Our friend Hamish comes from this area of Australia. He would disagree with that and tell you that he comes from Stirling, South Australia, not the Barossa Valley. But the two towns are only about 40 miles apart and in a country this large, I think that should qualify as “this area of Australia”.
Hamish is visiting his family, so we drove down to have dinner with all of them a couple nights ago. Whenever we tell anyone here in the Barossa that we visited Stirling, they kind of glaze over and say, “Oooh, that’s the Beverly Hills of South Australia.”
No doubt about it, Stirling is a gorgeous little town. Well, maybe it’s not large enough to properly be called a town. I guess if I call Angaston a village because it has only 1900 residents, Stirling must also be a village because it has only 2500 residents.
It’s in the Adelaide Hills about 15 miles southeast of Adelaide. It’s filled with lovely shops and restaurants and huge old houses built on twisting country roads amid the local forests.
It may be the Beverly Hills of South Australia, but we think it’s much nicer than its California namesake.