Northern Highland Travel a multi-award winning family owned and operated company. We have won the Hunter Regional Tourism Awards four times in a row. We have also won a swag of other local awards (see our news page).

In August 2007 we won the Major Tour & Transport Operator Category of the Hunter Tourism Awards. This was very exciting as it was the first time we have been eligible for the category.

In 2003, 2004, and 2005 we won the Significant Tour and Transport Operator Category of the NSW Tourism Awards, making us inductees into NSW Tourism's Hall of Fames in 2006, as well as winning Business of the Year, Business Woman of the Year in the 2005 Lower Hunter Business Excellence Awards as well as the Best Tourism Operator for the last three years. We won the Tourism Category of the Hunter's Fastest Growing Business and have been finalists in the Australian Tourism Awards for the last three years.

People who have travelled with us usually come again, and often! Our most frequent traveller has been on 40 tours with us, and many of our travellers are racking up their 15th or even 20th tour with us!

While we now have four luxury coach cruisers, with a seating capacity of 47 or 48 seats, we certainly started off from humble beginnings, as owners of the Walcha Motel. In 1988 when we began touring Bruce and Elaine used the family car, or borrowed mini-vans from other members of the community. In 1989, we purchased a 19 seat Toyota Coaster. Things have just kept growing from there.

As Robert is also a fully qualified chef who used to do all the cooking for the family owned motel, he has a keen interest in keeping our meals very special whilst on tour. Look at our recipes page on this site to find out more of his recipes. 

In the early years our growth was slow but steady. By 1992, 1000 people had come to visit Walcha on our package tours. The Lord Mayor presented the 1000th visitor with a plaque to commemorate this special event. Embers Licensed Restaurant and three more motel rooms of 3½ star standard were added to the original 16 unit motel.

In 1994, our tour itinerary included tours of Broken Hill & Rockhampton. Bruce and Elaine became licensed travel agents (Northern Highland Travel) and started to conduct tours all over Australia.

In 1999, the Walcha Motel was sold, and we moved our base to Maitland, so we could focus on the coach and tour package side of the business. We now transport an average of just over 3,000 passengers per year!

Bruce, Elaine, Robert and Jennifer all work in the business (with some help from Robert and Jennifer's children Joshua and Jessica!). We love taking people all over Australia for everything from a day trip to an extended 26 day tour.

We are an accredited travel agency, members of IATA and the Bus & Coach Association of NSW and a member of the Travel Compensation Fund for your protection. We also offer Travel Insurance to Australian Residents through QBE - see our web page on travel insurance for more details.