New England Highway

At its southern end the New England Highway connects to the Pacific Highway and at its northern end it connects to the D'Aguilar Highway. It traverses the Hunter Valley, New England, and the Southern and Darling Downs regions.

During the winter months, some parts of the New England Highway are subject to frost and snowfall[3][4], with the 350 km section from the Moonbi Ranges to Stanthorpe located at high altitudes.

Speed cameras

As of November 2018, fixed speed cameras were located at Ben Lomond (between Ross Road and Ben Lomond Road), Blandford (between Hayles Street and Mills Street) and Tenterfield (between Duncan Street and George Street).[5] Average speed enforcement (point-to-point) cameras target heavy vehicles between Singleton and Muswellbrook.[6][7]

From Brisbane, National Highway 15 (green) follows the Cunningham Highway until Warwick where it then follows southwards, the New England Highway ...

... through Armidale, Tamworth, Maitland and Hexham where it joins the Pacific Highway

The New England Highway has its origins in the track which developed north from Newcastle to reach the prime wool growing areas of the New England region which Europeans settled following expeditions by NSW Surveyor-General John Oxley in 1818 and botanist Allan Cunningham in 1827 and 1829. The rough track, navigable only by horse or bullock dray, crossed the Liverpool Range, went through Tamworth and ended at Tenterfield.[8] The track became known as the Great Northern Road.[9] During the 1860s, several robberies occurred along the road[10][11], with infamous bushranger Captain Thunderbolt known to be active in the area.[12]

When the NSW main road system was reorganised in August 1928, the Great Northern Road was gazetted as part of state highway 9 and renamed the Great Northern Highway.[13] At proclamation, the Great Northern Highway was described as stretching from North Sydney to the Queensland border at Mount Lindesay, via Newcastle, Maitland, Tamworth, Armidale, Tenterfield and Woodenbong.[13] The route became known as the New England Highway in early-1933 by combining the Great Northern Highway and the Brisbane-Mount Lindesay-Warwick Highway into a single uniformly-named road from Hexham to Brisbane.[14][15] In 1936 the road was described by contemporary observers as being in good condition, with spectacular scenery and excellent accommodation en route.[16][17]

In 1954 the New England Highway was re-routed through Warwick along the route that was then known as the Lockyer-Darling Downs Highway.[18] Against the wishes of the Beaudesert Shire Council and the Woodenbong Chamber of Commerce[19], the former New England Highway through Beaudesert was renamed the Mount Lindesay Highway.[20]

In the 1970s, the Queensland Main Roads Department rerouted the designation of the New England Highway north of Warwick to follow the former Lockyer-Darling Downs Highway (national route 17) so that it terminated in Toowoomba. The section of the highway between Brisbane and Warwick was renamed as part of the Cunningham Highway, which until that time had extended only westward from Warwick to Goondiwindi.

Intersection of New England Highway and Golden Highway between Branxton and Singleton

Thunderbolts Rocks, New England Highway (south of Uralla), where Thunderbolt conducted some of his robberies.

Statue of Captain Thunderbolt at the intersection of New England Highway and Thunderbolts Way, Uralla, NSW

As of October 2018, completed, current or proposed improvements on the New England Highway include[21]:

• Belford to the Golden Highway
• Maitland roundabout improvements
• Muswellbrook bypass
• New England Highway draft corridor strategy
• New England Highway and Wyndella Road intersection, Lochinvar
• Scone bypass
• Singleton rail underpass
• Singleton bypass
• Fitzgerald Bridge at Aberdeen
• Tenterfield heavy vehicle bypass
• Bolivia Hill

From its junction with the Pacific Highway at Hexham, 12 km (7 mi) inland from Newcastle the New England Highway connects the following cities and towns:

• Highways in Australia
• List of highways in New South Wales
• List of highways in Queensland
• Moonbi Range
• Hunter Expressway
• List of highways numbered 85

Wikimedia Commons has media related to New England Highway.

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for New England Highway.

• New England Highway