Armidale to Muswellbrook  27^th November 2014 

Armidale to Musweelbrook

We left the city of Armidale and headed south to Muswellbrook (pronounced as Musselbrook by the locals) a journey of 266 km, passing through Tamworth and Scone. The landscape changed from the lush fields in the New England National Park to scorched plains and hills.

Parched landscape

Tamworth from Oxley Lookout

Tamworth is quite large and is the centre of Australian country music and every January music lovers turn up to contest the coveted “Golden Guitar” award.  This supposedly takes place at the Oxley Outlook, overlooking the town, but many other venues in the town are used. 

Golden Guitar in Tamworth

The town is also famous for being the first town in the southern hemisphere to have electric street lighting from a municipal powerhouse; this took place in 1888. The river running through the town is the Peel and is apparently named after Sir Robert Peel, who later became PM of England.

We took a morning coffee in a café on Peel Street, which was largely occupied by retired ladies.  To get to the toilet one had to go through a large back room where other elderly ladies were practising their quilting skills with electric sewing machines.  As with many of these cafes that we have frequented they double as shops selling books, paintings or knick-knacks as well as teas, coffee and cakes.  

Not too far from Muswellbrook is the town of Scone and this is a very famous as an equestrian centre and the seriously rich like the Emirates rear and train their horses there.

Emirates Park in Scone

Muswellbrook is a spread out town with a population of around 11,000. Both Muswellbrook and Scone are in the Upper Hunter Valley region and a number of wineries are close by. 

The recommendation from the host was to eat at either the Golf or the Workers Clubs, we chose the former and had really good Thai meals.  The golf looked cheap but the club house doesn’t open until 10:30am, hardly the pressure for golf facilities that one gets in the SE of England!