Locked In The Cells

Grab the swag and follow the trails of the gold prospectors and loggers, in this spectacular country.

- Kev Smith

WAUCHOPE on the NSW mid-north coast is famous for Timber Town, where you can take a step back in time and relive the past when timber was considered ‘red gold’. I never really stopped to consider where this happened, up in the hills tucked behind Wauchope, but with a little inside information we found some great tracks, relics and natural attractions. This is a great two-night camp-out that isn’t suitable for trailers, as a lot of the tracks in this region are steep and narrow.

After the mandatory fuel and supply shop at Wauchope, head west along the Oxley Highway that links the coast to the tablelands over some incredible country, the road winding its way up over the Great Dividing Range which pushes up 1100m above sea level at the highest point. Leaving Wauchope, the countryside is typical coastal scrub country where hobby farms scatter the landscape for many kilometres, giving way to open paddocks and finally views of the Great Divide.

Some 30km out of Wauchope is Long Flat, which was settled in 1856 by a Northern Irish family who grew grapes, produced wine and then sold it to the teamsters that passed through this area on the convict-built road, hauling logs down to the coast. Then in the late 1870s a hotel was built, named ‘The Travellers Rest Hotel’. It still stands on the original plot of soil today, and some of the original timbers can still be seen in and around the hotel.

As you leave Long Flat, keep an eye out just 5km up the road for a turn on the right to Kindee Road, where you can see the longest suspension bridge still in use in Australia. Measuring a whopping 200ft long, this one-lane bridge was completed in 1937. It’s great for a quick look and to appreciate how real bridges were built.