About Hahndorf Walking Tours
Hahndorf Walking Tours (HWT) is a business providing visitors to Hahndorf (the most visited location in South Australia) with a memorable and personalised walking tour of this unique Germanic village.
Owner/operator, Sharon Pippos, commenced her walking tours to share the intriguing stories and Hahndorf’s history with curious visitors and discerning travellers.
On the walking tour, you’ll be rewarded with great memories and fantastic photographic opportunities to make your visit even more special.
South Australia has a wide choice of regional locations where you can stay but Hahndorf is certainly the jewel in the crown.
Every road to Hahndorf beckons you on, each corner revealing a new delight and a promise of more to come.
Swept aside from the charms of the Adelaide Hills, you arrive in Hahndorf where that promise is realised.
Sometimes it’s best to slow down and take it all in. Defy the ordinary, stay a while, and take the time to absorb the atmosphere.
A walking tour gives you the meaning and information to build your appreciation for any area you are visiting. This is even truer in Hahndorf.
The Owner, Sharon Pippos
On both sides of Sharon’s family tree, there are early South Australian colonists who came to Australia as British free settlers.
On her maternal side, David and Sarah Smith left Horsley, Gloucestershire, arriving with their family on the Lady Emma in 1837.
On the paternal side, John Hill left Sithney, Cornwall, on the Lady Bruce in 1846, later marrying Eliza Snell at the historic St James Church in Blakiston, only 10 km from Hahndorf. They, like many others, saw coming to South Australia as a great opportunity.
At an early age, this heritage was instilled in Sharon by her mother and over the years the interest in history grew.
In 1979, Sharon married Evangelos (Angelo) Pippos. They lived in four different rural areas of S.A. due to Angelo’s work as a police officer, Nurioopta, Ceduna (where their two children Jared and Leah were born), Hawker, and Naracoorte. In the year 2000, they returned to Adelaide for their children’s education and to pursue further career opportunities.
The Adelaide Hills had always held a real attraction to Sharon because of special childhood visits and eventually, Hahndorf was chosen to build their family home. Great Auntie Millie Caporn had been the matron of the first private hospital in Hahndorf so it had some family connection.
In 2006, whilst on holidays in Canada, Sharon took a walking tour with a local resident in the town of Jasper. This rekindled an idea originally sparked several years earlier whilst living in Hawker, the idea being to start a walking tour business. It was not until several years later, however, once her Social Science degree was completed, and both children had left college, that it was to come to fruition.
Knowledge for the tours was gained by reading many history books including those written by Hahndorf residents Reg Butler, Annie Luur Fox and the late Allen Wittwer; the story of the Prussian immigrants fleeing to South Australia to escape religious persecution.
In 2015, Sharon continued her research by visiting the Brandenburg area in Poland where the immigrants had fled. This story is very special to her own philosophy; the ability to live out one’s Christian faith.
Hahndorf Walking Tours was launched in readiness for the Heysen Festival in 2011.