Skip to main content

Mount Lofty Botanic Garden & Stirling Hotel, Adelaide Hills, South Australia

View from the Noel Lothian Viewing Platform

My partner, Enigma and I stayed overnight one weekend at an Airbnb in the Adelaide Hills to attend a wedding and needed something to do the following day to make our stay more of a weekend away.

Enigma suggested a visit to the Mount Lofty Botanic Garden followed by lunch at the Stirling Hotel.

If you're curious about our Airbnb stay it was in a self contained guest house known as Borow in the township of  Uraidla. Definitely a very pleasant stay, but more functional than a relaxing getaway in itself. Best suited to someone touring the Hills region and just in need of somewhere comfortable to wind down at the end of the day that's more roomy and homelike than a hotel room.

Mount Lofty Botanic Garden

I've visited the Mount Lofty Summit several times over my last 23 years in SA, most recently as part of a guided bus tour, and I've never heard of the Mount Lofty Botanic Garden. Enigma and I were expecting something along the lines of the Adelaide Botanic Garden which is still quite substantial but only about half the size of the Mount Lofty Garden.

To be honest the Mount Lofty Garden is probably under rated as a tourist attraction with its varied skill level walking trails, impressive views, and public art sculptures scattered around the park. Lawn areas are expansive with plenty of seating, and tables for a family picnic.

Sculpture Guardian Figures by Greg Johns.
Sculpture: Guardian Figures by Greg Johns.

Enigma and I walked close to three kilometers, doing a lap around the park on the relatively easier bitumen covered trails. 

While we're not particularly plant aficionados we saw many plants labelled from around the world including sections from New Zealand, China, and South Africa.

On weekends and public holidays, 9am to 4pm, Spring through to Autumn, local chocolatier Bracegirdle’s park their bus in the lower carpark area should you wish to purchase lunch and refreshments on site.

Tip: If you're planning a visit, while Sunday is quite busy by about lunch time, it's the only day that parking is free. We arrived around 11am and there were still plenty of parking spots in the lower carpark.

The Stirling Hotel

Beef + Bacon Cheeseburger and Chips.
Image: The Stirling Hotel Instagram
After visiting the park, The Stirling Hotel was sort of in the direction of home. I think Enigma may have chosen this on a recommendation from a friend at the wedding.

For a Sunday lunchtime in the hills, on a nice (but cool) day, the hotel was pretty busy, however, we were able to find a table in the casual seating area (without a reservation) with no trouble.

As well as hotel lunch and dinner food staples The Stirling has an entire Pizza menu if that is more your style as well as vegan options too.

Pricing is pretty standard inline with most SA hotels. Enigma and I both ordered the beef + bacon cheese burger with chips to continue our unofficial quest to try all the burgers not made by fast food chains in SA.

They were very nice. Not as big a bun as some places we've been to but definitely more than enough to fill you up.

The atmosphere of the hotel was particularly good with real fireplaces keeping guests warm even in the out door deck areas.

Named Hotel of the Year at the 2022 AHA|SA Awards so, if you need more than my recommendation that's probably enough to at least give it a try.

---o ---o--- o---

All in all a morning walk around Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens followed by lunch at The Stirling Hotel made for a very pleasant Sunday before we headed back home. Highly recommend it.
TET Life Topics:

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments are moderated by an actual human (me, TET) and may not publish right away. I do read all comments and only reject those not directly related to the post or are spam/scams (I'm looking at you Illuminati recruiters... I mean scammers. Stop commenting on my Illuminati post!).

Buy Gifts and Apparel featuring art by TET.

Popular posts from this blog

How to Transfer Any Line Art to Your Griptape - Easy Skateboard Griptape Art Tutorial

Dog Star Griptape Art by TET Griptape art is once again gaining popularity amongst modern skateboarders. For those of us who have tried to create our own griptape art, using paint pens, you'll know reproducing your design onto the grip, without making any mistakes is incredibly challenging. Mostly because you just have to go for it and draw the design freehand, with paint pens, directly onto the griptape. You can make the odd mistake here or there but if you get the proportions of the design completely wrong, it can be very difficult to fix. Often you just have to live with the mistake. To address the problem I've come up with an easy way anyone can transfer a line art design to their griptape, removing almost all the anxiety of getting the proportions wrong. In fact, you could do this with any line art design, even if you have no drawing skill at all. Watch the video below to see my technique in action and/or skip past the video where I highlight the basic steps to get your de
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Guest Post: New Novel - Alias Jeannie Delaney - Book 2 - The Outlaw's Return

