SA Weekend: After the fires — How the Adelaide Hills is chasing the tag of ‘Wellness Capital’ of SA
The Adelaide Hills wants to be known as our state’s ‘Wellness Capital’ with a new festival. Meet the people and groups helping rebuild after the 2019 bushfires.
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The first green shoots came soon after the fire, vivid patches of life emerging from the blackened scrub.
The healing, however, took much longer and remains very much a work in progress.
The Cudlee Creek bushfire, which started just after 9am on December 20, 2019, was ferocious.
It was hot – over 40 degrees in many parts of the Adelaide Hills and an almost unfathomable 47 on some parts of the plains – and the scrub was tinder dry thanks to record low December rainfalls.
By 12.05pm the fire had reached Lobethal. It was at Brukunga by 2.45. By 7.20pm it was threatening Mt Torrens.
By morning it was largely under control, although breakouts and flare ups continued for more than a week.
More than 20,000ha were scorched, 85 homes were lost, 51 firefighters were injured and, tragically, one person lost their life.
For the close-knit towns of the Hills the first instinct was to help. Help rebuild sheds and fences, help house those who lost homes, help the orchardists and winemakers who lost the fruit that is a lifeblood of the region.
But then came the time to heal.
To take stock of what – beyond the physical – had been damaged by the bushfire, and to start again.
The inaugural Wellness Wander aims to do both: to help rebuild and promote industries and businesses ravaged by the fires, and to continue the community’s healing.
Beyond this, it also aims to transform the fire-affected into the “Wellness Capital” of South Australia.
With more than 75 events spread across three days – April 1 to 3 – there is everything from intimate degustation dinners in a giant bird’s nest to extreme mountain biking.
For a community which has endured so much, it is an extraordinary effort.
“Days after the fire went through we saw the worst of nature,” Adelaide Hills Tourism Association chairman Martin Radcliffe says.
“But we saw the very best of humanity as people came together to do extraordinary things.
“Resilience, collaboration and adaptation that has since carried on in this Wellness Wander project.”
Phoebe Conway, Hills-based nutritionist, popular food blogger, photographer and recipe developer, says it also offers the perfect chance for wider Adelaide to reacquaint itself with the region, given she is constantly discovering her own hidden treasures.
“Despite growing up in the Adelaide Hills, my love affair with the region grows year on year as I discover new local growers and producers who are doing delicious things, operators that are producing connected and thoughtful activations and events, and the ever changing scenery that simply takes my breath away season to season,” she says.
“There is so much to showcase here and I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.”
Golding Wines
“I guess we were prepared as well as we could be, but when it arrives it’s a whole new level of experience. I don’t think you’re ever ready for something like that,” says Darren Golding, standing on a hill overlooking the vineyard in the Lenswood appellation into which he and wife Lucy have poured 30 years of blood, sweat and tears.
In return the land gave them renowned cool climate wines including their award-winning La Francesca Savagnin.
On December 20, 2019, Golding watched as the fire front approached Golding Wines, sending a rain of embers ahead of it and sparking spotfires all over the property.
“Suddenly there’s a fire over here, a fire over there and you’re like ‘where the f--k did that come from?’,” he says
The blaze burned some patches of the vineyard and left other parts untouched, but the heat and smoke meant that the entire vintage ended up in the bin.
“We chopped them off and we’re regrowing them where we can,” Golding says.
“Some spots didn’t come back where the heat was too intense. It’s a bit of a trial – you cut them off and see what comes back. If they’re grafted you can’t do that though, you have to pull them out.”
All up about 90 per cent of the vineyard will have to be reworked or replaced.
“You put 30 years into growing it, and over that time you develop a structure that you grow the fruit on and that’s what we’ve lost,” he said.
“You get to a point where you fine tune what you do every year, and if you lose all of that you also lose the nuance and subtlety.”
With the fire year being a complete write-off, the 2020-21 summer yielded around 50 tonnes of fruit, a sharp decline from Golding Wines’ usual 300 tonnes.
This summer is looking good for 100 tonnes, with Golding expecting a return to a normal pick in about two years.
One thing the Goldings didn’t lose was their rustic and beautiful cellar door, featuring stunning Basket Range stone walls painstakingly erected by Golding himself.
It was, he said, the result of both good preparation and good luck. Others in the area weren’t so lucky though, losing their homes and everything they owned in the blaze.
