claire and i headed up over the hill out of Adelaide to a small German settlement named Hahndorf. the community was established by Lutheran refugees in March 1839. the majority of the Hahndorf’s fifty-four founding families were passengers on the Zebra, the third ship of Lutheran immigrants to arrive in South Australia in 1838. The ship’s master, Captain Hahn, helped his passengers achieve their goal of settling together as a community to farm and worship their God as they wished. it is a quaint little community bustling with the weekend visitor traffic and activity. we liked it the moment we drove down the tree covered road which leads into the tiny town center – Main Street.

while perusing the various shops along the main street we decided to have a traditional German meal at the Hahndorf Inn – kransky’s, sauerkraut, potatoes and a very large beer for claire! somebody didn’t order the half pint as instructed. whoopsie! what do i know? pint, half pint…it was a glass of beer to me. anyways, a very fine meal if i don’t mind saying so. the sauerkraut reminds me of my childhood when mom used to make it as part of the family meal. i’m sure we’ll head back for another visit.

after our little meal, we headed down the street to the Hahndorf Candlemaker where our eyes got a good ol dose of eye candy overload. it is a wonderful little shop with candles a plenty as well as some other amazing German craftsmanship knick-knackery. we picked up a few lovely candles (one of which is burning in front of me as i type) and this amazing little hand carved tree sculpture along with a 6 pack of these cool little laser cut snowflake ornaments. the tree sculpture was hand carved in the small town Seiffen, Germany where the craftsman have to go through an intensive three year program to acquire the necessary skills.

the shop owners were lovely. very kind and helpful with all manner of inquiry. sadly, i didn’t get their names but i did get the business card of their husband/father, Eduard. so kind they were that when i inquired about the clown item lurking on the back shelf collecting dust in the dark (seen in the image above)  … they told me it was broken and that they didn’t have any more new ones. seeing my fascination and enthusiasm for the whole clown motif, they just gave it to me after a quick demo and explaining how it was broken. it is my hope that i’ll be able to get it repaired at some point because it does look like an amazing little animated bank.

after the lovely stop at the candleshop, we headed out to the studio of Sir Hans Heysen, a local artist we fell in love with when we saw some of his paintings in the local museum/art gallery. picked up a book of his works then called it a day as we had to get our little rental car back by 5pm. nice to have some free time to explore a little. ever since animation mentor started, free time has been something i’ve not really had. really have to enjoy it when the opportunity arises. being the first week of this new term, things aren’t that busy just yet.