A lmost a year ago I featured Go West Girl , Book 1 of author, Kit Mackenzie's Alias Jeannie Delaney series. Now, the next book in the series,  Alias Jeannie Delaney - Book 2 - The Outlaw's Return , is soon to be released in August, and is available for pre-order on Amazon. If you love a powerful female lead in a traditional western packed with action and adventure, this is the novel for you. The story centers on Cowgirl Jeannie Morgan who grew up in Coyote Creek, Wyoming, where she became persecuted for her lethal gun and a sexuality that swings both ways. Tomboy beautiful and tough as the nails in a miner's boots, she is on the run with a bunch of boys who would die for her. Her snake strike gun, soul-slicing gaze and dangerous magnetism leaves a trail of intense emotions, killings and would-be death threats in her wake. Heading south, she finds herself becoming a legend. She's in deep trouble, but her home town demands her return and they pin a badge on her. It'
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Skateboard Trick Tips: Two Ways to Ollie North (Ollie One foot)

You have to be quick to see my Ollie Norths! Ollie One Foots, otherwise known as the Ollie North, is one of those skateboard tricks you learn and then tend not to do very much as more interesting trick challenges grab your attention. However it does look really cool if you learn how to kick your front foot well past the nose of your skateboard. Still shot from Braille Skateboarding's Ollie North tutorial. I was inspired to make my video below, showing two different techniques to achieve a successful Ollie One Foot, when I not only saw that Braille Skateboarding's Tutorial used a different method to the one I had learned but also, when I looked at various other video tutorials, I discovered yet another technique, with no one using the method I had originally learned. Braille's method is to simply Ollie and drag your front foot past the front of your board. The second method I came across in several video tutorials is to Ollie, drag your front foot and tap your
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

I'm Joining the Illuminati Brotherhood By Personal Invitation of Hiltom Rothschild... Wait, What?

How special am I to have finally come of age (53 years young) and am now eligible to participate in building the world alongside other members of the Illuminati Brotherhood... Yes I've received the call by way of an email, which I'm sure is real because I had to translate it from the Dutch language and it was personally written by Hiltom Rothschild, one of the non-existent members of the Rothschild family (or perhaps deep undercover because Google has never heard of them?). A Transcript of the email below: To: etourist From: Illuminati Brotherhood  Subject: Illuminati Broederschap (Illuminati Brotherhood) I am Hiltom Rothschild, a member of the Rothschild family, one of the 13 families of the Illuminati brotherhood. I'm here to let you know that you've come of age and are eligible to participate in building the 🌎 world. It is a calling and a privilege to honor him with pride and gratitude as not everyone will ever be chosen by the LIGHT, many are called but few are ch
1 comment
Continue Reading »

Robot Uprising Update: Robot Waiter, Fasta Pasta, South Terrace, Adelaide CBD, South Australia

On the second evening of my partner, Enigma, and I's weekend stay in Adelaide we decided to have dinner at Fasta Pasta . Strangely enough our hotel staff, at the Alba, had not mentioned Fasta Pasta as an option for an evening meal while their restaurant is closed for refurbishment, even though it is literally next door on the corner of South Terrace and Pultney Street. You may be aware that Fasta Pasta is an upmarket Italian restaurant franchise with its beginnings in Adelaide. Currently they have 19 restaurants Australia wide (with the majority in South Australia - we even have one in Gawler, our home town). I've never had bad food at a Fasta Pasta, and their food never looks like a franchise meal. You always feel you're at a restaurant that's a little bit more quality than your typical hotel/motel meal. Maybe it's because you don't see as much pasta based meals on an Aussie pub menu. Despite the name, it's not all pasta. I went with a basic plate of fish a
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Four Years into a Post Pandemic World and Secondary COVID-19 Might be a Thing?

Social distancing 2020 style. A fter not being too far from COVID-19, potentially patient zero in Australia back in 2020. Four years later my partner finally tested positive for the virus. Then I inevitably caught it as well. You might think, so what, but I'm honestly surprised we've lasted this long. My partner works at an aged care facility that has fought off numerous outbreaks over the years, and continues to do so. Workers at her facility take RAT tests daily so you know pretty quick if you test positive. Workers then have to isolate at home for at least seven days until they're clear. COVID-19 symptoms can vary in intensity and you may not get the full range (at least to my knowledge and experience). My partner seemed to get it fairly bad with tiredness, aching joints, loss of taste and smell, along with cold and flu like symptoms (sore throat, congestion etc). While we did try to social distance, keeping our distance, hand washing, and not sleeping in the same room
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

The First US Presidential Debate 2024 - America You're Standing In It

M ost of the time I get my fill of American political news from clips of The Daily Show , which I know many people accuse of being more political left leaning than balanced with its humour. As such it was my first port of call when looking for commentary on the recent, first US Presidential debate for 2024. I say first because I don't know if they'll do another one. I'd strongly advise they don't. Getting your news from a comedy show isn't ideal, even one as arguably intelligent as The Daily Show, because they're focussed on what can be laughed at, more than serious analysis. As such their coverage very well could be making both candidates look more foolish than they may actually be. As such I decided to watch the full replay of the debate so I could get more of a sense of who both candidates are and how they come across in, what should be, their ideal platform - debating the opposition. Before Donald Trump became President I was a fan. I watched every season o
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »