Farm Stays in Adelaide Hills, SA

No Australian capital has real hill country as close as Adelaide does. Twenty minutes up the freeway from the city, the Adelaide Hills fold into a cool, high landscape of apple and pear orchards, cherry blocks, dairy pasture and cool-climate vineyards around Hahndorf, Stirling, Uraidla, Lobethal and the Onkaparinga Valley — much of it settled by German farming families in the 1840s, whose stone barns and Lutheran church spires still anchor the towns.

A farm stay in the Adelaide Hills typically means a cottage on a small mixed property: some sheep or cattle, an orchard block, chooks, and a wood fire for the cold months. The days fill easily — Hahndorf's smallgoods and bakeries, cellar doors pouring some of Australia's best sparkling and chardonnay, strawberry and cherry picking in season, and native wildlife at Cleland just over the ridge. Because the city is so close, guests often mix a Hills stay with Adelaide's Central Market and the Barossa or McLaren Vale, each under an hour away.

The Hills run several degrees cooler than the plains — the reason the orchards are here — and the seasons show it. Autumn turns the exotic trees of Stirling and Aldgate copper; winter brings fog, frost and open fires; spring is blossom and lambs; and summer's high, dry days end with long golden evenings. Cherry season around Christmas is a local institution worth planning for.