Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 04:52, 10 May 2006

The Hume Highway (also known as the Hume Freeway) is one of the most important roads in Australia, linking the country's two largest cities - Sydney and Melbourne. The Hume Highway is part of the National Highway system spanning Australia, and is signed as National Highway 31 in New South Wales and National Highway M31 in Victoria.

The Hume Highway is by far the shortest, quickest and safest road between Sydney and Melbourne, if the least interesting to the tourist. The main alternative route is the Princes Highway which goes via the coast rather than inland.

At the Sydney end of the Hume Highway, the last 10 km of road is also known as Liverpool Road, before it terminates at an intersection with Parramatta Road, in Summer Hill. At the Melbourne end, about 27 km north of Melbourne at the suburb of Craigieburn, the new Craigieburn Bypass , diverts the Hume Freeway (and the M31 designation) off to the east of the original highway to terminate with the Western Ring Road (M80). This allows traffic to travel from the Melbourne Freeway Network in suburban Melbourne, on a freeway standard road for the entire distance to the NSW border at Albury. The original alignment of the Hume Highway is Sydney Road, which runs straight south into the heart of Melbourne's CBD, bearing metropolitan route ("blue-shielded") 55.

History

More than 60 million years ago, Australia and Antarctica were attached as part of Gondwana and a great river appears to have flown from Artarctica to the Sydney basin depositing sand, which eventually consolidated as the the Sydney sandstone. The modern Wollondilly River appears to be a small remnant of this river. During later eons, the Wollondilly, Nepean and Shoalhaven Rivers eroded deep gorges into the sandstone, some of it contributing tho the vast amounts of eroded sand which was redeposited to create the fine beaches of Eastern Australia. The isthmus between these gorges created the route now used by the Hume Highway. The coast of New South Wales from the Queensland border almost to the Victorian border is separated from the inland by an escarpment, generally to the east of the Great Dividing Range, which is difficult to cross. The Hume Highway corridor is one of few good natural crossings of the escarpment. Routes out of the Hunter Valley, northwest of Newcastle, north of Sydney, and the little developed route from Nowra to Nerriga and Braidwood, south of Sydney, are comparable, but were difficult to reach from Sydney along the coast, before the development of modern roads.

Early exploration

In the early years of European settlement at Sydney (established 1788), exploration southwest of Sydney was slow. The route used by the Hume Highway is situated between two parallel river gorge systems (the Wollondilly and Shoalhaven Rivers) and requires the crossing of some reasonable rough country from Sydney to reach it. The climb from the western side of the Nepean River at Camden or Menangle to Mittagong is also fairly sustained, a fact that is hard to appreciate at high speed on the modern freeway. In addition, at the time, the area was heavily wooded, especially the "Bargo brush", which was regarded as almost impenetrable. In 1798 explorers (Wilson, Price, Hacking, and Collins) reached the Moss Vale and Marulan districts, but this was not followed up. Any settlement would have had to await the construction of an adequate access track, which would have been beyond the colony's resources at the time and would have served little purpose as a source of supplies for Sydney, without an access track.

In 1804, Charles Throsby penetrated through the Bargo brush to the country near Moss Vale and Sutton Forest. In 1818, he discovered Lake Bathurst and the "the Goulburn plains" for the first time. Many of the early explorers would most liklely have used aboriginal guides, but they do not appear to have given them public credit.

Early road construction

Governor Lachlan Macquarie ordered the construction of a road, which became known as the Great South Road (the basis of the northern end of the Hume Highway) in 1819 from Picton to the Goulburn Plains and he travelled Goulburn in 1820, but it is unlikely that even a primitive road was finished at that time.

The Great South Road was rebuilt and completely re-routed by Thomas Mitchell in the 1830s between Yanderra and Goulburn. This route, except for the bypasses at Mittagong, Berima and Marulan, built in the 1980s, is still almost precisely the route of the modern highway. He intended to straighten the route north of Yandera, but was not granted funding, although his proposed route through Pheasants Nest has similarities to the freeway route built in the late 1970s. Mitchell's work is best preserved at Towrang.

