Adelaide to Hahndorf - 13th Dec

Today we were picking up a car to start the drive from Adelaide to Melbourne – first stop was Hahndorf – Australia's oldest German settlement and the most touristy destination in the Adelaide Hills. It was only 28km SE of Adelaide and so instead of heading straight to it we thought we'd take our time and visit some other places on route.

First we went to Glenelg, Adelaide's most popular beach 11km SW of the city. It was an okay place and easily accessible for people living in the city – particularly when Adelaide can reach 40 degrees. We spent an hour there and had a walk along the beach, pier and harbour. We also saw our first Aussie lifeguards on duty.

The beach at Glenelg

The harbour at Glenelg 

Next stop was Penfolds vineyard – this was on route and is a favourite wine of ours so we just had to stop and pick up a bottle of red. The place seemed surprising small but we later discovered that there were more vineyards up in the Coonawarra wine region.

Up in the Adelaide Hills we went via Mount Lofty Summit the highest peak in the hills at 710m. The views were good, although a little hazy but the place itself was quite run down and a bit sorry for itself. Andy spotted our first sighting of a blue-headed wren whose head truly was aqua marine.



Our first Koala sign !!

Views of Adelaide

We decided to have lunch in Sterling and then take the more scenic route to Hahndorf rather than the main highway. Along the route we came across Warrong Sanctuary a conservation centre which was free admission so we decided to take a look. We wandered around the rather isolated sanctuary and were treated to seeing kangaroos close-up, lots of turtles, different types of birds and our first sighting of a koala and a koala baby climbing and eating the leaves off a tree. The park guides said we were really lucky to see the koalas as they're only active 4 hours a day and sleep the rest of the time intoxicated on eucalyptus.

It's a Kanga !!

Koala with a baby on its back

Finally arriving in Hahndorf we went to book into The Manna, our “contemporary executive accommodation” which the Tourist Information in Adelaide had sold to us. This turned out to be quite disappointing as it was more like a glorified motel facing a car park (at least from our room's point of view). The first room we were shown faced the public toilets so we asked to move to a different one which was better but the outlook was certainly not “luxurious”.

No expenses spared soap dispenser

Maybe the hotel experience had set us off on a bad footing but neither of us found Hahndorf that appealing either. It was very very geared to the tourists with gift shops etc but the only real references to German settlers we could find were the “brockwursts” sold in the pub.....we opted for a curry at the Hahndorf curry house instead and then headed home to bed.