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Where in the world can you rent a four bedroom house, with overflowing spa bath, foaming dishwasher and all antique furniture complete with a fridge full of breakfast for A$130 a night? Yep, the Barossa Valley.

'Trout Heim' sits in a side road off the main Barossa thoroughfare and delighted us the moment we arrived for, in the living room, was a 1950s all in one entertainment system - a gramophone and radio - complete with a collection of '78s with titles such as "Bond Movies Themes" (c. 1965) and "Showboat".

DJ Charlie (Phil) Brown got to work - scratching Showboat with aplomb which made us all fall about laughing (helped naturally by a few glasses of local Shiraz).

Over dinner, which consisted of cheese and wine in the back garden as the sun set, we read the guestbook. All of the visitors gave the place the thumbs up and many vowed to return - if only to further investigate the ghost which apparently inhabits the place.

Trout Heim has been a guest house for some 15 years now, during which time nothing has been broken or stolen despite the fact that the key is available to virtually anyone at any time - the owner runs an honour system that will no doubt continue to work well into the future. Staying there was like stepping into a time-warp to a gentler age - should we ever return to the Barossa, Trout Heim will be number one on the list of best places to stay.

That is of course if we are allowed after our near disasters there - the first of which being my close on flooding the place by running a bath for Phil without informing him, and the second being Phil putting Washing up liquid in the dishwasher...

The next morning, we took a leisurely cruise up to Peter Lehmanns,  and bought a few bottles of their splendid reserve Shiraz for our train journey. From here it was a short detour to the award winning "Whispering Wall". This strange physical anomaly enables people to stand at opposite sides of a curved dam wall some sixty metres apart and speak to each other as though standing a few feet apart.

A short journey back to Adelaide and we checked in for the journey to Perth on the mighty Indian Pacific.

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