ハーンドルフの隠れた名所：一日体験ツアーに参加

Enjoyable Hahndorf tour, but disgraceful conduct from the driver We booked the Hahndorf Hidden Gems full-day tour through GetYourGuide for Thursday 10 September, at a cost of $189 per person. The itinerary itself was enjoyable, and we had a lovely time exploring Hahndorf and visiting the various attractions. We were collected and returned on time and visited most of the advertised locations, although Mount Lofty was omitted. Unfortunately, our experience was seriously marred by the conduct of our driver, Paul, beginning with an extraordinary introductory address. Paul described himself as homophobic, racist, misogynistic, rude and crude, and told us that anyone who had a problem with that could get off the bus there and then. He also said that anyone who was “woke” could get off. In other words, passengers who did not agree with his way of thinking were effectively being invited to abandon a tour they had already paid for. I believe everyone was so taken aback by this introduction that nobody knew quite how to respond. I certainly was not prepared to forfeit the $189 I had paid or risk missing Hahndorf, which was one of the highlights of our Adelaide holiday. To be fair, I do not recall Paul subsequently saying anything particularly crude or rude. My concern was that this was how he chose to introduce himself and set the tone for the day. During this opening sermon, my travelling companion was not paying attention to him to try and tune out his rant, so Paul singled her out and directly challenged her about whether she was “woke.” Two of our fellow passengers were visitors from overseas. As an Australian, I felt deeply embarrassed that this was the welcome they received on a tour of our country. Later, when one of these passengers, a Chinese Singaporean man, coughed or sneezed, Paul made a remark suggesting he had COVID. I found his words and behaviour disgraceful, particularly in front of visitors whom he should have been making feel welcome. Paul also spoke disparagingly about his former wife and blamed her for the failure of a restaurant he had previously owned. None of this was appropriate professional commentary for a sightseeing tour. Throughout the day, Paul appeared to expect a response to everything he said. If passengers did not react enthusiastically when he pointed something out, he would supply his own sarcastic praise with comments along the lines of, “Yes, that’s great, Paul—the countryside around here is fabulous.” Similarly, whenever he pulled over to allow another vehicle to pass, he would mutter sarcastically if the other driver did not acknowledge or thank him. There was little or no laughter in response to his jokes, which he clearly did not appreciate. He suggested that we were a humourless group or a hard lot to impress. There were understandable reasons for the lack of response. His opening remarks had put everyone offside from the beginning, and his jokes were predictable, as old as the Adelaide Hills and simply not particularly funny. They were the sort of tired dad jokes most people have heard many times before—or might expect to find in a Christmas cracker. Rather than amusing, they were often cringeworthy. It was also difficult to distinguish genuine commentary from a joke designed to catch passengers out. For example, Paul told us that black swans from Western Australia fly to a particular lake each year and asked whether anyone knew why. His answer was, “Because it’s too far to walk.” Rather than creating a relaxed and humorous atmosphere, this style of commentary frequently felt like an attempt to test passengers’ gullibility or embarrass them. The most concerning incident occurred when we stopped to feed a horse beside the road. Paul asked an older passenger sitting along side the van’s sliding door to open it. With the door still fully open, he then performed a U-turn and drove along the road until we reached the paddock. Passengers had shopping and personal belongings near their feet that could easily have fallen out, quite apart from the obvious danger of travelling in a moving vehicle with the sliding door wide open. Passengers from a winery tour had been combined with our group, so we made additional stops to drop them off and collect them. We arrived at Woodside Cheese Wrights too early for the tasting and therefore returned later in the day. Mount Lofty was omitted, with poor visibility given as the reason, although the additional winery drop-offs were most probably the reason why he wasn’t keen to drive there as well. We made an unscheduled stop at the Hans Heysen Gallery while waiting until it was time to collect the winery passengers. This appeared to be a way of killing time. It was sort of an unexpected bonus as it had not formed part of our intended itinerary. However, there wasn’t sufficient time to actually visit the gallery so turned out to be a little pointless. One particularly memorable incident occurred when Paul stopped at an IGA, saying he was getting afternoon tea. He returned with a bag of carrots and later handed one to each passenger. One young woman understandably began eating hers because she believed it actually was our afternoon tea as he was keeping the feeding of the horse a surprise, so she had no idea that that is what it was for. I want to stress that we genuinely enjoyed the destinations, especially our free time in Hahndorf, and the tour delivered most of its advertised itinerary. My criticism is not of the places visited but of the driver’s lack of professionalism, inappropriate introduction and, most seriously, his disregard for passenger safety during the open-door incident. I would also like to stress that my concerns are with Bostours and its driver, Paul, not with GetYourGuide. GetYourGuide was simply the booking platform; the tour was operated by Bostours. Based on our experience, if Paul from Bostours is the designated driver, I would recommend choosing another tour operator.

