A place-based practice in the Adelaide Hills
Hills Pause
Walk. Notice. Make something.
A series of gentle, place-based walks in the Adelaide Hills. Move slowly, pay attention, and let each landscape give you something to notice.
No dates are currently scheduled. Contact Pierre to register your interest in the first Hills Pause walk.
A series of local walks
Different places. The same invitation.
Hills Pause is a growing collection of guided walks for people who live in, work in or visit the Adelaide Hills. Each one uses a real place as the starting point for a slower kind of attention: walking, noticing and making something small.
How the series works: every Hills Pause walk follows the same simple rhythm — arrive, walk, pause, notice, make something, return.
Walk 01 · wetlands and poetry
Woorabinda Lake
A gentle circuit in Stirling, with wetlands, a bird hide and the Poetry Bench. The established 660-metre loop becomes a 90-minute invitation to slow down and pay attention.
Explore the five pauses
Walk 02 · being explored
Mount Lofty Botanic Garden
The strongest candidate is the Garden’s Lakeside Loop: approximately 1 km, with minimal inclines, a flat bitumen path, sculptures and braille interpretation. The lower entrance on Lampert Road is the most suitable starting point for access, parking and toilets.
This is not yet offered as a Hills Pause walk. The route still needs an in-person check for stopping places, sound, shade, group flow and the practical conditions of a guided session.
We are looking for quiet, accessible walks around Stirling and the Adelaide Hills. Send a suggestion.
Walk 01 · participant information
Before the Woorabinda walk
Everything below belongs to the Woorabinda Lake experience: how to arrive, what to expect, and the five pauses that shape the 90-minute circuit.
Before you come
A gentle, ordinary walk.
Wear comfortable shoes and weather-appropriate clothing. Bring water. The route is established and mostly flat, but it includes natural ground and short boardwalk sections. We walk slowly and stop often; this is not a fitness walk.
Meet at the Woorabinda Drive car park entrance, Stirling SA 5152. Toilets and parking are available nearby. Writing, speaking and photography are optional. Please ask before registering if you have access needs or concerns about weather, walking distance or leaving early.
Before you come
Nothing to achieve.
Hills Pause is not a fitness walk, a class or a test. You do not need previous mindfulness experience. The invitation is simply to walk at an unhurried pace, notice what is already here, and make something small if you feel like it.
Meet at the Woorabinda Drive car park entrance, Stirling SA 5152. Wear comfortable shoes and weather-appropriate clothing. Paper and pencils can be supplied.
Find the place
See Woorabinda Lake for yourself.
The route diagram shows the experience. For the actual location, open the map service you use and choose the layer that helps you understand the place: street map, satellite or terrain.
The guided circuit
Five pauses around the lake
Move through these invitations in order, or linger wherever the place asks you to.
01StartArrive and welcome
Let your arrival be part of the experience. Feel your feet on the ground. Notice the pace you have brought with you, without needing to change it immediately.
What would it be like not to rush the next ten minutes?
02North and east shoreListen and see
Walk quietly for a little while. Let your attention move between your feet, the air on your skin, the sounds around you, the trees and the water.
Notice three sounds without needing to name them.
03South-eastern sideBird hide pause
At the bird hide, stop looking for something special. Rest your eyes on what is already in front of you. Let the quiet be ordinary.
What changes when you stop trying to find something interesting?
04Southern cornerPoetry Bench
At the Poetry Bench / Deidre’s Seat, you may write a few words, sketch, make a haiku or simply sit. Nothing has to be good, finished or shared.
If this place could leave you one small sentence, what might it say?
05ReturnCarry one thing back
Walk back at an easy pace. If something catches your attention, you may take one photograph. Or let the moment remain only in memory.
What did you notice that you might otherwise have missed?
A real place, not a backdrop
The Poetry Bench
The bench gives the walk a quiet centre. It offers a place to stop and write, but it does not ask anyone to perform. A sentence, a sketch, a haiku or a few minutes of stillness are all enough.
Writing, speaking and photography are always optional.
to what is
already here.
After the walk
What was your experience?
Your response helps improve Hills Pause. You may keep it private, or give permission for Pierre to consider it for the “What walkers say” section below. Responses are reviewed before anything is published.
What walkers say
A space for shared experience
No responses have been published yet. This space will grow only from words people have chosen to share.