Tag Archives: Hahndorf

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Under the Blonde Light by a Hahndorf Bakery

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Running up the main street, noting the folk sat outside various coffee shops, I then veer about by Otto’s Bakery.

An American was explaining something to a passive local sitting and eating toast about four seats away. He seemed confident and had a rich voice like he had, or thought he should have, his own podcast. Aproned people were wiping down the tables outside both pubs leaving glistening trails of cleanliness ready for the lunchtime slop of unwieldy German steins.

The once-drowsy slumber of the evening had vanished, giving way to the bustling dawn of a Tuesday.

Amidst this tumbling tableau a woman passed me going the other way along the footpath. In a whirl of forceful purpose, she was striding fast but reading her book as she went. It was a rare sight, a fusion of worlds, an embodiment of the allure of a solitary journey amidst the written word.

I love early mornings.

Some are taken in nature like Saturday on parkrun dissecting the pine forest by the Myponga Reservoir and mornings like today as a town awakes and smiling hospitality staff scurry about. I run through it all.

Turning by the Otto’s bakery at the top of the street, suddenly a golden, soft light was behind me and bathed the scene with warmth that carried profound love and unornamented joy and you, Claire. It was a welcome alchemy, and a transcendent instant.

In that moment, I was spirited away across continents, to Italy, to a morning much like this one, perhaps in Monterosso on the Cinque Terre. Meandering about with a coffee along narrow lanes we looked at those charming shops and Mediterranean homes and funny little three-wheeled utes for which I found curious affection.

Those unsophisticated amblings during which we spoke of our surroundings and the day ahead and sometimes directed our chat back home. And you were the only person I knew in that entire country, that foreign soaring land, and I wondered how younger me would have been astonished and surprised but grateful beyond expression.

One day soon Claire we’ll be in Hahndorf, and in a minor pilgrimage I’d like to point out the spot by Otto’s Bakery where Italy, you and the remarkable gift that is each day came together in a singular, luminous moment.

Scampering back that bright second metamorphosed to a meditation, and then a prayer offering thanks for all that’s transpired and all that’s to be.

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Sentimentality and alienation in Adelaide pub architecture

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I’ve just discovered my new favourite place in my old favourite place.

Now in its third year the Broady beer garden is always a delight. Week’s end; a brisk hour; Saturday and Sunday stretching out with languid promise.

Claire and I took up residence last Friday around 5pm and found ourselves at a wooden bench by the back wall. With the noise washing over and about us and the throng surging we were in a captivating little nook. The effect of the foliage was to secret us and intensify our isolation and we became distant witnesses to the garden’s spectacle, and the muffled, if deafening drama and comedy.

I was reminded of Jordan, the glamorous, but golf-cheat character from The Great Gatsby who whispers: And I like large parties. They’re so intimate.

A beer garden should enable theatre and connection and sometimes even privacy. The Broady’s does this. The space allows gregarious but also discreet moments.

The Hahndorf Old Mill Hotel is a big pub on the main street of this lovely old Germanic town in the Adelaide Hills.

Alex and I were up there last Saturday. He’s just turned thirteen and to mark this we drove up for the afternoon and evening. We wandered about and made our compulsory visit to the Fruchoc Shop and I said, “Where would you like lunch?”

Helpfully, he replied, “In there” as the Old Mill Hotel appeared.

Hahndorf is historic and there’s a constant architectural aesthetic across the main drag with charming evocations of Bavaria through dark timbers and inviting warm places and Hofbräu available in big steins.

But, I will never understand how the hideous glass and metal roof of this inn was ever allowed. It’s vaguely 1980’s in its visual impact or more likely inspired by the Jupiter 2 from cult sci-fi TV series Lost in Space.

What is it doing in this genteel, rustic village?

It can only have been designed by the evil Dr. Smith. Will Robinson and the robot (the real star of the programme) would look on in horror before we’d hear, “Warning! Warning” Judy would have (again) sought comfort in the arms of the gruff and unloveable pilot Don West, who openly hated Dr. Smith.

Gee, it was a complex social ecosystem on the Jupiter 2.

Even Penny’s chimpanzee-like alien pet named Debbie would have put its hands or long ears over its eyes at the sight of The Hahndorf Old Mill Hotel’s ugly roof.