On the way to four wars in the Hunter Valley The Bear samples some fun roads on a Yamaha Ténéré World Raid 700 with a 700-plus km loop to check out Hunter Warbirds Museum...
Bear Tracks | In the Upper Hunter Valley, just outside Scone you can find combatants from four major wars, all under one roof. The wars are WW1 and 2 and the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the combatants are aircraft. The place is Hunter Warbirds, it’s well worth a visit.
Hunter Warbirds is a huge dark grey hangar at Scone Memorial Airport; most of its displays are somehow connected to the Hunter Valley – mostly by way of the RAAF base at Williamtown.
Check out the Hunter Warbirds website here…
Just as the collection at Warbirds covers a variety of conflicts, so you will find that the roads to get there and back offer variety. I tried to find as many different ones, and enjoyed them all – even the freeway stretches, because they were not long. On a really hot day – the thermometer in the instrument display of my Ténéré 700 got to 40 degrees, and I had no trouble believing it – the freeway can offer some cooling wind. Although I have to admit that it didn’t seem to cool me all that much…
Getting out of Sydney to go north doesn’t offer many alternatives, and I took the obvious one: the Sydney-Newcastle Freeway. The last thing I wanted was red lights. At the Freemans Waterhole exit I left the freeway and stopped at the venerable Oak Milk Bar, just a few hundred metres down the road. Coffee and one of the plain but probably healthy cakes set me up for the next stretch through grazing land and bush to Kurri Kurri and on to the new Hunter Freeway.
Read previous Bear Tracks features here…
While I wasn’t exactly in a hurry I did want to get to Scone with enough time at Hunter Warbirds to check out the aircraft in detail. Aeronautical museums are a bit of a hobby with me. But I’d had enough of the freeway and then the freeway-like New England Highway to make me turn off onto Kayuga Road which runs parallel to the highway up to Scone under various names.
With the heat, I was tempted by Hunter Beach, a pebbly swimming spot on the Hunter River that’s recently been provided with a car park, amenities, ramps and stairs down to the water by Muswellbrook council. Another day; meanwhile you might like to check it out if you’re up that way. Or, if you want a coffee and some cheese (?) you can stay on the highway and call in at the Hunter Belle Cheese Café. Yes, I recommend it.
“The hangar looks even larger on the inside than it does brooding by the roadside, and the planes are in beautiful condition”…
At the roundabout outside Scone I turned left and took the road to the airport. It’s not much of an airport, but the immense Hunter Warbirds hangar means that you can’t miss it. I’m an old bloke so I got in for the concession price of $18 and the kind lady behind the counter looked after my helmet and jacket. There are a few souvenirs for sale, as well, but all in all it’s very low key.
Once you’re through the door it becomes a lot more impressive. The hangar looks even larger on the inside than it does brooding by the roadside, and the planes are in beautiful condition. On the left, some of them are just displays but there are plenty of flying machines as well. I mentioned the four wars at the beginning: WW1 is represented by the inevitable Sopwith Camel and a Bristol F.2B with its machine guns in place.
WW2 gets a lot of coverage with a number of Spitfires and Mustangs (one built in Australia) and some training aircraft. Korea is represented by a Kittyhawk among others, while a shiny Cessna L-19/O-1 Bird Dog is one of the planes from Vietnam along with a rare MiG -17F. Right at the door is a beautiful Mirage, emphasising the focus of the museum on fighter aircraft – an echo of the Fighter World museum down at Williamtown.
Scone has a fair choice of motels and pubs, although some of the latter seem to be out of circulation. It’s hard to tell if they’re being renovated, but there are plenty of alternatives. I stayed at the Isis Motel Scone, which offered the best price and quite reasonable quality.
Since I had more time the next day, I took the Bunnan Road over to Merriwa. It runs through some pretty country and most of it is in reasonable shape. In Merriwa I turned west on the Golden Highway and then took Ringwood Road down towards the Goulburn River. This is a strange road; it changes its name to Wollara Road before it reaches the Goulburn River National Park and then changes back to Ringwood Road when it crosses the river. A lot of it is gravel, and it’s probably best if you have a little experience with that surface before tackling it.
It also has another interesting aspect. Almost all of its water crossings are floodways, generally dry. The exception is the causeway across the Bow River, which has shallow water flowing across it. I am cautious about these kinds of crossings, but I wasn’t cautious enough. The surface was so slippery that despite good tyres the bike went down. No big deal – the Ténéré World Raid 700 incorporates excellent built-in crash protection – but embarrassing. Watch out for that causeway.
The rest of the ride home was straightforward, through Denman and Jerrys Plains to Bulga (the sole petrol pump was out of action, but that was no problem with the Ténéré’s big tanks) and down the Putty Road. A peaceful ride.
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