Glenelg Highway

Glenelg Highway is a rural highway in south-eastern Australia, linking the major regional centres of Mount Gambier in south-eastern South Australia with Ballarat in western Victoria.

Route
Glenelg Highway commences at the intersection with Princes Highway in Glenburnie, South Australia and heads on a north-easterly direction as a two-lane, single carriageway rural highway, crossing the interstate border into Victoria 15km later (some maps identify the South Australian section as Casterton Road), continuing northeast to Casterton, then heading in an easterly direction through the towns of Hamilton, Dunkeld and Skipton, before eventually terminating at the intersection with Midland Highway in the south-eastern suburb of Sebastopol in Ballarat.

History
The passing of the Country Roads Act of 1912 through the Parliament of Victoria provided for the establishment of the Country Roads Board (later VicRoads) and their ability to declare Main Roads, taking responsibility for the management, construction and care of the state's major roads from local municipalities. Hamilton- (Coleraine-) (Casterton-) Mount Gambier Road was declared a Main Road, from Hamilton to Coleraine on 16 November 1914, and Coleraine through Casterton to the border with South Australia on 30 November 1914; Hamilton-Dunkeld Road from Hamilton to Dunkeld was declared a Main Road on 16 November 1914; and Ballarat-Hamilton Road from south-western Ballarat through Scarsdale, Skipton to Lake Bolac was declared a Main Road on 31 May 1915.

The passing of the Highways and Vehicles Act of 1924 provided for the declaration of State Highways, roads two-thirds financed by the State government through the Country Roads Board. Glenelg Highway was declared a State Highway in the 1947/48 financial year, from Ballarat via Skipton and Hamilton to Casterton (for a total of 149 miles), subsuming the original declarations of Hamilton-Coleraine-Casterton-Mount Gambier Road, Hamilton-Dunkeld Road and Ballarat-Hamilton Road as Main Roads.

The alignment of the highway through Ballarat was changed in June 1983: previously terminating at the intersection of Albert and Hertford Streets in Sebastopol, it was extended north 3 km along Albert Street, Skipton Street, and Doveton Street South to terminate at Sturt Street (Western Highway) in central Ballarat, only to be truncated back to its original terminus in Sebastopol in May 1990; the former alignment was subsumed into the Midland Highway, re-aligned to this route at the same time. A new bridge over Hopkins River in Wickcliffe was opened in 1996, replacing an older, flood-prone structure and the last on the highway with a timber deck, at a cost of $145,000, with bridge approaches costing $700,000.

Glenelg Highway was signed as State Route 112 between Glenburnie and Ballarat in 1986; with Victoria's conversion to the newer alphanumeric system in the late 1990s, this was replaced by route B160.

The passing of the Road Management Act 2004 granted the responsibility of overall management and development of Victoria's major arterial roads to VicRoads: in 2004, VicRoads re-declared the road as Glenelg Highway (Arterial #6670), beginning at the South Australian border and ending at Midland Highway in Sebastopol, Ballarat.