Sandpipers at Millicent review | SA’s Great Travel Planner

The Tasting Room at Mayura Station is a restaurant experience we love in the South-East, but it’s remote and, until recently, required long treks to any accommodation to match. But Sandpipers has come to the rescue.

The Tasting Room at Mayura Station is a restaurant experience we love in the South-East, but it’s remote and, until recently, required long treks to any accommodation to match.

But Sandpipers, formerly the Diplomat, in Millicent, about 20 minutes from Mayura, has stepped up enough to be a local package option.

Its rooms are being upgraded, and the dining room is now the Banana Tree restaurant, with a Thai chef and some better country cooking in play.

When booking, be sure to ask for a renovated room. From the outside, it still looks like an old-school strip motel, and the rooms have been refreshed, not completely refurbished, but are now comfortable enough.

Our room has some smart styling in the linen, the bed is really good, there’s a freshly reupholstered couch with bright little cushions, and the carpet is new and understated too.

The management could have gone a step or two further on the bathroom, perhaps retiling instead of re-caulking, but it is clean and the water pressure is great.

Our outlook is to a nice big sparkling pool that we hope will soon be given a bit of landscaping love as well.

Sandpipers Motel Millicent

It’s a clean base, with touches of care giving Millicent a destination edge. No longer do we have to trek to Robe or Penola after a special Mayura night out.

Here, chef Mark Wright stages quite the food experience, with wagyu from the station, a rare 100 per cent strain, presented dinner-party style with beautiful embellishments that never sacrifice the juicy beef hero.

On a weekend trip, Millicent also had a new Two Cats cafe for quick and wholesome meals, and Andy’s bakery is the spot for mini pasties and baked snacks for the road. There’s a cherry farmgate open around Christmas and New Year near Glencoe, the Fish Factory is good for direct sales in Beachport, or there are many more cafes, galleries and bed and breakfast spots in Robe and Penola.

We stop for a few herbs from the goldcoin-donation garden behind a charming cottage in Penola’s Petticoat Lane, and this central town also has a tiny new backstreet Van Leuven French Patisserie with a quirky Malaysian streetfood stall next door on weekends.

Reviews are unannounced and paid for by SAWeekend.

This review was first published in January 2016

• 51-57 Mount Gambier Rd, Millicent
• [phone]
• sandpipersatmillicent.com.au
• LOCATION Millicent, 398km south of Adelaide – about a four-hour drive.
• ACCOMMODATION Motel rooms with ensuite, queen, double with sofa, double and single bed, family room (up to 5 people), or budget double and twin rooms. Twelve of the 27 rooms have been renovated. Restaurant refurbished.
• FACILITIES Motel swimming pool, Banana Tree Thai restaurant (with western food options), free wi-fi. Rooms airconditioned with coffee/tea making facilities.
• PRICE Budget $115 per night, standard $125, deluxe $139, Executive $159 and family $189. The price includes a continental breakfast. There is a special price for stays of at least 3 nights and weekly rate for longer stay.