The Old Princes Highway is a stretch of road, formerly designated as the

Princes Highway Princes Highway is a major road in Australia, extending from Sydney via Melbourne to Adelaide through the states of New South Wales, Victoria (Australia), Victoria and South Australia. It has a length of (along Highway 1) or via the former ...

, located in

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 ...

, Australia. The road links the

Geelong Ring Road The Geelong Ring Road (formerly known as the Geelong Bypass and the Geelong Outer Freeway, officially part of Princes Freeway West) is a freeway ring road in Australia beside Geelong's western suburbs from the Princes Freeway at Corio, Victoria ...

at in the west, on the south-western perimeter of

Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, ...

, to the

at in the east. In the time since their de-listing as the Princes Highway, many former sections have since been renamed, or have devolved to their original names.

Route

West

The Princes Highway (West) runs from Footscray in the western suburbs of Melbourne all the way to the South Australian border. Towns along this route have been bypassed by the M1 Princes Freeway and consist of the C109 Princes Highway that runs through Hoppers Crossing into Werribee, and the C109 Geelong Road to Lollypop Creek. Some later the M1 bypasses

as the Princes Freeway (

), with Princes Highway - as route A10 - running through Geelong proper. Within Geelong itself, a 1989 re-alignment of the Princes Highway (as La Trobe Terrace) provides a dual carriageway, 4 lane limited access road to replace the route along Moorabool Street in

South Geelong South Geelong, also referred to as Geelong South, is a southern suburb of Geelong, Victoria, Australia. Its local government area is the City of Greater Geelong. At the 2016 census, South Geelong had a population of 993. The suburb is adj ...

and High Street in Belmont. The Geelong Ring Road re-joins the original alignment of the Princes Highway at

Waurn Ponds Waurn Ponds is a mainly residential southern suburb of Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The suburb is bounded by Rossack Drive, Princes Highway, the Geelong to Warrnambool railway, Reservoir Road, Draytons Road, Pigdons Road, Deakin University and ...

East

The Old Princes Highway route through the outer south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne and eastern Victoria, along former alignments with which originally

Highway 1 The following highways are numbered 1. For roads numbered A1, see list of A1 roads. For roads numbered B1, see list of B1 roads. For roads numbered M1, see List of M1 roads. For roads numbered N1, see list of N1 roads. For roads numbered ...

had traversed through now runs as bypasses of towns, including Pakenham,

Warragul Warragul is a town in Victoria, Australia, south-east of Melbourne. Warragul lies between the Strzelecki Ranges to the south and the Mount Baw Baw Plateau of the Great Dividing Range to the north. As of the , the town had a population of 19,85 ...

and

Moe Moe, MOE, MoE or m.o.e. may refer to: In arts and entertainment Characters * Moe Szyslak, from the animated television show ''The Simpsons'' * Moe, leader of The Three Stooges, played by Moe Howard * Moe Higurashi, supporting character in ''Yash ...

via the Princes Freeway. It starts at the junction of Monash Freeway and the Princes Freeway in Berwick as C101 and continues via the town centres of Berwick,

Beaconsfield Beaconsfield ( ) is a market town and civil parish within the unitary authority of Buckinghamshire, England, west-northwest of central London and south-southeast of Aylesbury. Three other towns are within : Gerrards Cross, Amersham and High W ...

Officer An officer is a person who has a position of authority in a hierarchical organization. The term derives from Old French ''oficier'' "officer, official" (early 14c., Modern French ''officier''), from Medieval Latin ''officiarius'' "an officer," fro ...

and Pakenham. The highway rejoins at

Nar Nar Goon Nar or NAR may refer to: Music * ''Nar'' (album) by Sahrawi musician Nayim Alal * ''Nar'', album by Mercan Dede * New Alliance Records, an American punk, spoken word, music-label, active from 1980 to 1998 * , an Italian record label founded in ...

as an interchange with the Princes Freeway after . The next superseded section is the C102 via

Drouin Drouin is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * André Drouin (c. 1947 – 2017), Canadian politician * Claude Drouin (born 1956), Canadian politician * Derek Drouin (born 1990), Canadian high jumper * Francis Drouin (born 1983), Ca ...

