Roo Around The World

When you step off the bus in Rainbow Beach, you’ll see three hostels across the road, Fraser, Dingoes and Pippies. These are the only three hostels in Rainbow, so your choices are limited, but actually this is probably a good thing, as it means they are all well kept, with competitive prices.

For a four bed dorm room at Pippies we paid $26 per night and for this we got a very comfortable bed, a spacious and tidy room with a sliding door backing onto the back patio (with hammocks), the use of two bathrooms (in our building…there were plenty more in the main building) and free breakfast every morning. Okay, so the breakfast consisted of just tea, coffee, cereal and toast and it only ran from 7:30 to 8:30am, and our back door didn’t lock (until we asked them to fix it, which they promptly did), but everything was clean and the people were friendly, which is really all you need.

The facilities at the hostel are also very good, with a large-ish kitchen and a great TV/lounge area (with very comfy leather sofas). When everyone was in the kitchen all cooking at once it got a little bit crowded and very hot, but it is maybe the most well equipped kitchen I’ve used on this trip so far…there were plenty of pots and pans, more than enough crockery and cutlery, good fridge space, and even an oven (a rarity in hostel kitchens). There is also a locker storage room/garage where you can store your luggage after checking out, but in my opinion it’s not the most secure as it just has one padlock on it (I only bring this up as while we were staying at Pippies, the luggage store at Dingoes next door got broken into and A LOT of valuable stuff was stolen), which I don’t think s quite sufficient enough.

The hostel is situated just 2 minutes walk from the main road with all the shops and cafes, and just past that is the beach, and a beautiful beach at that. Every evening, they also take you on a free walk to a place called Carlo Sandblow, a huge expanse of sand atop a hill…to one side is the view over Tin Can Bay and to the other is the ocean…stunning is all I can say.

All in all it’s an excellent hostel and I very much enjoyed staying there, but my only gripe is with their strange internet system…Pippies will give you a voucher that you then have to take to Tribal Travel up the road, who will then give you half an hour free on their computers and give you a voucher for half an hour of WiFi to use at the hostel…very confusing!

Dates stayed: 03 – 06 Feb 2012

My Rating:

Overall: 80%

Atmosphere: 78%
Cleanliness: 85%
Location: 90%
Staff: 84%
Safety: 67%
Value for Money: 76%