After my rather terrible experience in a tiny house on my last (attempted) trip to Canberra I knew when booking for this trip what I didn't want was a tiny house, or a the very least not a clinical almost hotel set up of tiny house thing.

Located within an orchard this AirBnB was located in Pialligo, a suburb of Canberra seemingly wedged between the Molonglo River and Canberra International Airport.

I did harbour a little bit of concern for the aircraft noise, it being so close, but it was hardly a concern.

The AirBnB host provided detailed instructions on how to get there and how to find the guest house.

Arriving in the late afternoon I entered the guest house, knowing that there would only be heating provided by the fireplace and a small column heater. But was pleasantly surprised, especially compared to the tiny house, because inside was surprisingly warm, especially compared to outside. Even though it had concrete floors (covered by cow hide rugs), it managed to not feel freezing underfoot.

In the photos it had looked bohemian, and in person it did, but in the best possible way. Quirky interiors, along with considered curios and the furnishings made this place feel loved and lived in at the same time.

The bedding on the bed had this soft, well used feel to it, kinda reminded me of the table cloths and other stuff I've got at home that was my mum's. That's been through the wash hundreds of times and has this really soft texture to it. Made me feel welcomed.

I really wish I’d come here first than going for that tiny house experience on my last attempt.

Wifi was provided and a decent speed, over 50 mbps down.

My first task was to light the fire, knowing that the column heater was not going to heat the space, it did heat the bedroom space decently well.

But the wood burning heater would be the only source of heat while I was there.

I’d not lit a fire myself for a long time, although my dad used to have a wood burning heater a lot growing up, so I do know how to do it (and when I was in Tasmania I had one there). But doing it growing up was always with newspaper and sticks.

Here all that was in the wood burner was sticks, a pine cone and a fire lighter. I think dad never went for fire lighters because they cost money, and the newspaper was free.

Anyway, I lit it, messed around with the wood burner’s controls to get the air flow right…and almost didn’t get it lit. I had to chuck in an extra pine cone and an extra fire lighter. But eventually got it lit and it warmed the room up.

I’d brought meal I'd frozen with me, and along with a microwave rice tub and some frozen veg that I’d brought with me, sat down for an early meal before having a shower and bed.

I'd ensured to bring a bathrobe with me, just in case it was really cold, given my past experience out at the Lake George tiny house. But showering that evening the shower head was large the water gloriously hot and and I slept perfectly fine. The noise of the aircraft barely a worry.

On day 2, the second full day of being there I awoke to a fairly cold room, the column heater, which I'd left on low overnight, aware that while I'd chucked a bit of wood on the fire and set it to low, was pretty sure it wasn't going to stay lit.

I could hear the aircraft at Canberra airport this morning and it was noisy, but not terribly so.

I found it weirdly comforting for reasons I'm not entirely sure of.

After being out at Old Parliament House and buying some food I returned to the AirBnB guest house in the afternoon to write up my thoughts of the day.

I made myself a cup of tea. There was tea provided, a pretty good assortment of herbal and regular teas, instant coffee (and I think ground coffee in the fridge). But I always travel with my own tea bags, and sugar. So many places just have brown sugar on hand.

The main living space and edge of kitchenette.

I've found that there's something comforting to have your own tea with you when travelling. I've also got a collapsible kettle in my ute, but it's all sorts of terrible, I had it with me in Tasmania. Motels are especially bad for terrible condition electric kettles. But at this guesthouse it was in perfectly fine condition.

As the afternoon wore on I knew I'd need to light the fire before afternoon transitioned into evening.

Stacking up the fire with a pine cone and sticks around it I thought I had done a decent enough job of having enough sticks and other combustable things around to get the fire going in order to take a log that was provided.

And...not quite, it wasn't terrible but I did have to chuck in more sticks and an additional fire lighter in order to get things to properly take.

I was lamenting the lake of any paper that I could properly build a fire around, just having the fire lighter to get things going felt a little...I dunno.

As the evening continued I was quite pleased with myself, had a good roaring fire going and it felt nice and warm within. I did have to open the exterior doors to the portico to actually grab some more wood, as the only bits that were left within were huge, and seemed far too big for the remaining of the evening before I retired to bed.

On the third day it was also quite cold, so remained in bed for a bit before throwing myself out of it once the sun had risen suitably enough for a chill to slightly come off the air.

In the afternoon having returned from my explorations, and again began to write up my thoughts I turned to lighting the fire once again.

This time I put in two or maybe three pine cones, put the sticks around the pine cones to ensure there was enough fuel to get everything going properly...and still managed to screw it up a bit, but only needed a second fire lighter before I could get larger logs into it.

That evening I ensured everything had been washed up and was on the drying rack after dinner (of course I'd been doing this every evening also).

I had put the food scraps in a container as the instructions said they had chickens, and had intended to put it outside on the portico for them to collect, but forgot and realised after looking through my photos I'd left it on top of a half eaten packet of terrible jam rollettes.

Leaving on my fourth day was the most frigid and cold, and while I had put a sizeable log into the fire, it seemed I had turned down the air intake a little too much and it had gone out while not quite having totally burnt the log within.