For a few golden weeks each year the Hills' exotic deciduous trees turn red and gold. Here's where to find the best autumn colour - and a wine to match.
Unlike most of Australia, the Adelaide Hills puts on a proper northern-hemisphere autumn. Generations of English-style plantings mean that each April and May the high villages and gardens blaze with red, amber and gold.
The best colour
Mount Lofty Botanic Garden is the showpiece - its cool-climate plantings, lower lake and winding paths are at their most photogenic in late April and May. Nearby Stirling is famous for its avenues of liquidambars and elms; a slow drive or wander through the village streets is reason enough to visit.
The gardens of Crafers and Aldgate, and the elm-lined approaches to many cellar doors, all turn on the show. Even the vineyards join in, the rows shifting to copper before the vines go dormant.
Make a day of it
Pair a morning among the falling leaves with a cosy long lunch - autumn is log-fire season in the Hills, and the cellar-door restaurants lean into it. Pour a glass of cool-climate chardonnay or a Hills pinot, find a window onto the colour, and settle in. Bring a jacket: at 500 metres, the Hills mornings have a real bite by then.
