Adelaide Hills Blocks: Rock, Slopes and the Bushfire Season
From Stirling to Mount Barker the ground is shale and quartzite a spade deep, the blocks are steep and the CFS wants fuel managed. Machines, breakers and the calendar for the Hills.
Twenty minutes up the freeway from the city the ground changes completely. The Adelaide Hills are the eroded stump of an ancient mountain range, and the rock that made it is a spade's depth under most blocks from Stirling and Crafers through Mount Barker to Lobethal and Woodside.
The rock
Shale, siltstone, quartzite and sandstone, tilted and folded, sometimes weathered to a gravelly clay and sometimes hard enough to stop a bucket dead. Quartzite ridges are the hardest; shale in the valleys rips and digs. A test hole with a bar tells you which you have.
Tools: a ripper first, a toothed bucket second, and a hydraulic breaker sized for the machine for anything solid. The R18 PRO runs a breaker; the R22 PRO runs it better; the R32 PRO with a breaker is the Hills contractor's machine.
The slopes
Hills blocks are steep, and the driveway, the house pad and the retaining walls are the first three jobs on every new block. Work up and down the slope, keep the blade downhill, widen the tracks and treat every fresh cut as unstable after rain. A tilt bucket shapes batters and driveway crossfalls without moving the machine.
Winter
The Hills get twice Adelaide's rainfall and a real winter: mud from June to September, frosts, and clay that will not carry a machine on a lawn. Do deep and steep work in autumn and spring; use winter for drainage, rock and hard-stand jobs.
Bushfire season
The Hills are among the highest bushfire-risk areas in the state. The Country Fire Service and local councils expect fuel managed around buildings, and the Mount Barker and Adelaide Hills councils enforce it. A skid steer with a brush cutter takes grass and scrub down before the November deadline; a 4-in-1 bucket or blade scrapes breaks; a grapple and chipper deal with the timber. On days of Total Fire Ban, machinery use in grass and bush is restricted.
Typical Hills jobs
Driveways and cross-drains, house pads, retaining walls, footings in rock, water tanks and pits, orchard and small-farm work around Lenswood and Woodside, and the estate landscaping of Mount Barker.
Machines
The R22 PRO for most Hills blocks, the R32 PRO with a cab and breaker for contractors and rock, and an RS06 skid steer for fuel reduction and material handling. See the Adelaide Hills area guide and the breakers that fit each model.