Physical description

A spiral bound volume of 122 pages including maps, photographs and illustrations prepared as a travel guide to the Old Hume Highway. It includes a Foreword by Peter FitzSimons.

Summary

The Hume Highway was officially named in 1928, when both the New South Wales and Victorian governments agreed to give the unified inland route between Sydney and Melbourne the name, honouring explorer Hamilton Hume who, with William Hovell, first found the overland path in 1824.

Much of the original highway followed their overland route wherever the landscape allowed. The road connected many small communities and rural properties, although in many parts was narrow and unsurfaced. Over the following years alterations and some deviations occurred with changing transport needs and heavier traffic loads. One of these deviations was completed in 1933 at Table Top north of Albury between Ettamogah and Mullengandra due to the construction of the Hume Weir which flooded the existing highway.

Gradually sections of the road were converted to a dual carriageway. In 1961 the first modern freeway-standard, four-lane section was completed in Victoria at Craigieburn. The Hume Highway was also rerouted in Albury to avoid the town centre. Many major bypasses and duplications in New South Wales were completed throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In 1994 the last section of the Hume Highway in Victoria was duplicated with the completion of the Wangaratta bypass.
The Albury-Wodonga bypass was opened in 2007 and in 2013 the final section, the Holbrook Bypass in NSW, was opened to traffic on August 7, completing the full Sydney-Melbourne dual carriageway link.

In the course of this gigantic engineering achievement, many small, historic towns throughout Victoria and New South Wales were bypassed and often forgotten by passing commuters in a rush to reach their destination. This publication includes maps and information about the sites and landmarks in these towns. It encourages travellers to venture of the modern highway and rediscover the Old Hume Highway and the stories it holds about out past.