New South Wales Road Photo Gallery:
National Route 34 (Oxley Highway) (Walcha to Port Macquarie)
National Route 34 / Oxley Highway is a rural highway
in New South Wales, Australia. The Oxley Highway starts
at Nevertire where it joins the Mitchell Highway. It
links Warren, Gilgandra, Coonabarabran, Gunnedah, Tamworth,
Bendemeer, Walcha, Wauchope and ends at Port Macquarie
on the coast of the Tasman Sea.
The Oxley Highway links with the Castlereagh Highway
at Gilgandra, the Newell Highway at Coonabarabran, the
New England Highway and Tamworth, and the Pacific Highway
near Port Macquarie. It commemorates John Oxley who
was the first European to explore much of inland New
South Wales in 1818.
History:
The Oxley Highway runs through Walcha, connecting it with the New England Highway at Bendemeer and the coast at Port Macquarie. The Walcha and Armidale areas were first home to the Anaiwan people. John Oxley crossed the southern end of the northern tableland and camped on the Apsley River in 1818 near the present Walcha.
In 1832 Hamilton C. Semphill, a settler from Belltrees on the Hunter River, formed a station in the upper Apsley Valley and named it Wolka, appropriating an aboriginal word thought to mean 'the sun'. Others followed close on his heels, seeking new lands away from the influence of the Australian Agricultural Company, which dominated access to resources in the Hunter region, and settled around the present Armidale and Tenterfield. Soon the tablelands were occupied by the large sheep runs of these wealthy squatters.
In 1939 administration caught up with settlement and the New England pastoral district was formed. The new district's Commissioner of Crown Lands made his headquarters at Armidale and set out to define the sheep runs and find a route to the coast - as the journey to and from Maitland with wool and supplies was a journey taking months. Thus, the chequered career of the present Oxley Highway between Tamworth and Port Macquarie began, a road between Walcha and Port Macquarie constructed by convicts in the early 1840s. However, the descent to the coast was so steep that erosion soon made it impassable. By 1850 the eastern part of the New England region was already served by the present New England Highway. The expansion of pastoralism, coupled with gold discoveries during the 1850s, resulted in several transverse routes being made permanent.
The road connecting Tamworth with Port Macquarie, through Walcha, was one of those made suitable for regular vehicular traffic, but again fell out of use. (Regional Histories, 1996, pp. 72-75; Atlas of New England, 1977, pp. 153-66; Australian Encyclopaedia, 1963 Vol. 9, p. 146) The Oxley Highway was proclaimed in 1928, a circumferential link between the central and western areas of the State and New England and the North Coast. The highway generally followed the line of existing roads but many sections of the route were soon improved as a result of the proclamation of the highway. (DMR, 1976, pp. 141, 156, 165-66, 277).
This section of the Oxley Highway takes in the towns
of Ellenborough, Wauchope, Port Macquarie and other
localities. Please choose a sub-section from below.
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