“It’s one thing to have a business burn, but it’s a whole other thing to lose your house,” he says.
“People who worked for us lost their homes, so that was difficult. We did our best to help them out.”
Golding says the Wellness Wander, which for him mixes world class wine, food, a private outdoor space that will “have you reminiscing of childhood tree houses, and even some yoga”, is also a chance to showcase what the region has to offer and get people back into the fire-affected area.
“Initiatives like this are great to build awareness of what goes on up here, and it dovetails very well with the high-end experiences we’ve developed,” he says.
“With fires and Covid and export issues, it’s been a rollercoaster couple of years, but maintaining positivity and enthusiasm is important, and this is part of that.”
Nourish Nido Experience
The Golding Wine’s Nido Experience is like no other. Lose yourself in the beauty of their Western Branch Vineyard as you while away an afternoon encased in a whimsical handwoven nest, nestled among the trees on the highest slopes of the Goldings’ property.
Find balance with “Yoga, Bubbles and Brunch”. Awaken your body with mindful movement to nature’s soundtrack of morning bird chorus. Jen from Roaming Zen will guide you through a 45 minute yoga practice for every body and everyone. There is nothing more nourishing for the soul than to practice outdoors.
Fabrik
There’s a space in the old Onkaparinga Woollen Mill in Lobethal that was known as the Mending Room.
It was here that workers laid out the rolls of the distinctive woven checked fabric that was destined to become Onkaparinga blankets and fixed any tiny flaws in the weave.
And it was here, in the Mending Room, decades later where the people of Lobethal came together after the fire that almost consumed their town to heal a community.
For Melinda Rankin, the director of Fabrik – the arts hub that now occupies part of the old woollen mill – it makes for a touching synergy.
More than that, though, it demonstrated the power of art to be so much more than an aesthetic pursuit.
Rankin wasn’t in Lobethal on December 20, 2019, but the date is etched in her memory nonetheless.
“I work for Adelaide Hills Council, and our policy is that on a catastrophic day we close,” she says.
“So I was at home thinking, ‘Lobethal is a designated safe place. What am I doing at home when I could be working?’
“Then I saw the news photos starting to come in … they were terrible.
“I have a screenshot of the CFS burn map and Lobethal was surrounded. You couldn’t get in or out without going through the fire grounds.”
At one point there was a line of 30 firefighters protecting the Onkaparinga Woollen Mill, which now houses cheesemakers Udder Delights, microbrewery Lobethal Bierhaus and other small businesses.
You only have to look at the blackened trees on the ridge directly behind the building to see how close the flames were.
“This is a food site now, and they were protecting this knowing that recovery is better if there are jobs,” she says.
“That’s a hard choice that firefighters have to make.”
Rankin says that directly following the fire much of the community was operating on adrenalin, with much of the immediate recovery effort being well meaning but ad hoc.
“It was slightly chaotic,” she says. “People just really felt the need to do something.
“For me there was this big question of, ‘how can the tools that an arts organisation has help the town and the community when it’s facing challenges?’. That was something I came in to the job thinking about, obviously not knowing that there was going to be a natural disaster.
“We can’t rebuild houses, put food on tables, but there must be a role that the arts can play.”
Enter the Mending Room, which became a hub for the Lobethal community to come together, access resources and help and, perhaps most importantly, share their stories with a friendly face over a cup of tea.
“We knew this fire’s recovery would have a long tail, and we had these spaces that we could offer,” Rankin says.
“The fact that this was in the Mending Room was a great layering of history.”
Connect and Create with Nature
Start your day at Fabrik in the former woollen mill for a session of drawing yoga facilitated by Tammy Pahl of Blooming Hearts Yoga. Using large sheets of paper and pastels, each movement is an opportunity for mark-making in this good for the body and soul session.
The second location is the home of soul food. Emma & Ivy cafe is set to nourish for lunch with a range of delicious and nutritious options.
Our third location is Bushland Park. Cherished by the community, Bushland Park is one of the largest reserves of bushland in the Onkaparinga Valley. Here Wellness Wanderers can connect with the regenerating natural environment with a mindfulness session, and join artist Donna Gordge for a workshop on botanically inspired watercolour painting.
fox creek
When the fire ripped through forestry land at Fox Creek it destroyed more than pine plantations and native forest, it destroyed the home of South Australian mountain biking.
