I have very little time. Which do you think would be time better spent? Choice of Barossa and Eden valley or the Adelaide hills and the quaint German village of Hahndorf? Does any body have first hand experience?

I personally would choose Barossa/Eden Valley option out of those 2. I found Hahndorf to be ok (don't know if I would call it 'quaint', I actually found it to be more touristy than I expected) but after a couple of hours we were ready to leave.

I tend to agree with mrsfletcher. The Barossa is lovely - especially if you enjoy wine and the wonderful food that is usually associated with good wine. However, you will need also to consider how much time you want to spend in the city of Adelaide. The Barossa is about 70kms out of town and not really convenient if you were planning on going in every day.

Hahndorf on the other hand is really only worthy of a day trip sightseeing but is only 20 minutes from the cbd if you were planning on using it as a base for your city sightseeing.

thanks so kindly for your knowledge. I have one full day off a ship . I can either do a full day to Barrossa and Eden Valley or Hahndorf and have extra time .

Hi Frani, I assume your choices are from options given by the cruise ship. In that case I would definately do the Barossa, our wines here are great and the country around there is lovely.

Since I am in the same situation as frani, I have taken great interest in the replies. I am curious if you have any opinions on visiting the Cleland Wildlife Park? We thought this might be an option for part of our one day in Adelaide. The Barossa sounds great, but we have already booked a B and B in Hunter Valley after we leave the ship in Sydney.

For frani: we will be on the 1/31/04 cruise from Auckland. We are looking at private tours to share.

it would have been great but we are sailing on Dec. 20th out of Sydney. After the cruise we are flying back to Queenstown and staying there for 3 nites, returning to Auckland and flying back to the states from there. I did book 3 tours from the ship whick I usually dont do but its much less of a hassale. We are going during Christmas and some things might be closed on the holidays.

Olderpilot,
We really loved Cleland Wildlife Park, it was a highlight in the Adelaide areas. There are only a few spots in Oz where you can hold a koala bear, and this is one of them. And it's very cool to be able to walk among the roos and emus, you can hand feed them too (be careful about the emus, they won't stop pestering you once you break out the food!) We didn't go to Hahndorf so I can't comment on it, but since Cleland and Hahndorf are near each other it would make a good day outing.

Hi
We loved the Barossa and were very disappointed by Hahndorf. I guess it depends what else you are doing but I hope it helps.

To Tim and Stachi - thanks for your input. Ideally we would like to visit Cleland and then head for the Barossa, but I don't think we will have time. Right now it looks like Cleland, especially since we will be visiting Hunter Valley and their wineries after the cruise. Thanks again!