The Hume Highway is Central NSW’s best-kept travel secret, a sweeping, pastoral alternative to the busier mountain routes, rolling north from Sydney’s South-West and Canberra through some of the state’s most quietly beautiful countryside.

Journey’s end is the adventure playground of Oberon, where pine forests thick with mushrooms, and the breathtaking Mayfield Garden, the largest cool-climate private garden in Australia, reward every kilometre of the drive.