Crafers Accommodation, Hotels, Tours & Information

Crafers

Largely regarded as the gateway to the Adelaide Hills, Crafers is one of the oldest towns in the region. Adelaide's highest peak, Mount Lofty Summit (710 metres), is a three minute drive from Crafers, and there is an excellent Visitor Information Centre and cafe at its peak. Other Crafers attractions include the Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens - which has an extensive collection of deciduous trees, rhododendrons and a fern gully - and wonderful Cleland Wildlife Park, where you can see and interact with South Australian wildlife, including koalas and kangaroos. The nearby market gardens and vineyards of Piccadilly and Summertown provide an ideal backdrop for a scenic drive, and the picturesque Mount Lofty Golf Course is nearby. Crafer's first building was the Sawyers Hotel, built by David Crafer in 1839 and just three years after South Australia was settled. The gathering place of ﾑtiersmen' (timber cutters) who worked the Stringy Bark forests that covered the hills, the pub was a popular haunt for the colony's cattle thieves, sly grog merchants and bushrangers, who took refuge in the relative isolation of the Hills. A village quickly grew around the pub and, in 1840, Crafers built a second inn and the Norfolk Hotel, but this burnt down in 1926. In 1880 the Crafers Inn was built and it has remained a popular watering hole to this day.