Mengler’s Hill Lookout: What to See Before Your Barossa Wine Tour

In short: Mengler’s Hill Lookout sits above Tanunda and is home to the Barossa Sculpture Park, 17 sculptures set on the hillside with free entry and views running across the valley toward the sea. It’s the scenic break between cellar doors on a full day of tastings.

By the third cellar door of the day, most people need twenty minutes of not tasting wine.

Mengler’s Hill is where that happens. It’s ten minutes from Tanunda, it costs nothing, and it’s the only stop on a Barossa wine tour where you’re looking at the valley instead of drinking it. There’s also a sculpture park up there that a surprising number of people who’ve done the drive don’t know exists.

What’s actually up there

The Barossa Sculpture Park occupies the hillside at the lookout: 17 sculptures by Australian and international artists, set out across open grass among gum trees.

They’re large works in stone, mostly marble and granite, and they’re placed rather than fenced. You walk between them. Behind them the land drops away across vineyards and farmland and, on a clear day, keeps going toward the sea.

The combination is what makes the stop work. A lookout on its own is a five minute photo. A lookout with sculpture you can walk through gives you a reason to stay.

The story behind the sculptures

The original nine works came from the 1988 Barossa International Sculpture Symposium. Nine artists spent six weeks on the hill carving pieces from local marble and granite, working in the open where people could watch, and then donated the finished works to the community.

A second symposium ran in 2008 for the 20th anniversary, adding further pieces and widening the range of artists involved.

Countries represented across the two symposiums include:

• Australia
• Belgium
• Egypt
• United Kingdom
• Japan
• France
• United States

Getting there and what to expect

Mengler’s Hill Lookout is on Menglers Hill Road, in the hills between Tanunda and Angaston, close to the historic village of Bethany. The road up is sealed, winding and scenic in its own right, and it’s a popular cycling climb, so watch for riders on the bends.

• Entry is free. There’s no gate, no ticket and no opening hours.
• Parking is on site, in a sealed car park at the lookout.
• A short walking trail links the sculptures. It’s grass and gravel, gently sloping, and takes 15 to 20 minutes to wander.
• Facilities are minimal. Assume no toilets and no food. Bring a water bottle.

Best time to visit

Spring, autumn and winter are the comfortable seasons. The hilltop is exposed and there’s very little shade, so a January afternoon up there is hard work.

For light, go early morning or late afternoon. Mid-morning sun flattens the valley and washes out the depth that makes the view worth photographing. Late afternoon gives you long shadows across the vineyards and warm light on the stone, which is when the sculptures look their best too.

Winter mornings can deliver fog sitting in the valley below the lookout, which is the single best thing that happens up there and completely unpredictable.

Quick facts

Working it into the day

The trouble with Mengler’s Hill on a self-driven wine tour is that it’s the stop that gets cut.

You’ve got cellar doors closing at 4pm or 5pm, a lunch booking, and a lookout that doesn’t close at all. So the lookout goes last, and by the time you get up there it’s either dark or you’ve run out of day. The irony is that the stop you skipped is the one that would have broken up four hours of tasting.

Mengler’s Hill Lookout is a scheduled stop on our Wine and Food Lover’s Barossa Valley Tour, sequenced between cellar doors rather than tacked onto the end. It’s the point in the day where everyone gets out of the vehicle, walks around, and looks at something other than a tasting bench.

Frequently asked questions