Country Guesthouse Schönegg

What luxury! The family from Koenigsbrunn who settled here created a small paradise in the middle of Nowhere, and welcomed us with the greatest warmth and hospitality you could possibly imagine. Their place is called Country Guesthouse Schönegg, an exquisite four-star restaurant with bed-and-breakfast accommodation that won practically any tourism award available. The house is about 40 km, half an hour's drive, north of Canberra.

We had a lovely dinner with the family - Evelyn, Richard, their children Katja and Matthias, and Magda (Frau Stohrer), who was really happy to see me. They hosted us in one of their six luxurious guestrooms, so we got to enjoy an upper-class accommodation that would otherwise have been way above our travel budget. Lucky us! :)

Katja (9) painted a 'Welcome to Australia' picture for me that was waiting for me in the Chardonnay Room (the guestrooms are named after the wines that do best in this area). That was so sweet of her! She wrote it in German - both kids know some German, Evelyn's English is perfect, as is Richard's German (he is a native Australian but lived in Switzerland for many years). Grandma (Magda) is practising her English, but she is glad when she can speak German, such as on the local community radio station which broadcasts in 35 languages.

Sadly, there is bad news too: Magda's husband is seriously ill and had to go to hospital today.

I stayed for 2 days; on Monday night Magda made a German dinner: meatballs (Fleischkiachla) with mashed potatoes (Kartoffelbrei) and vegetables. And finally a surprise: she had baked a cake for me, with chocolate chips on top that spelled my name: MARTIN. She is a dear (eine Seele von einem Menschen).