Days of Stay: January 2, 2023 to January 10, 2023 (Summer Stay)
Near perfect—but with a crucial flaw for summer stays.
The view from the bedroom window is fabulous.
The location is good (quiet despite being near the main road).
The hosts are responsive and helpful and we really enjoyed our interactions with them.
The price is really great for this area.
It is sadly the hot temperature due to a non-working air conditioning unit that made our stay very uncomfortable.
.The A/C doesn’t really work. When turned on, it will briefly blow cool air, but quickly turns itself off regardless of what temperature it’s set to. It seems to help a little to turn the air purifier on right next to it, which acts as a fan to disperse the cooler air, but this only helps a little. Early in our stay the inside of the cottage was 31℃ (88℉) and stayed there for hours despite our running the A/C continuously. A nearly identical system at our next rental place quickly cooled a space twice the size. The hosts weren’t able to fix the A/C operation when we asked.
You might wonder why an A/C is even needed in a moderate climate like Glenorchy. The hottest outside air temperature we had was 25℃ (77℉), and most days of our stay topped out noticeably cooler. The problem here is sandflies and window screens—having the former without the latter. Glenorchy has sandflies, and if you open the window they will quickly come in and bite you (we tested this). They’re not that bad here compared to some other South Island locations, but they’re bad enough, and the welts last several weeks. The bugs come in through the windows because there are inexplicably no screens on the windows. (We understand that Kiwis often don’t have screens on their windows. All 4 places we’ve stayed during this trip have lacked them. This is truly inexplicable in a country with sandflies.) You can open the windows when it’s full dark outside, and we did, but this lasts less than 6 hours in early summer. We got the place cool enough over night to be cold even with jackets on in the morning, but by late afternoon it was nonetheless brutally hot inside.
The only options, then, are to swelter inside with the windows shut and the A/C set to 16℃ (61℉) but keeping the room in the mid 30s (90s), or to open the windows and have reasonable temperatures but painful sandfly bites all over. The cottage doesn’t have a fan, so we couldn’t go to bed until at least 10:30 pm (when we could finally open windows), which was problematic for us as we had early morning hikes planned.
Other than that, this place is good, with minor issues that are no big deal considering the low price. The kitchen is small, but complete, and a little island gives a good bit of counter space. Warning that the can opener is barely functional, there are no deep baking dishes, and if the oven and stovetop are used simultaneously you can blow the circuit. Other than this it’s reasonably well stocked, and we were able to make full meals just fine.
The bed is nothing special, but it’s adequately comfortable. We slept well. It’s lovely to have a washing machine. The bathroom is brand new and has plenty of storage and counter space. The shower is okay but quite small. It’s very easy to bump your elbows in there, and if that bump happens to knock a body wash bottle off the shelf that’s right at elbow height, this can require a trip to the emergency room to ascertain if one’s toe is broken (personal experience!). The water temperature is quite variable. On a warm setting it will slowly trend to very hot, then sometimes unexpectedly go cold. It seems like the hot water might be a whole-house on-demand system that sometimes switches off for some reason.
We’d definitely stay here again in cooler weather. But in summer, we’d see if there were other options and/or would check back with the owners to see if they’ve installed a new A/C (or screens on windows).
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