Agnes Water has a choice of three hostels, one which was located out of the town centre and one which was labelled with the wrong phone number in my Lonely Planet book so this was our only choice. But what a great choice – it had a very relaxed vibe and felt like a tropical paradise with the trees dotted around the complex. My favourite part of this hostel was the three large hammock they had chained to the post of the building structure.
Atmosphere
This was by no means a party hostel but I still loved the atmosphere here. One of the most relaxed hostels we have stayed in yet, they had so much space for people to just chill out for the day and night. With not a huge amount to do in Agnes Water this hostel made up for that. They had several body boards for free hire or surf board hire for a cheap fee. Also offering free internet computers and a cable for laptops.
Staff
The staff were so helpful and informative on check in, walking us around the complex and explaining about each area. I didn’t feel the need to keep going back to reception to ask questions. The staff were a mixture of backpackers and family who owned the place, most of which were friendly however once or twice I felt they were very abrupt – but that wouldn’t put me off overall. The last night we were there the main owner was dressed up as Ronald Macdonald, wig and all. That certainly caused some laughs.
Communal Areas
This hostel had a bunch of communal areas. A massive lounge in the reception with a large amount of sofas gathered around the TV – which they provided a whole cupboard of dvds for. They then had an outside communal area which was mostly used to eat any meals you had prepared in the kitchen. The kitchen was lovely and clean – due to being closed and cleaned three times a day. But there was one point the manager closed the kitchen at 6 pm to clean it due to the mess that had been made that afternoon – this really pissed off people who were wanting to cook but was a great way to make a point! At least it wasn’t just left to get worse. There was then a camp fire area that had a fire every night and my favourite part the three large hammocks which you could fit two people in.
Overall this was a great ‘chill out’ hostel. The only real negatives were that our dorm room became very hot during the night, the toilet was just one block which was along the corridor and down some steps away from the room and they lacked a swimming pool – or maybe that was just because we were so used to every hostel having a pool. We stayed here for 2 nights at $25 for a 8 bed dorm – however our nights were not consecutive as we went to Castaway** but we were lucky that the hostel stored our bags for the 24 hours for free.
If you need somewhere to chill out for a night or two then I would really recommend this place!