The Hume Highway travels through the states of New South Wales and Victoria and got its name in the 1920s during a nationwide highway naming scheme. Before this, the road was known as the "Great South Road" in New South Wales and "Sydney Road" in Victoria. In 1914 the highway was declared a main road. The road was named in 1929 after Hamilton Hume, a famous explorer in the early 19th century who in conjunction with William Hovell first traversed an overland route between Sydney and Port Phillip, in what later became Victoria.

Route Information

The Hume Highway is approximately 900 km (550 miles) long, of which over 80 % is now dual carriageway or Freeway standard. The principal towns through which it passes are Liverpool, Campbelltown, Camden, Picton, Mittagong, Goulburn, Yass, Gundagai, Holbrook and Albury in New South Wales; and Wodonga, Wangaratta, Glenrowan, Benalla, Euroa, Seymour and Wallan in Victoria.

Road standards

On the Victorian side, the highway is of duplicated freeway standard for it's entire length, terminating only at the border town of Wodonga. At the Melbourne end it directly connects to the Melbourne Freeway Network at the Western Ring Road, allowing travel from Melbourne freeways to Wodonga with no traffic lights.

On NSW side, approximately 400 km of duplicated freeway with remaining road consisting of a two way road with frequent overtaking lanes.

The Australian Government aims to duplicate the highway between Melbourne and Sydney by 2009. A project is currently underway to bypass the border towns of Albury and Wodonga. By 2008 the Sheahan Bridge crossing the Murrumbidgee floodplain at Gundagai will be duplicated and Coolac will be bypassed.

Speed limit

On the NSW side, Sydney Airport-King Georges' Road (East Tunnel) 80 km/h, King Georges' Road-Moorebank Tollgates 110 km/h, Through Moorebank Tollgates 70 km/h, Moorebank Tollgates-Casula 100 km/h, Casula-Coolac 110 km/h, Through Coolac 100 km/h and 80 km/h, Coolac-Sturt Hwy Junction 110 km/h, Sturt Hwy Junction-Albury 100 km/h. On the Victorian side, constant 110 km/h until outskirts of Melbourne.

Despite the comparatively light traffic, the good-quality road, and usually good driving conditions, the speed limits of 110 kilometres per hour on the dual carriageway and usually 100 km/h for the remaining single carriageway sections, are vigorously policed and unbendingly enforced, including through the use of fixed and mobile speed cameras.

Views

Heading north from Melbourne, the road passes through the hills of the lower Great Dividing Range, some of which is covered with box eucalypt forest but of which much is cleared for farmland, before levelling out through flat, mostly cleared farming country through to Wodonga and the Victoria-New South Wales border.

Whilst hardly the true Australian Outback, a dry summer can leave the almost featureless ground parched and give travellers from greener foreign lands some idea of the actual outback that lies to the north and west. All of the Victorian section of the road is dual carriageway, and all the towns have been bypassed. There is not much of note to see on the highway itself. Mount Buffalo can be seen in the distance at one point, and a museum commemorating Ned Kelly is located just off the highway near Glenrowan.

After crossing the Murray River, the south bank of which is the Victoria-New South Wales border, the highway passes through the only major city not bypassed on the route - Albury. From there, the road continues to the north-east approaching Sydney from the south-west of the city. Most of the New South Wales countryside has been developed for wool production, with Yass and Goulburn noted for their fine wool.

Towns

Almost all towns en route in both Victoria and New South Wales are bypassed by the Hume Highway. On the Victorian side, from Melbourne, practically all towns are bypassed; they are in southwards order from the NSW border, Wodonga, Chiltern, Wangaratta, Benalla, Euroa, Seymour and Broadford.

On the New South Wales side, from Sydney, southwards to Victorian border, the bypassed towns are Camden, Picton, Mittagong, Bowral, Moss Vale, Marulan, Goulburn, Gunning, Yass, Bowning, Bookham, Jugiong, and Gundagai. The highway passes through Holbrook through to Albury until the Victorian border.

Camden

Camden lies 60 km south west of Sydney on the Nepean River, and the town (now city) dates back to 1840. It retains a lot of character where many historic building of interest remain and there is an aviation museum at nearby Narellan. Sydney urban sprawl has made it part of the Sydney metropolitan area.

