NSW 2013: Joylaine Beach House, Shellharbour

After few days of spending time in the heart of Sydney, we headed down to south, got ourselves checked-into a very cosy holiday house in Shellharbour.

Shellharbour is a tranquil city located in the Illawarra region of NSW (New South Wales). It's framed between the sparkling waters of the Tasman Sea and the magnificent Illawarra Escarpment, with Lake Illawarra to the north and the Minnamurra River to the south.

Initially I planned to staying in the city of Wollongong, but when I searched for a place to stay, Shellharbour gave more choices and impressively more family-friendly. I had never heard of Shellharbour, frankly. But the more I researched on South Coast, the better understanding I had. The location of Shellhabour is a perfect spot to base one-self while exploring the wider Illawarra area, i.e. to Kiama and Illawara Tree Top.

The house that I booked prior to our arrival was Joylaine Beach House, approximately 50 metres from the water's edge and just few streets away from Addison Street and the foreshore. Basically, we were a couple of minutes walk to restaurants, specialty shops and cafes. The price? A$450 for 2 nights of weekdays and another A$300 for a weekend night.

All of us, especially Jiejie loved this house very much. The house is bright, open and clean too! Once I gotten the remote-controller to open the garage and parked the car, we entered the house and were welcomed by a large open-plan kitchen (next to the remote-controlled garage and laundry). The girls went excitedly and further explored the house upstairs, screamed at the lounge area, which has a large screen television and surround-sound stereo, plus a large selection of CDs, DVDs and children books too! Of course, there are three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.

"The house has an enclosed courtyard with built in BBQ and six seater spa and also an electric awning for those hot days. The house will be perfect for your group, it has two living areas, one downstairs in the kitchen area and has TV, DVD and sofas and leads out onto the courtyard..." - Linda, from Joylaine.

Winter made us abandoned the BBQ and the spa facilities. In fact, the bed was the most attractive place to be than any other spot in the house.

The VERY good part about this stay is that, all the linen is included in the cost and they provide towels, beach towels and tea towels like any star-rated hotel. So, I had one less laundry issue to deal with during our 3-nights stay here. Oh! I think they did better than most hotels out there, they prepared extra pillows and doonas as well as children blanket aside for us to use, if we deemed necessary.

You see it right from above, we brought some of her school work to do during the vacation. And yes, those cartoons collection bribed her off well, to be cooperative as well as pestering her parents to return to this house for another vacation. 

We had hearty and happy dinners for all three consecutive nights. There were many restaurants choices out there, but we thought the best was getting home-cooked food. The elderly liked it very much, rice and usual simple dishes; it did us good too, the girls can be their usual (monkey)-selves and more willing to eat.

We took the opportunity to celebrate mother-in-law's birthday in one of the evening. Another awesome thing to do during family trip.

[Please note that the rental (nightly price) of the house is dependant on duration, season, and best to check with the owner/agent or stayz.com.]

The not-so-good part of this stay was the way they handled the security bond of $500. Usually, the house owner/agent will only take my detail of credit card to standby, if they need to charge extra to my bill due to extra cleaning work or whatsoever. However, for this case, I was charged and gotten refund when they are sure the house has no damage or no extra cleaning. It is true that no fee for paying the bond by credit card. But because of currency exchange rate fluctuated from day one to day three or four, I paid the difference. Almost S$50.

Advice? Just don't use credit card to pay the bond, in this case. If you are keen to stay here. Or try ask the mercy from the owner/agent.

Or maybe this is a norm and I had been too lucky before this.

Point A: Joylaine
Point B Stockland Shellharbour

Source: Google Map

Because of the very cosy house of Joylaine, we had little opportunity to venture Shellharbour itself. It was winter and too cold for me to even seat on the park bench at the foreshore. BUT, we went several trips to the very big Stockland Shellhabour for grocery and souvenir shopping. To be honest, it was optimum joy to be able to grab some fresh food in a huge supermarket (that we hardly get in Singapore) and make our own meals, over and over again. 

And if you have plan to visit Illawara Tree Top, Shellharbour Visitor Information Centre at Addison Street has the best offer in selling the admission ticket.

I will be covering the story of Tree Top Walk in next post, stay tune!