With travel still restricted, we are all being encouraged to travel locally. Australia is vast and highways mean so many of the little towns are a detour off the highway.

In this post I pick two that are definitely worth taking the turn off for. We have!

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Mundulla is a delightful Australian country town going through a serious rejuvenation. It’s a few kilometres off the Dukes Highway on the Adelaide side of Bordertown. A detour of just a few minutes.

The town has been a multiple winner of the best small town and sustainability awards, all very much due to the efforts of an active local community.

The town’s centrepiece is the Old Mundulla Hotel. It is everything a country pub should be: a friendly publican, a few locals, and some travellers like ourselves. The hotel has accommodation that includes a B&B, a newly built self-accommodation home, and three small modern cabins. At the time of our visit, the B&B was under renovation and the home in the final stages of completion. We booked one of the small cabins. Check-in is at the pub. Our cabin was modern, small and adequate – just the spot for an overnight stop-over.

My suggestion is to drop your bags and head to the pub. If it’s a warm day the beer garden out the back with its big grassed area with a verandah is just the place for a beer or glass of wine or two. If the weather is less inviting stay inside and perhaps settle in by the fire with a glass of red from the nearby Coonawarra.

We visited in late summer and sat outside before heading inside for dinner. We had a table in the window that looked across the main street. The bar behind us had a few people settling in for dinner. The food is simple and excellent – the atmosphere delightful.

It’s definitely worth going for a walk around the town. The old council chambers weren’t open on our visit but the building has been restored – the chambers were only used for a couple of years. It was quiet and the dusk light made the walk a delight. There is a nature walk through the scrub on the town’s perimeter.

The pub is not open every night although the accommodation is.

The general store does a great breakfast from around 6.30 am every morning. Good coffee and a pretty traditional Aussie breakfast menu. They also sell Frances Strawberries Strawberry Jam!

My second detour is a short stop in Dimboola just a few kilometres off the Western Highway near the South Australian – Victrorian border.

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