The old section of the Hume Highway follows a winding southwards track through the Razorback Ridge passing through pretty towns such as Picton and Bargo before heading towards Mittagong. This section today is State Route 89 and renamed as Camden Valley Way. Between Bargo and Yerrinbool this road is known as Remembrance Drive. The current alignment of Hume Highway takes a completely different and more straight path. The old Hume Highway meets with the current Hume Highway at Yerrinbool, just before Mittagong.

Southern Highlands

An alternatic route runs through Mittagong, Bowral, Moss Vale and Sutton Forest.

Mittagong lies 110 km south-west of Sydney, just off the Hume Highway at the start of the Southern Tablelands. It is notable for being the location of Australia's first ironworks. Mittagong's streets are lined with various species of deciduous trees and it has a busy town centre.

Until the 1980s the town was dominated by trucks and in winter it was also busy with skiers' traffic on the way to the Australian Alps. Today the Hume Highway baypasses Mittagong and all the towns of the Southern Tablelands. In the late 1990s, engineers detected subsidence under part of the bypass near the Nattai River caused by the very complex geological history, including mining activity at the adjacent Mount Alexandra Coal Mine from the 1950s to the 1970s. The road was built on a consolidated spree slope with consierable subteranean water flows and may have also been afected by poorly charted 19th century coal mining. As a result two new bridges had to be retrofitted to the road.

Bowral is home to the world famous Bradman Museum which celebrates not only the achievements of Bowral's favourite son, Sir Donald Bradman, but also a wealth of world sporting information and memorabilia. Bowral is also the setting for "Tulip Time", a Spring celebration where over 100,000 tulips and 25,000 flowers are planted in the town centre.

The population swells during winter when, thousands of visitors book into the local hotels and B&Bs to enjoy romantic fires and secluded winter getaways. Spring is also very popular with gardening enthusiasts who come to view some of the world's most beautiful formal gardens designed by landscape luminaries such as Paul Sorensen who designed the gardens of Invergowrie.

Key attractions are the glorious gardens, fine restaurants, many successful vineyards and fresh, local produce of a wide variety. Antique and book stores abound, as do quality fashion retailers and specialty stores.

Moss Vale has several beautiful old and attractive buildings and Leighton Gardens, in the centre of the main street, is a pleasant park. It is best during spring when its flowers are in blossom or in autumn when the leaves of its exotic deciduous trees are changing colour.

Sutton Forest is surrounded by farms, vineyards and is home to elegant country homes and estates. It comprises a church, and inn, a couple of restaurants and one or two specialty shops.

Berrima

Berrima has flourished since the bypass took effect with tourists finding the historic town an easy day trip from either Sydney or Canberra (ACT).

Marulan

The southern part of Governor Lachlan Macquarie's road of 1819 ran from Sutton Forest roughly along existing minor roads to Canyonleigh, Brayton, Carrick and Towrang, where it joined the current route to Goulburn. Branching from this route (now called the Illawarra Highway at this point) just south of Sutton Forest, a road, now known as Old Argyle Road, developed in the 1820s. It ran to Bungonia, via Wingello, Tallong, and the southern outskirts of Marulan, all, except Wingello, located in Argyle County, along with Goulburn. Counties never became serious units of government in New South Wales, but they are still referred to in land titles. In the early 19th century Bungonia was expected to become a major centre, but it subsequently proved unsuitable for intensive agriculture. Much of Old Argyle Road give the impression of dating from the 1820s, although clearly there must have been a fair amount of human and mechanical maintenance over the last 180 years. It is not recommended after significant rain.

When Thomas Mitchell rerouted the Great South Road in the 1830s, he decided to bring these two roads together and build a junction at old Marulan, with roads proceeding to Goulburn and Bungonia. When the railway reached Marulan in 1868, the town migrated 3 km north to the railway station. Nevertheless, the old cemetery remains at the Bungonia Road intersection. A quarry is about to be developed near the intersection, so an interchange is to be built.

