EZTrip.com International Destination Guide and Hotel Listings

Twenty-two kilometres north of Mount Gambier, PENOLA , gateway to the Coonawarra wine region, is a very simple but dignified country town of well-preserved nineteenth-century architecture. For information, head for Penola Coonawarra Visitor Centre in the old Mechanics Institute Building (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 9.30am-4pm), which also houses a display featuring John Riddoch, pioneer of Coonawarra's vineyards, and hands out the free Historic Penola and Coonawarra map with details of the region's wineries.

Beside the 1857 Cobb & Co booking office (now a restaurant), St Joseph's Catholic Church looks like something out of an Italian village, a world away from the very modern Mary MacKillop Interpretative Centre (daily 10am-4pm; $3.50; www.penola.mtx.net.au/~mackillop ) next door. Sister Mary MacKillop (1842-1909) was Penola's most famous resident, and Australia's first would-be saint - in 1995 Pope John Paul II pronounced her "Blessed", the last stage before full saint status. MacKillop set up a school, created her own teaching method and, with Father Julian Tennyson Woods, co-founded the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, a charitable teaching order that spread throughout Australia and New Zealand. Dramatic episodes of alleged disobedience and excommunication give her story a certain oomph. There's an informative display in the centre, lightened up by Barbie-doll look-alike "nuns on the run" and dressed-up dummies in the original school room. Across the fields are the National Trust-listed cottages of Petticoat Lane , where many of Mary's poverty-stricken students lived. One of the buildings now houses a craft shop (daily 10am-5pm), while a display in another and an interpretive board in the garden tells the story of the seventeen-member Sharam family. You can also visit Wilson's Cottage (same hours) which doubles as a linen shop.

There are backpacker rooms at the comfortable and centrally located McKay's Trek Inn , 38 Riddoch St (tel 08/8737 2250 or free call 1800 626 844; rooms $35-50, dorms under $20), which caters to the Oz Experience crowd a couple of nights a week, and long-stay grape pickers, so it's worth booking ahead. Penola Caravan Park on South Terrace (tel 08/8737 2381) has good-value on-site vans ($20-35) and en-suite cabins ($35-50). The focus of the town is the friendly National Trust-listed Heywood's Royal Oak Hotel , 31 Church St (tel 08/8737 2322, fax 8737 2825; $70-90), with four-poster doubles and some twin rooms. Out of town, on the Riddoch Highway, Chardonnay Lodge (tel 08/8736 3309, www.chardonnaylodge.com.au ; $115-150) is an upmarket motel complex set amongst lawns and rose gardens, with a swimming pool and an attached café/restaurant.

The best place to eat is Heywood's Royal Oak Hotel , which has a beautiful beer garden and an excellent bistro. Otherwise, Sweet Grape , 48 Church St (daily 8.30am-4.30pm) dishes up affordable café favourites and international dishes. On the Riddoch Highway, Hermitage Café and Wine Bar , attached to Wetherall Winery (tel 08/8737 2122; daily 11am-9pm; bookings advised for dinner), hand out cheese and crackers with wine, while meals focus on local and organic produce. The vineyard setting is very pleasant, with a little pond for yabbies and a native garden out back, filled with banksias and big gum trees.