Where Festivals Never End

THEY love a good shindig in the Upper Hunter. Merriwa's Festival of the Fleeces, the Aberdeen Highland Games, Murrurundi's King of the Ranges Stockman's Challenge and the Scone Horse Festival are the type of community events that play a big part in the social fabric of this rural shire. The Upper Hunter is the most western local government area in the Hunter Region, a shire of about 13,000 people spread across 8000 square kilometres of largely farming land and national park.