Mount Seaview is a high point on the edge of the tableland where the New South Wales Northern Tablelands begin to drop toward the Pacific, and the nature reserve there protects a patch of forest that gets more rain and mist than almost anywhere around. The land is rugged, with steep slopes and tangled gullies, and the vegetation is a blend of dry eucalypt forest on the ridges and cool rainforest in the damp folds. This is the Hastings Range, the eastern flank of the Great Dividing Range, and the forests belong to the larger Gondwana Rainforests of Australia, whose lineage reaches back to the time when the continent was part of a great southern landmass.
The nearby Barrington Tops are a more famous part of the same world. They form a high plateau of wet forest, swamps and old volcanic soil, at over a thousand metres, with Antarctic beech trees that look like something from a fairy tale, covered in moss and draped with ferns. In winter, snow sometimes settles on the tops. Birds are everywhere, from bright king parrots to the thin whip crack of the eastern whipbird in the undergrowth, and leeches are a feature of the wet season, so do not stand still for long in a damp spot.
For riders, the region offers excellent roads. The Oxley Highway slips down off the tableland in a long run of bends, shaded by forest and tinged by mist in the morning, and Thunderbolts Way, named for a bushranger, winds through rolling country and over ridgelines in a quieter, more relaxed way. Surfaces vary, and the combination of damp, shade and gravel on corners calls for attention. Logging trucks use the roads, so take care at blind bends, and watch for wombats and kangaroos at dusk.
Fill up at Walcha or Gloucester, depending on your direction, and carry water and a rain jacket. Mobile coverage fades in the gullies. Autumn is the best season, with settled weather and cool, clear mornings, while summer brings hot spells and sudden thunderstorms, and winter brings ice on the shaded tarmac.