Is Hahndorf worth visiting, or just a busy main street?

It would be wrong to pretend Hahndorf is quiet. The regional tourism office's own inventory of the main street takes in German pubs and bakeries, cafés, a chocolatier, cellar doors, a distillery and a brewery, candlemakers, a leathersmith, a cheesemaker and galleries.¹⁵ On a fine Saturday that adds up to crowded footpaths, queues at the bakeries and full car parks.

Even the village guide admits the car parks fill up on peak weekends and at events, and it tells drivers to come early.¹⁷ Book ahead for weekends and holidays, the tourism commission advises, and it singles out Hahndorf.⁵ If you hate crowds, come on a weekday, or arrive early and leave the main street for the side lanes when the coaches come in.

Some of what you see is aimed squarely at visitors: beer steins, cuckoo clocks and souvenir shops. That is part of the fun for some people and a turn-off for others. The reward for looking past it is real: a working gallery, a heritage house and a farm shop that has run strawberry picking since 1975.^18,19

Put the Hahndorf Academy first on your list: by its own account, only one gallery in South Australia draws more visitors.¹⁸ Inside, the museum moves from Peramangk country to the settlers and the daily life of the early village; for history, no hour in Hahndorf is better spent.¹³ Then walk to The Cedars, the home and studio of the painter Hans Heysen, who lived and worked there from 1912 until his death in 1968.²⁹

The Cedars is worth planning around. The village guide says its chalet-style studio, built in 1912, has been identified as the oldest surviving purpose-built artist's studio in the country.²⁰ It opens Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 4:30pm, with house tours at 11am and 2pm that are best booked ahead.¹⁴ It sits outside the center, so it rewards a car, a bike or a good walk.

What can you skip? If time is short, the souvenir shops that repeat each other along the main street, and any queue longer than your patience. A pretzel from a bakery, a look at the old buildings, the Academy and a drink in a beer garden give you the real Hahndorf in an afternoon, and they leave room for the side streets where the crowds thin out.

With kids, the hills are easier than many wine regions. Beerenberg Farm opens its strawberry patch from November to April, charges AUD 8 per person to enter and lets children 12 and under in free, and you pay for what you pick.^6,7 Check the farm's own site on the morning you go: the patch can be closed on some days of the season, and bring hats and sunscreen for the open rows.

Cleland Wildlife Park is the other big draw, about 20 minutes from the city on Mount Lofty Summit Road in Crafers.³² The regional tourism office says it holds some 130 native species.²¹ Gates open at 9.30am and close at 5pm every day, Christmas Day and catastrophic fire-danger days aside.³³ Its hold-a-koala session runs on Tuesdays and Saturdays for guests aged 13 and over, and bookings are essential.^34,28

Without a car, a small-group tour covers both: its van of up to 8 spends 2 hours among the animals at Cleland and another 2 over lunch and a stroll in Hahndorf. For older children who like stories, the Academy museum and the old stone buildings make the history concrete, and the summit gives every age a view to remember.¹³