Adelaide & McLaren Vale
A Winter Long Weekend
JULY 2026
Four of us — two couples — flew across from Perth for five winter nights in South Australia. The plan was simple: two nights in the city, two in wine country, and one last night back in town, with the drive home routed through the Adelaide Hills.
It was a food-and-wine trip, but not a stuffy one — we leaned toward the funky and the fireside over anything formal.
July has one more trick up its sleeve: Illuminate Adelaide, the winter festival that lights the city for the whole month with a free after-dark trail of projections, glowing roving performers and interactive light art through the streets.
A note for anyone visiting Adelaide in winter: it's cold — around 7–8°C at night, 15°C by day. Pack layers, and bring a foldable esky if you plan to cook in. We did, and it earned its keep.
Day one — landing into the lights
We landed as the city was already dark, picked up the hire car, and made the fifteen-minute run into town to drop our bags at Quest on Franklin, a walk-everywhere CBD apartment.
What struck us straight away was how alive the city was. On a cold winter's night the streets were busy, the wine bars packed, and theatre-goers were squeezing in a quick meal before their shows. Adelaide had turned out.
Dinner was two stops on Leigh Street. We started at Udaberri for Spanish wine and pintxos, then moved next door to Shōbōsho, a Japanese live-fire izakaya, for the banquet — duck-potsticker dumplings, scallop sashimi, charred octopus and Wagyu. At both, the staff were genuinely attentive and friendly, which set the tone for the whole trip.
We'd hoped to walk the Illuminate light trail, but the rain had other ideas. We did stop to see the big projections lighting up Government House, then ducked out of the weather to 2KW, the rooftop bar atop 2 King William Street, for a drink and a view over the city.
Day two — a full city day
We started at the Adelaide Central Market, grazing for breakfast and stocking the esky for the cook-ins ahead. A short walk down North Terrace took us to the Art Gallery of South Australia for its winter exhibition, Monet to Matisse, then next door to the South Australian Museum.
Lunch was the main meal of the day at Osteria Oggi, a retro-Italian room we happily lingered in. We'd meant to catch Digital Abyss, an immersive underwater light installation at Light Square, but couldn't track it down in the end.
We had a glass at the Leigh Street Wine Room before live stand-up from Kanan Gill at the Festival Centre — ninety minutes, no interval, very funny. We'd thought about one last loop of the light trail, but the rain and a long day had caught up with us, so we called it a night.
Day three — south into the vines
We packed up, called in at the Sunday Showground Farmers Market for produce, then drove forty minutes south to McLaren Vale, one of Australia's oldest wine regions.
The afternoon centred on the d'Arenberg Cube — a five-storey puzzle of a building dropped surreally among the vines. It's the brainchild of fourth-generation winemaker Chester Osborn, who spent years turning a rough sketch into reality. It opened in 2017, and is designed to be as layered and puzzling as the business of making wine itself.
Inside is an exhibition of Salvador Dalí sculptures. I first saw Dalí's work in Austria back in 1994 and have been intrigued ever since by his warping of time and those famous melting clocks — though a long, unhurried lunch in wine country may be the one place I've found where time genuinely does seem to bend.
We tasted upstairs with 360-degree views over the vines, and the wines were exceptional — so much so that we joined the club, with a case of their premium reds now on its way home to Perth. Lunch followed at Singapore Circus, the Cube's South-East Asian restaurant.
Next was the Never Never Distilling Co. Sunday Session at Chalk Hill — Australia's most-awarded gin, poured on a hilltop lawn with live music.
Then to our home for the next two nights: The Highland at The Vineyard Retreat, a beautifully appointed two-bedroom house with a generous verandah looking straight over the vines. We couldn't have asked for more — a welcoming fire, underfloor heating in the bathrooms, and a very generous offering of fresh eggs, bacon and bread for breakfast.
Day four — the Shiraz Trail by e-bike
We'd hired e-bikes from SA eBikes, who delivered them to the house. The Shiraz Trail is a flat former rail line running through the vineyards to the old slate town of Willunga.
It was a wet start, though, so the bikes stayed on the verandah and we drove instead to Hardys for a tasting. One of McLaren Vale's oldest names, Hardys has been making wine here since Thomas Hardy took on the Tintara winery in the 1870s, and its cellar door carries all of that history.
By afternoon the sun had come out, so we finally got on the bikes and rode a 27-kilometre loop through the vineyards. Back at the house, we watched sunset from the jacuzzi and a second night cooking in by the fire.
Day five — the high road home
We took the scenic way back through the Adelaide Hills. First stop was Bracegirdle's in Hahndorf — Australia's oldest German settlement (1839) — for chocolate and a wander down the main street.
After a wine tasting at Shaw & Smith, we had lunch was at Marshi's Kitchen in Stirling, a Sri Lankan-accented spot on the village high street. Then to Cleland Wildlife Park to hand-feed kangaroos and emus and meet a koala up close, before a tasting at Penfolds Magill Estate, the historic home of Grange on the city's edge.
Our last night was on the far side of the Adelaide Central Market at Hotel Indigo Adelaide Markets — a Chinatown-edged pocket that felt like a completely different city, though it was only a few blocks from the Quest where we'd started. We had drinks at Proof before a share-plate dinner (and a tomahawk) at Part Time Lover.
Departure
We had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel and a gentle last morning before our early-afternoon flight. If you've the time — and a little more discipline than we managed — a factory tour at Haigh's Chocolates, Australia's oldest chocolate maker (going since 1915), is well worth it, and near-impossible to leave without stocking up.
We couldn't quite escape the rain, but Adelaide and McLaren Vale are fabulous places to visit and we had an excellent time. Five nights, two cities and a valley, with a wood fire in the middle of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment