Situated in the delightful upper reaches of the
Hunter Valley, 269km north-west of Sydney, Scone is on the New England Highway, north-west of Muswellbrook.
In keeping with its status as the capital of one of the world’s largest thoroughbred breeding centres, Scone holds a terrific horse festival each May which attracts equine lovers from around the world and culminates in the running of the Scone Cup on the town’s racecourse.
Visit the Historical Society Museum in town, built in the 1860s as a jail, and zip up the road 20km to see Burning Mountain, where an underground coal seam has been smouldering for something like five thousand years, and is often mistaken for an active volcano. A must-do is a stroll along the 3.5km walking track over the burning coal seam. Burning Mountain is steeped in aboriginal mythology associated with The Stone Woman of Wingen. In an Aboriginal dialect, the word Wingen means fire.
Find out more about the
Hunter Valley.
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