Service is wonderful. Wet weather did affect our visit at Mount Lofty. Other wise everything was great.

The itinerary is a bit miss leading. It's not 5 hours in harndorf. Its 2 & a half hours. Opal company is in Harndorf. Overall our tour guy Paul was great. The farm was 10mins not 15mins. Melbourne was 15mins & Mt Lofty we didn't stop due to the weather conditions. The lunch at Haus was nice. Very misleading in the time frames and stop overs at these places.

Thank you Paul for sharing your knowledge of the City, Hills & Hahndorf. You live in an absolutely amazing place, we just love it!! We gave the Haus Restaurant 20 out of 10, do yourself a favour people & have a morning tea sess. there too, totally worth it 😋😋 A beautiful moment when you took Ellie the horse 🐴 carrots 🥕 as well (hope we‘re allowed to say that 😅). Thank you for your patience & giving us the time we needed at each stop, much appreciated 😊

Enjoyed the trip tho didn't get what was advertised e.g no morning tea or visit to a Opal Company. Did get a very nice lunch and about two hours in the town. Also don't go on a Tuesday as many shops shut after the weekend and reopen Wednesday.

Sam our driver and guide was a cheerful, funny and very informative guy. My sister and I can recommend this tour 100% or as Sam would say 99.5% as he was always learning from his customers

Morning tea mentioned in original booking but not provided. Bus was small. Guide’s accent was heavy and not entirely fluent, but he was very pleasant and kind. We did not really get a good commentary of Adelaide city. The lunch was delicious as promised. Hahndorf was amazing, great destination. Lots of history, interesting places and unique shopping.

Visited some lovely places although Hahndorf was the main reason I went on this tour. The morning tea and lunch included was amazing - delicious and bountiful. My feedback on this is that having lunch only about one and a half hours after morning tea was far too close and nobody was able to finish their lunch meal. I would suggest that either don't have the morning tea or don't include the lunch at Hahndorf but elsewhere. I also found that there was not really enough time to gently walk and see all there is to see in Hahndorf without being rushed. It would have been better to have more time there and go elsewhere (perhaps a winery) for lunch. As the dairy/cheese and chocolate places only needed a short time. The afternoon was really wasted after only spending about 1/2 hour there and then returning to our hotel.

Wasiq was a fabulous tour guide and extremely knowledgeable about all the areas we visited. Our tour group was small, with just eight people in total, and we all got along wonderfully and really enjoyed each other’s company. We loved visiting Mt Lofty, and the Hahndorf experience was amazing. We never felt rushed and were given plenty of free time to explore the town at our own pace. Lunch was taken care of at Haus restaurant and was absolutely delicious. After that, we visited Melba’s Chocolates and the cheese shop next door, where we enjoyed tasting some wonderful treats. To finish off the afternoon, we had a wine tasting at Kersbrook Hill Winery. Overall, we had a fantastic day, and once again Wasiq looked after us exceptionally well. We would thoroughly recommend this tour to anyone visiting the region—let BOS Tours take you there.

This was a great day out with my Mother to experience Hahndorf and the surrounding area. Our bus driver was Rahil, who picked us up in a small van with 3 other guests. It was a great, small group. We got to see Mount Lofty and view Adelaide from above. We then got to Hahndorf and had some time to explore at our leisure. Would have been nice to have a bit of time after lunch (which was great at The Haus) as we only had 2 hours before lunch, and we didn't have set times for stops after lunch. However, overall the day was great. The stop at Melba's was the best way to finish the day, enjoying a bit of chocolate!