Towrang

A major stockade for chain-bound convicts and others involved in the construction of the Great South Road was located on the north side of the Highway at Towrang Creek from around 1836 to 1842. The stockade became the principal penal establishment in the southern district and was noted for its harsh discipline. There were usually at least 250 convicts hutted there. They slept on bare boards with a blanket apiece, 10 men to a box or cell. One of the two official floggers was later found murdered There is a rest area on the south side where a well-preserved bridge (possibly designed by the designer of impressive early bridges in New South Wales, David Lenox) and a culvert can be viewed.

The stockade is on the north side of the Highway and used to be accessible by a stile, but this has been taken down to discourage cars from stopping and using the daunting intersection with Towrang Road, especially for those turning right on to the Highway towards Goulburn. There are the remains of the powder magazine next to the Wollondilly River, three graves on the north bank of Towrang Creek, and the remains of a weir on Towrang Creek built for the stockade. Aboriginal stone tools have also been found on the banks of Towrang Creek, indicating that this was a route well-travelled long before Hamilton Hume came this way in 1818.

The Highway in this area is about to be upgraded to improve the safety of the intersections with Towrang and Carrick Roads under AusLink. and it is to be hoped that access to the stockade site will be restored.

Goulburn

Goulburn is the first regional city along the Hume Freeway upon leaving Sydney and the primary city of the Southern Tablelands. It is a farming and municipal centre. Goulburn was bypassed in 1992 and the main street is quieter, but still busy during Staurday morning shopping. It has a nice central park and many historic buildings, including old houses near the railway station on Sloane Street and two 19th century cathederals.

South of Goulburn, the Federal Highway connects to Canberra.

Gunning

Gunning's 19th century main street was built very wide, for the time of horse and bullock-drawn wagons. This served the town well when the main highway between Sydney and Melbourne carried cars and trucks through, until the by-pass was completed several years ago. It is now much quiter and the town has been able to resume a more rural pace of life, and develop something of an industry in providing bed and breakfast accommodation.

Yass

Yass has an impresive and historic main street, with well-preserved 19th century verandah-post pubs (mostly converted to other uses}. It is popular with tourists, some from Canberra and others taking a break from the Hume Highway.

Coolac

The 11 kilometre section at Coolac is the last two lane section of highway between Sydney and Gundagai. The bypass will be completed by 2008.

Gundagai

The highway bypassed Gundagai in 1974. Near Gundagai a tourist attraction is located at Snake Gully, with a statue of the "Dog on the Tuckerbox". This statue is based on a poem about a bullock waggon stuck in the mud near Gundagai pre gazettal of Gundagai as a town in 1838. This bullock waggon carried a load of flour for the European settlers. The flour had to come from the mill at Goulburn. There was a severe drought happening. The flour on the bogged bullock wagon was rifled while the bullock driver was in the nearby hotel and subsequently, the remaining flour was laced with arsenic. More flour was taken from the waggon by Aboriginal people with the end result there were many deaths. The massacre was heard about in Sydney and was investigated, but no one was able to be held to account. For many years the event was told and retold and a dog figure, representing an aspect of Australian Aboriginal lore, was placed on a stick at the Nine Mile near where the massacre happened. A photo exists of this earlier Dog monument. The story was passed down amongst long-time Gundagai residents and is still spoken about in Gundagai today but for many years when it was mentioned, people were told not to speak about it. The story was also retold in a popular Australian poem by Jack Moses but from a different, perhaps less challenging, perspective which explained the lingering tale that just would not go away. The known disaprity between, and debate about whether the event happened at the Five Mile or Nine Mile is to do with this. Consequently, a statue (with souvenir shop next door) was erected five miles (eight kilometres) from Gundagai depicting the scene. Snake Gully serves as a way station for many highway travellers. Gundagai is also well-known by a folk song of the early twentieth century "The Road to Gundagai". This song has several layers of meaning, the core one being about Aboriginal culture along the eastern side of Australia but the more obvious undertsanding being about the psychological journey back 'home' that all humans sometimes like to make.

At Gundagai, the highway crosses the Murrumbidgee River via a long-span bridge. Nearby, the Sturt Highway, which leads to Adelaide, begins here.