and Warragul, a distance of , and is more commonly known as the Princes Way. The route runs directly through both of these town centres, starting with Drouin to the south and Warragul to the north of the freeway, where an interchange is provided east of Drouin and west of Warragul between these two towns for traffic wishing to bypass the other town. Upon proclamation as a State Highway in 1925, the Princes Highway passed through Moe township along what is now Lloyd St and Narracan Dr (C103). From the end of Narracan Drive, the highway descended into the La Trobe Valley through the Haunted Hills, along what is now Haunted Hills Road. From Hernes Oak, the highway passed almost due west through what is now the Yallourn Open Cut Mine to join today's Morwell Bridge Road at the Morwell River. From there, the Princes Highway used Morwell Bridge Road and what is now Princes Drive (C104) to pass through Morwell. "The first improvements to the route came in the late 1950s when the expansion of the Yallourn open cut necessitated the relocation of the highway. The CRB took this opportunity to provide a high standard access-controlled alignment as well as a bypass of Moe. The first section of the new highway opened in 1959/60 as a single carriageway super-2 expressway between Hernes Oak and the Morwell River. Following in December 1964 was a westerly extension of the super-2 highway from Hernes Oak to Gunns Gully (Newborough) and the Moe Bypass completed the new route - opening in early 1967. The section between Gunns Gully and Hernes Oak inherited the "Haunted Hills" nickname that applied to the original highway between Newborough and Hernes Oak. Duplication of the Moe-Morwell section was commenced after the opening of the Moe Bypass and completed west to Gunns Gully in 1971 and to the western side of Moe in 1979."
''M1 Princes Hwy/Fwy East, Former Alignments: Moe to Morwell''. Retrieved on 15 October 2012. C103 runs via the Moe town centre for before heading north towards Glengarry, Victoria, Glengarry via an interchange with the freeway at Newborough and C104 (otherwise known as Princes Drive), currently the last of the superseded Highway 1 route traverses for through the

Morwell Morwell is a town in the Latrobe Valley area of Gippsland, in South-Eastern Victoria, Australia approximately 152 km (94 mi) east of Melbourne. Morwell has a population of 14,389 people at the . It is both the seat of local governme ...

town centre before rejoining the Highway 1 section of the Princes Highway in the western outskirts of Traralgon. It is anticipated that with the future completion of the Traralgon bypass that a new section of the highway will become superseded from the original Highway 1.

Former route numbers

The Old Princes Highway has many former route allocations including former National Route 1; its routing through Melbourne and along present sections of Princes Highway have been included for sake of completion. Where and when the former route numbers were implemented are stated below. ''through Waurn Ponds:'' * National Route 1 * A1 *unallocated: ''Waurn Ponds – Corio:'' * National Route 1 * M1 * A10 ''Cocoroc – Hoppers Crossing:'' * National Route 1 *unallocated: * C109 ''Brooklyn – North Melbourne:'' * National Route 1 * Alt National Route 1 * Metro Route 83 ''North Melbourne – Parkville:'' * National Route 1 * Alt National Route 1 * National Route 79 * Metro Route 60 ''Parkville – Hallam:'' * National Route 1 * Alt National Route 1 ''Hallam – Narre Warren:'' * National Route 1 * M1 * Alt National Route 1 ''Berwick – Beaconsfield:'' * National Route 1 *unallocated: * C101 ''Beaconsfield – Nar Nar Goon:'' * National Route 1 * M1 * C101 ''Drouin – Nilma:'' * National Route 1 *unallocated: * C102 ''Moe – Newborough:'' * National Route 1 *unallocated: * C103 ''Morwell – East Morwell:'' * National Route 1 *unallocated: * C104

Major intersections

Waurn Ponds–Corio

Cocoroc–Hoppers Crossing

Brooklyn–Flemington

Parkville–Southbank

Southbank–Narre Warren

Berwick–Nar Nar Goon

Drouin–Nilma

Moe–Newborough

Morwell

Gallery

File:Officer06-01-08.jpg, Old Princes Highway, Officer File:Beaconsfield06-01-08.jpg, Old Princes Highway, Beaconsfield Queens Way W from near Chapel St.jpg, Old Princes Highway, Windsor File:South Melbourne VIC 3205, Australia - panoramio (11).jpg, Old Princes Highway, South Melbourne

References