With some 48km of trails ranging from user-friendly slopes to extreme and challenging downhill runs, Fox Creek attracted about 20,000 riders a year.
The fire burned infrastructure and felled hundreds of trees on the trails, but two years of hard work has seen Fox Creek rise from the ashes, better than ever.
“Pretty much the whole forest reserve precinct – and plenty more – turned black,” Forestry SA chief executive Julian Speed says.
“And we’ve been told over and over again that the bike park was a big part of what the locals feel like they lost in that fire.”
Speed says Forestry SA has an ethos of allowing public use of forested land, so bringing back the bike trails was always a priority, but it would have been a much slower process had it not been for the commitment and enthusiasm of the community groups that used the tracks.
“Fallen trees and branches were the main concern, and we had to implement a complete closure of the bike park after the fire,” he says.
“That was the main reason it has taken so long to get to this point.
“But this precinct has really been developed by volunteers – with support from Forestry – and the theme of building it back better has also been driven by community groups and mountain bike clubs.”
Speed says the park is probably already busier than it would have been had the fire not forced the redevelopment, and a renewed interest in outdoor activity and cycling driven by the pandemic meant the park’s future was looking bright.
Ian Fehler owns Escapegoat Adventures, a company based around mountain biking experiences.
One of the services Fehler provides is a shuttle service from the bottom of the Fox Creek trail network to the top, saving riders’ legs and allowing them to get many more runs in on a day’s cycling.
He says the Fox Creek fires of 2019 closed down a big part of his business, ending the shuttle runs but also slowing down international tourism as people overseas watched a big chunk of Australia burn through the summer.
Now, with Fox Creek back online, and growing interest in mountain biking in SA and across the country, he says the region has huge potential for growth.
“Here you have everything in one place,” Fehler says.
“It was totally devastating for the mountain biking community when the fire hit, and while we’re not quite back to where we were before the fire, what we do have now is better.”
Fox Creek Trails Mountain Biking Adventure
Immerse yourself in the great outdoors and try your hand at an adventure-based activity that will stretch your comfort zone and result in a satisfying sense of achievement.
In this morning of mountain biking in nature, Escapegoat Adventures will provide you with a quality mountain bike and shuttle you and a small group up to the top of the Mountain Bike Park at Fox Creek. From there, the friendly and experienced guide will lead you expertly down the trails.
After a couple of hours on the trails, we will relax together over a slow lunch, taking in the region and enjoying its nourishing food and world-class wine.
HOT PICKS
Balance | Yoga, Bubbles and Brunch
Golding Wines is hosting Roaming Zen Yoga sessions on its picturesque lawns, surrounded by gardens and vineyards.
Fig Orchard Wellness
Glen Ewin Estate is hosting a guided journey through the fig orchard followed by breakfast or lunch.
Nourish | A Mindfulness Experience
This event at Tilbrook Estate is a collaboration between physiotherapist Georgie Davidson and Tilbrook Estate’s Annabelle Tilbrook, who is a practising occupational therapist. It will continue as the sun sets with local produce-inspired canapes and
wine.
Connection to Country at Laratinga Wetlands
A cultural walk through the magnificent wetlands, which will provide an authentic glimpse of the relationship between the Peramangk people and the gum trees, reeds, plants, hunting and gathering, and the laws of the land.
Forest Bathing at The Cedars
Bronwyn Paynter, of Flourish, Nature-based OT, hosts a forest bathing experience in the landscape that inspired landscape artist Sir Hans Heysen at The Cedars, Hahndorf.
Mindfulness in an Equine Environment
Away from the hustle and bustle of the city, and far from work, this experience aims to help you soak in the peace and stillness of being in nature and being around animals to gain clarity and replenish your spirit.
Wellness on Wheels
A guided tour through Hahndorf on electronic bikes which takes in iconic sites in the town and also samples local produce from some of the best Adelaide Hills producers.
Busting Myths of Masculinity
Facilitated by Jonathan Dallwitz, and hosted on the day by Jody Rollings, pilot, farmer and strong advocate for men’s mental health, this five-hour session will be hosted at Rollingsview, near Wistow.
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Discover the best dining, drinks, produce and foodie experiences near you in a mouth-watering new take on the Delicious 100 list and vote for your favourite.
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