Tarcutta

Tarcutta, located almost exactly halfway between Sydney and Melbourne, has been a popular stopover and change-over point for truck drivers making their way between the two cities. There is a poignant memorial to the truck drivers who have died on the infamously-dangerous local stretch of the Hume Highway.

With the improvements to the Hume Highway, which cuts travelling time from Sydney to Melbourne to less than a day, the town's importance to the average motorist has diminished.

Holbrook

Holbrook lies on the Hume Highway between Gundagai and Albury and like Albury, is one of the few remaining towns yet to be bypassed. Notorious for its speed traps. Holbrook had been called Germantown, until anti-German feeling forced a change of name during World War 1, and it was renamed in honour of a decorated wartime submarine captain, hence the large partial reconstruction of the HMAS Otway Submarine that cannot be missed as the town is approached from the north, which seems odd at first in such an inland town.

Albury/Wodonga

Albury's history is linked with the two famous Australian explorers, Hume and Hovell, as the city's location sprung from their discovery of the Murray River. Albury, commonly associated with its Victorian twin, Wodonga, is one of the few rural Australian cities to experience a boom, mainly from industrialisation in recent times. Albury is by far the most noticeable city that is yet to be bypassed by the Hume Highway.

After decades of debate about the route and the funding obligations of the state and federal governments, a freeway "internal bypass", running close to the city itself, commenced construction in 2005 and is expected to be completed mid-2007. In addition to catering for through traffic, the new route will serve local residents as a second road crossing of the Murray River between the twin cities.

Wangaratta

Wangaratta is one of the larger towns in northeast Victoria. It is located on the Old Hume Highway and the Great Alpine Road (Ovens Highway). The area around it was first discovered by Hume and Hovell in the 1820s and the township was founded in 1837 when the surrounding area was open for farming.

The attractions around town include Merriwa Park, a sunken garden adjacent to King River, Airworld at Wangaratta Airport, old goldfield areas of nearby Beechworth and gateway to Victorian Alps for skiers.

Benalla

Benalla is a large town located just off the Hume Freeway between Melbourne and Wangaratta. Founded in 1848, town growth was slow until the 1850s goldfields rush. It had many associations with the Kelly gang and the courthouse was the venue for a number of their trials. It also has a memorial to the Australian war hero Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop, an Australian doctor who acted as a leader to allied troops on the Thai Burma Railway in World War Two.

Euroa

The area around Euroa was first discovered by Hume and Hovell in the late 1830s. Euroa is famous for a Ned Kelly robbery. The town itself is pretty with gardens.

Seymour

The Hume highway bypass of Seymour opened in December 1982. Seymour remains on the Goulburn Valley Highway. The town is in a rich valley which supports the local vineyards and large military base at Puckapunyal to the west. Once the centre of the bushranging area of Victoria. It has a museum and displays many period relics of that era.

See also

• Highways in Australia
• Highways in Victoria
• List of highways in New South Wales

References

1. "Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia 1931". Australian Bureau of Statistics www.abs.gov.au. Retrieved 2006-04-28.
2. Max Lay, History of Australian Roads, out of print
3. "Coolac Bypass". New South Wales Road traffic Authority. 2005. Retrieved 2006-02-22. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |accessyear= (help)
4. "Coolac Bypass". AusLink www.auslink.gov.au. 2006. Retrieved 2006-02-22.
5. "Sheahan Bridge". AusLink www.auslink.gov.au. 2006. Retrieved 2006-02-22.
6. "Media release: Plan to Bridge the Hume Highway at Mittagong". Department of Transport and Regional Services www.dotars.gov.au. 2001. Retrieved 2006-04-26.
7. "Travel - Goulburn". Sydney Morning Herald www.smh.com.au. 2004. Retrieved 2006-04-26.
8. "Upgrade at Towrang and Carrick Roads". AusLink www.auslink.gov.au. 2006. Retrieved 2006-02-22.
9. "More delays to highway bypass". Australian Broadcasting Corporation www.abc.net.au. 2006. Retrieved 2006-02-22. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |accessyear= (help)
10. "Albury-Wodonga Hume Freeway Upgrade". AusLink www.auslink.gov.au. 2006. Retrieved 2006-04-28.

• Australian highways
• Melbourne highways and freeways