Adelaide Hills: Country charm with city convenience
With their bucolic rolling hills, sprinkled with orchards, cool-climate vineyards and cattle under gum trees, the Adelaide Hills have long been the city’s produce garden and playground.
Being a mere 30 kilometres from Rundle Mall, they combine country charm with city convenience. Little wonder that families are increasingly turning a leisure-time escape into their full-time address.
The postcard-pretty, German-heritage town of Hahndorf and the buzzy city of Mount Barker, offer amenities near at hand to those in surrounding areas.
Within cooee of the latter, the Newenham Estate subdivision is spearheading real estate expansion, with 400 more lots released earlier this year and sustainability a keystone of the offer.
In the Adelaide Hills, green of many kinds is served up on a sumptuous platter. From paddock to plate, grape to glass, roadside stalls to cellar doors, nature and its bounty are all-pervasive. And the origin of everything, from food to handicrafts, ultimately lies in the region’s rich soil.
The more unusual farm options include cherry picking at Birdwood Pick Your Own Cherries. It boasts a cafe under its majestic gum trees, where you can mingle with the farm animals.
Jurlique Farm, near Echunga, takes you on the brand’s seed-to-skin journey. Or the green-fingered can roll up their sleeves at the Kitchen Farm on the Newenham Estate. This “natural farm and ecosystem for communal family fun” leases plots in an allotment-style system.
The equally energetic can take to the saddle on a bike or horseback on the sealed Amy Gillett Pathway, which weaves its way through lush valleys with rural vistas and wineries, its easy gradient following a former rail line.
There are walking and bike trails galore at the Cleland National Park on Mount Lofty.
History and art intermingle at Fabrik Arts + Heritage in Lobethal’s historic Onkaparinga Woollen Mill. With a textile focus, it includes galleries, workshops and a crafts store.
Another hive of art and culture is the Hahndorf Academy, nestled in a stunning stone heritage building in Hahndorf. Claiming to be “the second-most-visited gallery in South Australia”, it features three exhibition spaces showcasing local artists, while a museum reveals the region’s intriguing story — from the First Nations Peramangk people to 19th-century German settlers. Its shop is a treasure trove of handicrafts by local artisans.
For casual eats, The Plough Echunga is a cosy, Irish-owned cafe offering home-baked goodies in the centre of town. Or down a latte at the cafe in the Echunga Trading Co and then delve into the vintage finds housed within its corrugated-iron walls.
Not surprisingly, German fare, such as a Bavarian platter, features heavily at The Haus Hahndorf, while The White House, housed in a crisp German historic cottage, extends its culinary borders with its “modern Australian dining with French influences”.
Many upmarket eateries are attached to wineries, such as the Lane Vineyard at Hahndorf, or Pike & Joyce at Lenswood, offering long, lingering sampling sessions.
Similarly laid-back, at Hardy’s Verandah Restaurant at Mount Lofty, you can sit aloft on the heritage stone-walled verandah and survey the spectacular undulating hills below, with all their myriad possibilities.
Agent lens
with Belle Ker, Harcourts Adelaide Hills/Mount Barker
Who’s buying property in the Adelaide Hills, and what are they looking for?
A lot of families from Adelaide’s affluent eastern suburbs, such as Unley and Hyde Park, are after a lifestyle change and want to escape the city. Here, their kids can run around and grow up surrounded by cattle and horses. And potential buyers from large farms are looking to downsize to something like this, just under 30 hectares and relatively low-maintenance – the cows keep the grass down and there’s a bore on site to keep things green. This special location offers peace and quiet, yet it’s just 35 minutes from the CBD.
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