Pioneer Women's Trail

Of all the walks in the Hills, none carries a story like this one. From 1839 — within weeks of their village being founded — the women and girls of Hahndorf would set out at midnight, baskets of vegetables, butter and eggs on their backs or slung from wooden yokes, and walk roughly 35 kilometres down through the ranges to sell their produce in Adelaide. They came home the same way, loaded with tea, sugar, sewing needles — and famously, two bricks each for the building of their church. The practice continued into the late 1850s.

The modern trail retraces about 26 kilometres of their route between Hahndorf and Beaumont on the Adelaide foothills, rediscovered and waymarked in 1980 by the Hahndorf and Burnside branches of the National Trust with Walking SA. It follows country lanes, bush tracks and quiet roads through some lovely and surprisingly wild country, passing close to Verdun before climbing over the spine of the ranges.

Strong walkers do it in a long day; everyone else samples it in sections — the Hahndorf-to-Verdun leg makes a gentle introduction with a pub conveniently placed at the far end. However much you walk, it reframes the pretty streets of Hahndorf: this village was built on extraordinary feet. Read more in our story on Australia's oldest German town.