Le Chic En Rose

After our overnight stay in Adelaide (see last week’s post here), we headed out to our accommodation for the next 3 nights in the Adelaide Hills.

We had rented a lovely Airbnb house with a wrap around veranda and expansive views across the valley towards rolling hills and vineyards.

Hahndorf is a very pretty settlement in the Adelaide Hills, about a 30-minute drive from Adelaide City Centre.

Acknowledged as Australia’s oldest surviving German settlement, it was zoned as a state heritage area in 1988 by the Government of South Australia. You can read more about the historical background here.

Many moons before the arrival of the German settlers in 1839, from about 2400 years ago, the area was populated by the Peramangk Aboriginal people who had named the area ‘Bukartilla’ in reference to the swimming hole, which was created by several creeks emptying into the nearby Onkaparinga River.

Unfortunately, the numbers of Peramangk declined with the arrival of the settlers but there are still descendants living today.

From the Adelaide Hills Information site ( see here),

“There are still many descendants living today in South Australia. There are nearly 600 residents in the Adelaide Hills region who identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander (2016 Census, 220 Adelaide Hills Council, 360 Mount Barker District Council). The whole language of these people has not survived, but there are still many words, names of places and names of the Clans that made up the Peramangk Nation.”

The German connection first came about in 1838 when a director of a South Australian company, George Fife Angas, made a trip to London and encountered a Lutheran pastor named Kavel, who was trying to find a place of refuge for German Lutherans being persecuted for their beliefs by the King of Prussia.

The name Hahndorf comes in fact from Dirk Hahn, the Danish Captain of the boat carrying the first settlers/refugees, which landed at Port Adelaide on 2nd January 1839.

The current village was set out surrounded by small farmsteads and the Lutheran Church of St Michael’s. The church and many of the original buildings remain to this day, giving Hahndorf a unique appearance and a sense of a throwback in time to a small German village.

The high street is lined with quaint buildings, a myriad of shops, eateries and at least a couple of pubs. Whilst sometimes a bit kitsch in flavour, the artisan craft shops sell traditional German handicrafts such as Christmas decorations and there is a curious blend of anglicised German names mingled with the original high German.

Pioneer Memorial Gardens is a park just off the main street. Free to enter (including for dogs) it has beautiful maintained gardens and a children’s play area. As its name suggests, it is a memorial to the 1839 German settlers (all the family names are written on plaques either side of the entrance). We walked round the pretty grounds a couple of times, once in rainy weather and the other in beautiful spring sunshine.

There are plenty of information boards dotted about the town. Hahndorf Academy, along the main street, houses a museum displaying artefacts and stories about the First Nations Peramangk people, German settlers and the life and times of the early 19th century. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to do more than take a quick glance inside. It definitely would be a place I’d check out if I’m ever in Hahndorf again.

Next time I’ll cover a few more of the eateries we went to in a little more depth but overall I can highly recommend a visit or stay in Hahndorf. There is a sense of a bygone era and it was an excellent place in which to relax and unwind.

Copyright © 2025 Rosemary Thomas Le Chic En Rose