is advertised with the room was very dirty – an old style bbq that is on a 3 leg tripod, approx 15 years old. It sat outside with no cover, with bird crap on it.

There were spiders that crawled along the living room carpets – not one, over a 2 night stay there were 5. An uncountable number of other bugs and beetles on top of this.

The stairs (which is almost more like a ladder) are very steep. This was an extremely unpleasant place to stay at and a not so nice romantic New Years Escape. Best way to describe this place would be something out of a Chevy Chase movie!