A Germanic day in South Australia.

We said goodbye today to Moana and the beach and made our first stop at Hahndorf at the foothills of the Adelaide Hills.

Hahndorf is a picturesque town with a strong Germanic history dating back to the 1830’s when the ship Zebra docked in Adelaide and the passengers from Prussia headed to the then uninhabited hills.

Every other shop on the Main Street in Hahndorf has a German theme or product. It’s somewhat surreal, but equally it means they have some great pilsner beers and cured meats.

After leaving Hahndorf we moved further up the hillside to the summit of Mount Lofty, where we had magnificent views over Adelaide.

After parking up at the peak, we walked down through the bush to Cleland Wildlife park, a round trip of 7k miles which included views of koala’s in the wild and gum trees as far as the eye could see.

After working up a sweat we drove on to Tanunda, one of the key towns in the Barossa Valley where we snared a late afternoon’s wine tasting in a converted old wheat mill.

Not a bad way to finish the day and made more special by the friendly chat with Paul our wine guide, a young guy who gave us an insight into wine, the local area and his families business shearing alpacas!

Tomorrow we plan to visit a number of the cellar door wineries, starting with the most famous, Jacobs Creek.