Pyrenees Highway, Victoria

Pyrenees Highway is a rural highway in western Victoria, Australia, linking Ararat to Elphinstone. It was named after the Pyrenees ranges, the set of low mountain ridges the road travels through.

Route
Pyrenees Highway commences at the intersection with Western Highway and Mortlake-Ararat Road in Ararat and heads in a north-easterly direction as a two-lane, single carriageway rural highway, winding with gentle curves through the Pyrenees ranges through Elmhurst to Avoca where it meets Sunraysia Highway. It continues in an easterly direction through Maryborough to Castlemaine, where it meets Midland Highway, and continues east through Chewton before it eventually terminates at the interchange with Calder Freeway at Elphinstone.

History
The passing of the Chinese Immigration Act 1855 through the Parliament of Victoria severely limited the number of Chinese passengers permitted on an arriving vessel. To evade the new law, ship's captains landed many Chinese in the south-east of South Australia, from where the new arrivals travelled more than 400 km across country to the Victorian goldfields, along tracks including what is now Pyrenees Highway.

Construction of a replacement Glenmona Bridge as a wrought-iron lattice-girder deck-truss bridge over Bet Bet Creek at Bung Bong was completed in 1871, and still stands, minus the deck, today; it replaced a timber structure from 1857 which was washed away by severe floods in 1870. It is the third-oldest of its type in Victoria, is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register, and stands just to the south of the modern-day bridge used today by the highway.

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. Ararat-(Elmhurst-)Avoca Road from Ararat through Elmhurst and Amphitheatre to Avoca, and Avoca-Maryborough Road from Avoca to Bung Bong, were declared Main Roads on 31 May 1915; Castlemaine–Maryborough Road was declared a Main Road between Maryborough through Carisbrook to Joyces Creek on 21 June 1915, and between Joyces Creek through Newstead to Castlemaine on 28 June 1915; and the rest of Avoca-Maryborough Road between Bung Bong and Maryborough was declared a Main Road on 21 June 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. Pyrenees Highway was declared a State Highway in August 1938, cobbled together from roads between Calder Highway at Castlemaine via Maryborough and Avoca to Ararat (for a total of 92.5 miles), subsuming the original declarations of Ararat-Avoca Road, and Avoca-Maryborough Road Castlemaine–Maryborough Road as Main Roads. With the deviation of Calder Highway past Castlemaine declared in the 1959/60 financial year, the previous alignment of Calder Highway between Castlemaine and Elphinstone was added to the eastern end of Pyrenees Highway.

Pyrenees Highway was signed as State Route 122 between Ararat and Elphinstone in 1986; with Victoria's conversion to the newer alphanumeric system in the late 1990s, this was replaced by route B180.

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 2011, VicRoads re-declared the road as Pyrenees Highway (Arterial #6740) between Western Highway in Ararat and Calder Freeway at Elphinstone; while the road south of Ararat is signed solely as B180, it is not usually referred to as part of Pyrenees Highway.