Chester Villa

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We rented an AirBnB in the South Beach area of Fremantle for our long stay and Kate's KBS conference. The area is an older suburb of the city with mostly one story homes. There's some infill and renovations to the older traditional homes. We chose this place for the lovely courtyard, the nearby beaches, and the short drive to the conference site. I drove Kate back and forth every day.

The rental is an historic 2 story granny flat located behind the owners home. We were told it was renovated for a parent who has passed away; further that the city has strict controls over what can be done with this "historic" building. The home at front is quite modern — in the picture at left you can see some of the hosts' home from the Juliet balcony of our 2nd story bedroom.

On one of our very first nights we were told that we needed to close the doors to that balcony in the evening. There are possums in the area and they would/might come in. That would be a fright. We've seen them before on other visits to Australia. IMHO possums look like big fat rats!

Parking is on the verge at the front of the house (we had a rental car for the duration of our stay) and you enter through the garage, past their home to a patio area with lots of plants and a swimming pool (it's off season, the pool was closed). It's a quiet street and being located behind the house made for a quiet stay. We were able to enjoy the patio, had lunch there one day, got to pet their lovely dog (he seems to have some dingo), and admired the flowers and plants growing around the patio. 

South Beach is a short walk away, about 2 city blocks, and our host goes swimming there every day. For the first part of our stay it was quite warm so swimming made sense. But in this part of the world there are those who swim year round.

Our hosts are friendly folk. It turns out that he's a Canadian from Guelph, Ontario but has been here for a very long time. Australians think he has a Canadian accent, we think he sounds native. They are friendly, but not too friendly. We have our friend Ingrid over for dinner and a visit during the conference; the hosts wanted to know about guests we might have coming but were fine with them.

The apartment was well appointed with everything one might need. We enjoyed having a kitchen of our own and made several meals. There's a pull out couch on the main floor that can be used as a bed but we used the main bedroom upstairs. Navigating the stairs was a bit of an issue, especially for Kate. The bathroom/shower room at one time would have been outside. It has a tin roof covering but is still cool and windy. In the summer this might have been fun, at this time of year, and Kate's mobility problems not so much.

The weather turned while we were visiting when a gale blew in from the Southwest. The winds were extreme, it was a prolonged loud night of intense rain, we thought the roof might blow off! The locals were pleased that the drought had finally ended.

This was a nice place to stay. We'd much rather be here, in an self contained unit, than in a hotel downtown. We both just wish the weather had been better. In this part of the world they think of June 1 as the beginning of winter. At home, it's the beginning of our summer.