Wauchope sits on the Hastings River in the green country behind Port Macquarie on the New South Wales mid-north coast, a country town of six thousand with a main street of pubs and bakeries, and with a fuel station and a decent meal, so this works as a warm start or a quiet finish. The river flows past the edge of town, and the paddocks are rich dairy and timber land between the coast and the escarpment.
It earns a place on a motorcycle itinerary because the Oxley Highway starts here. Named for the surveyor John Oxley, who explored the area in 1818, the highway climbs west from the coast through rainforest and eucalypt forest onto the New England tablelands towards Walcha, and it has a reputation among Australian riders as one of the better roads in the state. The first stretch above Wauchope is the interesting one: tight and fast bends rising through tall forest, switchbacks in places, and a wet surface under the trees on a cool morning. Take it carefully, because the road has seen serious crashes, and the police are a regular presence, with speed limits that change often and are checked.
Timber shaped the town. In the nineteenth century the cedar-getters and later the loggers worked the hills above the Hastings, and the town grew around the sawmills and the river port; the old timber tradition is part of local memory. Tall brush box and blackbutt still stand in the national parks that line the highway, such as the Werrikimbe wilderness area that the road skirts higher up, and the birdlife is loud at dawn, with lyrebirds and whipbirds in the gullies.
Plan for the weather: summer brings humid heat and sudden thunderstorms, and the tableland above is much colder, so you may start in a T-shirt and finish in a jacket. Fog sits in the valleys in early autumn. Fuel is straightforward in town, but stations thin out after Wauchope on the highway, so top up before you climb. Mornings are best, before the weekend traffic.