This week, my friends from the Fair Trade Collective offered to show me and some friends from NC State around their hometown of Hahndorf. Hahndorf is a German town in South Australia about an hour outside of Adelaide. We took the bus to downtown Hahndorf where we saw the Hahndorf Inn, locally famous for their German food and beer. There was also a souvenir shop next door with the expected fraulein beer steins and shot glasses. The back of the store was home to a custom cuckoo clock shop where we could see a clock-maker carving designs on the face of a wooden grandfather clock.
After our friends picked us up, we went strawberry picking at Beerenberg Farm. Even though the Australian summer is over, there were still lots of ripe strawberries. The Beerenberg Farm gift shop sold hundreds of different jams, jellies, and sauces. They also served fresh strawberry ice cream.
We headed out towards the hills for lunch at one of the many wineries. We ate The winery had blankets for customers sitting outside, which seems to be the standard at Adelaide restaurants during autumn. The live music and surrounding hills created a beautiful atmosphere, even when it started raining.
Before getting on the bus back to Adelaide, we stopped at a few downtown shops. One of the shops was an art gallery featuring Aboriginal artwork. The gallery owner explained the different types of paintings. He pointed out a painting which I had thought was just an abstract pattern and showed us how the painting actually showed footsteps and a man crouching with a boomerang.
Hahndorf was a fun experience and I am really appreciative of the friends that took us out to beautiful places that we would not get to see using public transport.