Comforts ... attention to detail outside Wilga Park Cottage.
Flair and a green thumb make a model bed and breakfast,writes Bruce Elder.
Wilga Park Cottage is a reminder that a good bed and breakfast is more about creativity and inspiration than vast outlays of money. Eight years ago,Susie and Kevin Sternberg bought a large,transportable home and plonked it in the garden of their substantial home outside Griffith. They kept a record of the event,which is displayed in the cottage.
The Sternbergs built verandas on the front and back,around which they planted vines,and they laid turf all around. They trucked in 50 tonnes of lucerne mulch,planted 150 trees and bushes and developed a beautiful and mostly native garden.
Now they have an idyllic two-bedroom cottage surrounded by shady trees and gardens that look as though they were established many years ago.
It is a model of what can be done with an ordinary house and a lot of imagination.
Wilga Park Cottage is a simple rectangle - it is seven metres wide,not including the verandas,and 24 metres long - and there is plenty of room for two bedrooms at either end of a large,central lounge-dining room and kitchen.
Each room has a main colour. There is a blue bedroom,a lime-green bedroom and the large lounge-dining room is an arresting Mediterranean yellow. This imagination and attention to detail create a special and original B&B.
The two comfortable queen-sized beds,with solid-timber bedheads and quality linen,come with a range of pillows to suit various sleeping idiosyncrasies. A trundle and a sofa bed make the cottage suitable for families or two couples. The bathroom has a large shower and bath and the cottage has a fully equipped laundry,barbecue,television,DVD and CD player.
The cottage's location,11.2 kilometres east of Griffith,and the Sternbergs'commitment to privacy encourage the traveller to make the most of the kitchen,which has every conceivable device. A carefully chosen breakfast hamper including local bacon,ripe tomatoes,fresh bread,the makings for hot drinks,free-range eggs and home-made jam (the fig is delicious) is provided. The richness of Griffith's produce - wine,olives and more sold at several excellent specialist Italian shops in the city centre - means cooking is a desirable and sensible option.