Cliff's Edge, Fairhaven review: Relax with ocean views

Window seat ... the Cliff's Edge living room has a comfy couch and a pillow-strewn day bed in a cosy corner.

Larissa Dubecki warms to a coastal house where she can read and cook good food.

I've beaten the other half to Fairhaven. The house is a bit disappointing, I tell him down the phone line, lying through my teeth; the views aren't great and it's a bit shabby.

Truth is that Cliff's Edge can be a little disappointing, if you're not a fan of that whole floor-to-ceiling window thing with 180-degree views of the waves breaking on to the six kilometre-long Fairhaven Beach.

For anyone feeling energetic, there's a track leading from a large rear deck down to the road and the beach beyond. But this is winter and it's all about cocooning inside, reading books, watching Play School with the children for the thousandth time and cooking good food.

The kitchen is well stocked, although the pepper grinder could do with a service. And there's no cooking oil - a bit of basic vegetable and some extra-virgin olive oil wouldn't go astray in a house of this calibre.

Unless you want to be held hostage by the nearby general store, with inflationary prices to match the cost of the area's real estate, you'd be wise to think about stocking up on all of life's necessities before heading off.

But Cliff's Edge has provided the comforts you'd expect for the price - linen and towels and enough recent trash mags to make an extremely guilty pleasure. But the lack of soap sends me scurrying back to the store.

The three-bedroom house is designed to capitalise on the views. The living area, with a kitchen tucked in one corner, has a pillow-strewn corner with a day bed, a long wooden dining table that can seat 10 and a comfy couch. The master bedroom and its en suite have more of those million-dollar views, including from the spa bath, which has serious jet action.

The other two bedrooms - one with a double bed and a sliding door to the shared bathroom, the other with two sets of bunk beds - don't have the water views but they look on to some clever landscaping that creates a real sense of privacy.

The beauty of Fairhaven is that it's a town without a centre - more a settlement, clinging to the steep hill and boasting more great views per capita than the rest of the Great Ocean Road. It doesn't have the corrupt soul of schoolies-inundated Lorne or the surfing industry of Anglesea and Torquay.

It's the perfect place to do precisely nothing because there's very little to do.

The bar at the surf lifesaving club is open only during summer. For liquid refreshment, the Aireys Inlet pub, which is ugly as sin on the inside but has a great beer garden, is a few kilometres back towards Melbourne; across the road from the pub, A La Greque restaurant serves stellar Greek food.

Lorne is a 20-kilometre drive away on a winding road. Its cafes and restaurants mightn't be much chop, but watching a whale and her calf (southern right whales, someone murmurs authoritatively) only 100 metres away from shore is, as the advertisement says, priceless.

There are a few drawbacks at the house - on a cold winter's day the air-conditioning has to be ratcheted up to full blast to counteract the chill (damn that ridiculous expanse of windows!) and the fan gets a bit noisy. There's no coffee table, which presents a dilemma about what to do with cups of tea (in case the owners are reading, I resisted the temptation to balance them on the couch and dragged in a wooden table from outside). A stereo system that requires membership of Mensa to work out provokes a fair amount of angst - five units, four remote controls and we still couldn't figure out how to play a CD.

And, most of all, the long-suffering partner of any surfer might end up questioning the wisdom of having the day's surf forecast stretched out before them in glorious technicolour. Perhaps those views aren't so wonderful, after all.

VISITORS' BOOK

Cliff's Edge

Address 28 Banool Road, Fairhaven.

Phone [phone], see www.greatoceanroadholidays.com.au.

Cost Off-peak two-night minimum for $950.

Getting there Take the Princes Freeway to Geelong and follow the bypass to the Great Ocean Road. Fairhaven is about five kilometres past Aireys Inlet.

Summary A stylish, mostly well appointed beach house with great views. Good for people looking to relax rather than burn energy.

Verdict 15/20

The score: 19-20 excellent; 17-18 great; 15-16 good; 13-14 comfortable.

All weekends away are conducted anonymously and paid for by Traveller.