About Us

Barossa Daimler Tours is a small family owned business which was started by me, Libby and my husband, John Baldwin, in  August 1994. 

We met in a bank in 1981 - John was in the RAAF and I worked as a teller. We had both done a fair amount of travel overseas and had seen most of Australia, and in 1984, we decided to buy a 160 year old cottage (it had to have a cellar) and settle in the beautiful Barossa Valley, near Adelaide, in South Australia. 

John had a passion for wine and had been a frequent visitor to the area as a young man.  He had often been called on, by the RAAF hierachy, to take visiting VIPs on private tours of the Barossa Valley. 

In our early days, I picked grapes in The Barossa and Clare Valley vineyards with Charlie Melton of Charles Melton Wines and Dave Powell of Torbreck fame, and John and I both worked on the bottling line at Charles Cimicky Wines.  

After three beautiful children and ten years of living in this idyllic setting, we decided to start Barossa Daimler Tours. No-one seemed to be looking after visitors to the wine regions, who wanted a private experience, in a luxury vehicle.  John loves wine, and loves to share his local knowledge with all our guests.  He definitely has the 'gift of the gab' (he's a good talker!), knows all the locals, including most winemakers, and was actually  described by a visiting Washington Post journalist, Eve Zibart,  as 'My encyclopaedia' once she had spent a couple of days touring with John.

We found two very rare and immaculate 1962 Daimler Limousines, which were previously used in royal tours of the sixties.  They seated 8 persons each and were perfect for our  private tours.

Our commitment to quality and John's love affair with wine has seen us become the most awarded tour operators in the Barossa Valley , receiving Best Tour Operator in 1996, 2000 and 2002 and were finalists in the inaugural Australian Travel and Tourism Awards in 2004 for Best Innovative Tourism Experience. On that occassion, the winner was the 'Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb' - that was hard to beat. We received a Barossa Service Excellence Award in 2006 and our most recent award was to receive a bronze medal at the South Australian Tourism Awards, held in Adelaide on 4th November 2011.

Over the past 15 years John has had the pleasure of touring with notable identities such as musicians David Helfgott (Shine), James Morrison, John Schuman, actors Graeme Blundell (Alvin Purple), Myles Pollard (McLeods Daughters), Richard Wilson (One Foot in the Grave). John has also toured with prominent media publications such as The Washington Post, North American Food and Wine Society, OK! in the UK, The Times, The Guardian, Wunderlust, The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, Luxury Travel, Canberra Times and FHM to name a few.

Recently, we had the absolute pleasure of meeting Max Radford who was a chauffeur for the British Royal Family during the heady days of the royal tours in the sixties.  The local news heard about the meeting and so our Daimler was a big hit on the Channel 7 news that night.  Here is a photo of our son Joel, myself and Max, who is still driving at 89 years old!

 Here is John, Max and the crazy guy from channel 7, Tim Noonan.