I stayed in the ‘bus driver’s room’: a small basic room with a single bed, air conditioner, heater & wind-out window. The room had many power points, which was fantastic! I had full next G mobile phone reception. Crisp bed linen is supplied. Although I had my own towel, you can borrow them from reception for $1. This environmentally aware place opened in November 2009 & its’ modern feel is evident throughout. The building is 2 storeys: downstairs is reception & a large open plan dining area & lounge/TV area. The fully stocked kitchen is adjacent & there is an undercover bbq area. Upstairs there is an outdoor sundeck, the bedrooms & wet areas. The bathrooms are not typically segregated to gender: they are communal & the cubicles are set off the main corridor – which I found unpleasant (no real privacy & intimidating to odours in the toilet cubicles). There are no shower curtains in the shower cubicles: only the actual cubicle door. In the toilet cubicles, the basin is part of the cistern (the ‘dirty’ sink water is used to fill the cistern) & no soap is supplied to wash your hands (although paper towels are plentiful). Lights to all cubicles are on a timer (10mins from memory). Water pressure & heat was great – however the hot water is only available 6am to 10pm. Great availability of onsite car parking. The owners were very friendly. After speaking to some locals on the main street, given their recommendations, I had dinner from the fish & chip shop attached to the service station – which was delicious!
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
8 January 2011
Hi, and cheers for your (detailed!) review. You’ve hit on some of the most commonly mentioned points we read about, in on-line reviews, and also pointed out a couple of other things I’d not thought of benefits! (Example: the number of power points in the rooms). Yep... the way our upstairs showers and toilets are set out is probably best described as polarising. Seems that most of our core market – the budget, backpacking traveller – seem to love ‘em, but others... well, they retain a different opinion. (But don’t forget that we have three rooms with private bathrooms (and one has a bath – where we provide FREE bubble bath!) - though they cost more to purchase). As for our upstairs toilets (and I presume you’re talking about the upstairs toilets, not the separate ladies and gents toilets accessible from our lounge area, in the Hostel’s lower level): we were recently told by a Melbourne architect, commissioned by the Australian Government to design toilet systems for Australian schools, that the Port Campbell Hostel was the first facility of any reasonable size in Australia that has implemented these types of toilets! (They are a very real representation of an eco-friendly approach to making a very sensible use of water that is normally ‘wasted’ every time we flush the toilet. You would be speechless at the huge number of guests who take photographs of them – and we field positive comments about the toilets every day!). As for the hot-water times (again, for the upstairs showers. The downstairs showers are not part of this regime)... hot water ceases to flow to the UPSTAIRS showers at 10.30pm for one fairly simple reason: noise mitigation. We responded back at the start of October 2010, to complaints from guests who were getting annoyed when other guests took a shower in the cubicles at 1.00am... 2.00am... 3.00am (you get the picture!), by re-configuring the plumbing and hot-water-supply system to the upstairs showers, to ensure that HOT water to those showers cannot flow after 10.30pm every night. (It’s back on around sunrise the next morning). Complaints about the noise since then??? None. Finally, those fish-and-chips you enjoyed (and yep, they are good!) came from “Frying Nemos”. Nemos’ is a small scale ‘chippy’ only recently opened by a couple of local girls who are finding their way in the world. I will pass on your great comments to them – they will be stoked!
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