The Borung Highway is a 138 kilometre rural highway in western

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

running in a west–east direction from Dimboola in the west to Charlton in the east. The highway serves little more than connectivity between local communities, and is busiest between the towns of Donald and Charlton (with exception to the 15 km section that it shares with the Sunraysia Highway between Donald and Litchfield). The more notable features along the highway exist in the pastoral scenery, and the surprising appearance of lakes amongst the rolling hills.

Buloke ''Allocasuarina luehmannii'' (buloke or bull-oak) is a species of ironwood tree native to Australia and its wood is the hardest commercially available as measured by the Janka Hardness Scale. Description The evergreen tree typically grows ...

trees (from which the

Shire of Buloke The Shire of Buloke is a local government area in Victoria, Australia, located in the western part of the state. It covers an area of and, in June 2018, had a population of 6,184. It includes the towns of Birchip, Charlton, Donald, Sea Lake a ...

gets its name), are a regular feature along the eastern segment of the road. It is notable that very few of the highways in Victoria have Aboriginal names. In the nineteenth century amateur scientist and long serving member of the Victorian Legislative Council W. E. Stanbridge made the most detailed record of

Australian Aboriginal astronomy Australian Aboriginal astronomy is a name given to Aboriginal Australian culture relating to astronomical subjects – such as the Sun and Moon, the stars, planets, and the Milky Way, and their motions on the sky. Traditional Aboriginal ...

surviving. Stanbridge befriended the Booroung people near

Lake Tyrrell Lake Tyrrell (also known as Lake Tyrrell Wildlife Reserve) is a shallow, salt-crusted depression in the Mallee district of north-west Victoria, in Australia. The name 'Tyrrell' is derived from the local Wergaia word for 'sky', the Boorong ...

, and presented the results to Victoria's Scientific Community The possibilities are that the Borung Highway was named for this tribe, or as is written in the history of the town of Borung the town "takes its name from an Aboriginal word meaning the broad leafed mallee scrub"

History

The passing of the ''Highways and Vehicles Act of 1924'' through the

Parliament of Victoria The Parliament of Victoria is the bicameral legislature of the Australian state of Victoria that follows a Westminster-derived parliamentary system. It consists of the King, represented by the Governor of Victoria, the Legislative Assembly an ...

provided for the declaration of State Highways, roads two-thirds financed by the State government through the

Country Roads Board The Country Roads Board was a government authority responsible for the construction and maintenance of main roads in the state of Victoria, Australia between 1913 and 1983. History The Country Roads Board (CRB) was formed to take over responsi ...

(later

VicRoads VicRoads is a government joint venture in the state of Victoria, Australia. In the state, it is responsible for driver licensing and vehicle registration. It is owned and operated through a joint venture between the Victorian government and a ...

). The Borung Highway was declared a State Highway in the 1947/48 financial year, from Charlton via

Donald Donald is a masculine given name derived from the Gaelic name ''Dòmhnall''.. This comes from the Proto-Celtic *''Dumno-ualos'' ("world-ruler" or "world-wielder"). The final -''d'' in ''Donald'' is partly derived from a misinterpretation of the ...

to Warracknabeal (for a total of 61 miles); before this declaration, the road was referred to as Donald-Charlton Road. In the 1959/60 financial year, another section from Warracknebeal to

Dimboola Dimboola is a town in the Shire of Hindmarsh in the Wimmera region of western Victoria, Australia, 334 kilometres north-west of Melbourne. History Situated on the Wimmera River, Dimboola was previously known as 'Nine Creeks'. Following a surve ...

was added, along the former Dimboola-Warracknabeal Road. The Borung Highway was signed as State Route 138 between Dimboola and Charlton in 1986; with Victoria's conversion to the newer alphanumeric system in the late 1990s, this was replaced by route C234 from Dimboola to Donald, C261 from Donald to Gill Gill, and C239 from Gil Gil to Charlton. Borung-Charlton Road, running east from Charlton to Borung, is often locally referred to as the Borung Highway. Although it appears the Borung Highway was intended to at least end in Borung, the highway remains a shared single lane roadway without future plans for enhancement. A curious fact is that the highway would then have the township of Borung at one end and the former Shire of Borung (renamed

Shire of Warracknabeal The Shire of Warracknabeal was a local government area about west-northwest of Bendigo and north of Horsham, in western Victoria, Australia. The shire covered an area of , and existed from 1891 until 1995. History The Warracknabeal area was ...

in 1938) at the other. The Shire (which included Warracknabeal) was originally named the Shire of Borung in 1891 when it was split off from the Shire of St. Arnaud. The name was changed due to confusion in mail deliveries with the township of Borung, and during Victorian Council amalgamations in 1995 it was changed again to the

Shire of Yarriambiack The Shire of Yarriambiack is a local government area of Victoria, Australia, located in the north-western part of the state. It covers an area of and, in June 2018, had a population of 6,658, having fallen from 7,438 in 2008. It includes the tow ...

. The Shire of Borung did not include Dimboola but the larger County of Borung does.

History

Major intersections

References

See also