Sturt Highway
Sturt Highway
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Sturt Highway

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Sturt Highway

Sturt Highway is an Australian national highway in New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. It is an important road link for the transport of passengers and freight between Sydney and Adelaide and the regions along the route.

Initially an amalgam of trunk routes, the Sturt Highway was proclaimed a state highway in NSW in 1933. In 1955, the route was allocated a National Route number (20). It was included in the National Highway system in 1992, forming the Sydney-Adelaide Link. Sturt Highway is allocated as route A20 for its entire length, the majority of which is a single carriageway, and freeway standard and 6-lane arterial road standard towards its western terminus in Gawler.

The highway is the shortest, highest-standard route between Sydney and Adelaide. It runs generally east–west, roughly aligned to the southern bank of the Murrumbidgee River in New South Wales. Following that river's confluence with the Murray River, it is then roughly aligned to the Murray through north-western Victoria and eastern South Australia, before it heads towards the northern outskirts of Adelaide.

The eastern terminus of Sturt Highway is at a junction with Hume Highway at Tarcutta, near Gundagai. Heading west, the highway passes through the city of Wagga Wagga and the towns of Narrandera, Darlington Point, Hay, Balranald, and Euston, leaving New South Wales by crossing the Murray River into Victoria from Buronga to Mildura. The highway continues more or less due west through the northwest of Victoria before entering South Australia. In South Australia, Sturt Highway passes Renmark, Monash, Barmera, Waikerie, Blanchetown and Nuriootpa, before reaching its western terminus at the interchange with Gawler Bypass and Northern Expressway on the outskirts of Gawler.

The route now known as Sturt Highway originated from stock routes cut across southern New South Wales through the 19th century: overlanders would travel from Sydney's Main South Road (now Hume Highway) to Albury, and follow along the southern bank of the Murray River to Adelaide. Edward John Eyre, the English explorer, travelled from Limestone Plains (now Canberra) to Adelaide via this route in 1837, as did Charles Sturt in 1838. Eyre on his second run to South Australia headed west, following the northern bank of the Murrumbidgee River instead, crossing it at its junction with the Murray close to Boundary Bend, and travelled to Adelaide from there. The road pioneered by Eyre in 1839 left Hume Highway at Gundagai and followed the northern bank of the Murrumbidgee through the sites of Wagga Wagga, Narrandera, Hay and Balranald, and the north bank of the Murray River through the sites of Euston and Wentworth, passing north of Lake Victoria to the border with South Australia and onwards to Renmark. By 1852 a mail service by horseback operated from Wagga Wagga as far west as Balranald.

The route used by coaches between Wagga Wagga and the South Australian border as late as 1914 ran along the northern bank of the Murrumbidgee to Darlington Point – a bridge was built across the river in 1905, replacing a punt service operating from 1886 – and then continued along the river's southern bank to Hay, crossing the river again (a bridge in Hay was opened in 1874 by Sir Henry Parkes, replacing a ferry service operating since the 1850s). The route then travelled the northern side of the Murrumbidgee through Maude and Balranald and onwards to Adelaide. By 1919 the route from Hay had been altered to travel the river's southern bank to Maude, before departing the water course for a more-direct route to Balranald, crossing the river there by a bridge opened in 1876. By 1928, the route had shifted south of the Murrumbidgee River between Tarcutta and Narrandera.

The passing of the Main Roads Act of 1924 through the Parliament of New South Wales provided for the declaration of Main Roads, roads partially funded by the State government through the Main Roads Board (later Transport for NSW). Main Road No. 4 was declared along this road from the intersection with Hume Highway from Lower Tarcutta to Wagga Wagga (and continuing eastwards via Tumut, Adaminaby, Cooma, and Bega to Tathra) as part of Monaro Highway, Main Road No. 6 was declared from Balranald via Euston and Wentworth to the state border with South Australia (and continuing eastwards via Oxley, Booligal, Gunbar, Rankins Springs, Wyalong and Cowra to Bathurst) as part of Mid-Western Highway, and Main Road No. 58 was declared from Hay via Narranderra to Wagga Wagga (and continuing westwards via Maude to Oxley), on the same day, 8 August 1928. With the passing of the Main Roads (Amendment) Act of 1929 to provide for additional declarations of State Highways and Trunk Roads, these were amended to State Highways 4 and 6 and Trunk Road 58 on 8 April 1929.

Mid-Western Highway was rerouted between Gunbar and Balranald to pass through Hay, and the western end of Trunk Road 58 was truncated to meet it at Hay, on 24 September 1929. The route of the main road from Narrandera to Darlington Point had shifted to the southern side of the river at this stage, thus following the present route east from Balranald. On 16 September 1930, the road between Wagga Wagga and Hay (Trunk Road 58) was named Sturt Trunk Road, in honour of Captain Charles Sturt who explored the area a century earlier and opened it up for agriculture.

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