Table Hill Cottage - dog friendly retreat

Great mini break in Daylesford! Beautifully restored and well kept cottage. Excellent and quiet location for walks to the lake and springs, and a lovely aspect. Perfect garden for our dog to enjoy. Comfortable beds and good linens. Quick and easy drive into town. Comfortable dining and living area. Great to have a wood stove during a very frosty weekend! Our children also enjoyed the puzzles and board games that were thoughtfully left. Nice to be able to flip through some of the books as well. Great cooker too (we have the double sized Bellings at home).

A few minor suggestions to make this property perfect: Bathroom quite cold which could be easily fixed with a heat lamp or heated towel rack. The electrical socket in the bathroom is falling off the wall. We love to cook whilst on holiday and the kitchen utensils were a bit on the sad side, not quite in keeping with the fabulous Bellings cooker. Most of the mugs are cracked and need replacing so it was hard to find four useable ones. We also had to do lots of continual washing up - whilst there were plenty of glasses and wine glasses, only four bowls, four side plates and four dinner plates were impractical and overly thrifty. A sheet of basic instructions with bin days, and maybe some suggestions for delis and local produce wouldn’t go astray. (I spent rather too much time finding out where the bins had gone and whether to bring them in or not and then sorting out the previous guests’ rubbish (they had put plastic bags of regular waste in the green compost bin). And if you would like people to use the compost bin for food scraps, I would suggest providing a few compost bags or a kitchen scrap bin. We went to Coles to buy compost bags!)

The location, the privacy, the rustic nature of the cottage that was also well appointed. A bonus was the fireplace making the whole state very cosy and romantic.

We loved how quiet and cosy the place was. Had everything we could have needed, especially for a longer stay (stayed 2 nights). Loved the layout and styling. Great communication with host.

*All below didn't effect the quality of our stay* Lock box was hard to close in the cold. Small mirror in the bathroom. When using the hair-dryer, the outlet in bathroom was loose from the wall. Google maps struggled to locate the cottage.

We enjoyed being able to take our dog with us on our trip to Daylesford—finding pet friendly accommodation can be difficult. The goats next door were cute. The bedrooms and the kitchen/dining/living area are well-heated with split systems. The kitchen is stocked with appliances (though they weren't the cleanest). The bedrooms are small but fit for purpose. The hosts left a bottle of wine in the kitchen which was a nice touch.

On the night of arrival, we received a text asking us to bring council bins out to the street for collection. So, in the cold and rain, my husband and I had to drag 3 large council bins, full of the previous guests' rubbish, down the unlit & unsealed long driveway (the cottage is well off the road). It is one thing to ask guests to take away their own rubbish at the end of a stay (which we did, though, even then, you'd think that would be included in the cleaning fees) but being asked to put out council bins in those conditions, on the first night of our stay, while paying $436.95 a night... that was unexpected. We've stayed in a fair few cabins / cottages around regional Victoria, and this was a first. Make sure to pack a torch (thankfully we did) as the whole area outside and around the cottage is pitch black and very slippery when wet of course. The bathroom doesn't have heating and the split system from the kitchen/dining/living area doesn't reach all the way there. It also wasn't very clean. The wall next to the toilet was especially dirty with hair and stains from previous guests. The bathroom window isn't well sealed and leaked water onto the floor nearby from the rain outside. It also let in small black slugs. The bathroom doesn't have hooks for bath towels, only a couple of hooks for hand towels / smaller towels. Thankfully we found a drying rack in the laundry so were able to set that up in the kitchen and place our bath towels there. There was a used bath towel from a previous guest hanging behind our bedroom door—I'm guessing they also struggled to find a spot for it in the bathroom! The wifi was very very slow. We had to do some work during our stay and it was nearly impossible. To be fair, even just scrolling through Facebook was nearly impossible.