Clubs & Runways: Tooraweenah (YTWN)

Tooraweenah (YTWN), NSW

The village of a few hundred residents, where three times per week in the late 1940’s to mid-1950s fully booked DC-3s operated from the first privately owned and operated aviation hub in the world. The all-weather runway at YTWN can still handle anything from a 11,000 kg DC-3 to a 500 kg light sporty, and with 1400 metres of mown grass runway (04/22) there’s no chance of an overrun.

The Arthur Butler Aviation Museum

Located within the original terminal building is an intriguing display of photographs and documents telling the story of Arthur Butler’s record-breaking solo flight from England in 1930 to secure the hand of a lady, and of Butler Air Transport Company whose motto “Service for the Countryman” made it an integral part of post-WWII regional New South Wales.

Getting Around

A leg stretching stroll around the boundary of the aerodrome takes you past the two-room school and across the road where an old hand-pumped petrol bowser is a reminder of Arthur’s love quest, then into the tidy little town. All the while your attention will be fixed on the majesty of the Warrumbungle Mountains.

There’s no car hire, but maybe a pre-arrival phone call to the pub will have a car at the aerodrome to drive you into town for a counter lunch. The locals are proud of their town and prone to showing it off.

Stay

Choose from a motel-type unit at the quiet Mountain View Hotel, a cabin at the nearby caravan park, or at the B&B. If you’ve brought your clubs, you can hack your way around the 9-hole golf course. If hiking is your thing, explore the trails into the Warrumbungles.

Explore

If you are lucky, someone might run you around the scenic drive to Siding Springs Observatory and the Warrumbungle National Park Visitor’s Centre, calling in to Emu Logic where their chooks grow chest-high, and one egg is more than un œuf. You might need some emu jerky to sustain you, or some emu oil for your aching joints.

Eat & Drink

Gordon Ramsay hasn’t found Tooraweenah yet, so it’s your basic meat and two veg pub food helped down with a cold beer or house wine. If you are around on a Saturday night, the local community organisations run a bar-b-que at the pub. The alternatives to bar-b-qued beast, made by CWA-trained country cooks, beat a Bunnings sausage by a long squirt of the sauce bottle.

Pilot Info

← Back to listing