Mallee Highway

Mallee Highway South Australia –Victoria
Coordinates	35°17′13″S 139°29′07″E / 35.286901°S 139.485392°E / -35.286901; 139.485392 (West end) 35°01′49″S 143°20′05″E / 35.030403°S 143.334836°E / -35.030403; 143.334836 (East end)
General information
Type	Highway
Length	374.4 km (233 mi)[3]
Gazetted	December 1914 (as Main Road)[1] 1947/48 (as State Highway)[2]
Route number(s)	B12 (1997/1998–present)
Former route number	National Route 12 (1955–1997/1998)
Major junctions
West end	Dukes Highway Tailem Bend, South Australia
	Ngarkat Highway Browns Well Highway Calder Highway Murray Valley Highway
East end	Tooleybuc Road VIC/NSW border
Location(s)
Region	Murray and Mallee,[4] Loddon Mallee[5]
Major settlements	Lameroo, Pinnaroo, Murrayville, Walpeup, Ouyen, Manangatang
Highway system
Highways in Australia National Highway • Freeways in Australia Highways in South Australia Highways in Victoria

Mallee Highway is a highway connecting Tailem Bend in south-eastern South Australia and Piangil in north-western Victoria,^[6] running mostly across the Mallee plains. It forms part of the shortest route between Adelaide and Sydney.

Mallee Highway commences at the intersection with Dukes Highway just south-east of Tailem Bend in South Australia and runs east as a dual-lane, single-carriageway road, through cereal-growing farmland at the southern end of the Murray Mallee to Pinnaroo near the border with Victoria, where it crosses the Ngarkat and Browns Well Highways. It continues east into Victoria through Murrayville and Walpeup until it reaches Ouyen, where it meets Calder Highway, then continues east through Manangatang to Piangil, where it meets with Murray Valley Highway, then along Tooleybuc Road two kilometres to the north where it continues east until it eventually terminates at the New South Wales border and the Murray River at Tooleybuc, where the highway officially ends; the road continues through New South Wales eventually to meet Sturt Highway at Balranald.

Within Victoria, the passing of the Country Roads Act of 1912^[7] 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. Ouyen-Pinnaroo Road was declared a Main Road from Ouyen via Walpeup Murrayville to the state border with South Australia on 14 December 1914.^[1]

The passing of the Highways and Vehicles Act of 1924^[8] provided for the declaration of State Highways, roads two-thirds financed by the State government through the Country Roads Board. Ouyen Highway was declared a State Highway within Victoria in the 1947/48 financial year,^[2] from Calder Highway at Ouyen via Murrayville and Walpeup to the border (for a total of 81 miles), subsuming the original declaration of Ouyen-Pinnaroo Road as a Main Road.

With the passing of the Transport Act of 1983,^[9] the highway was renamed as Mallee Highway, and extended east along the former Ouyen–Piangil Road and Tooleybuc Road to Piangil in December 1990.^[10]

The highway was signed as National Route 12 between Tailem Bend and Ouyen in 1955^{[citation needed]}, later extended with the road to Piangil in 1990^{[citation needed]}. With both states' conversion to their newer alphanumeric systems in the late 1990s, its former route number was updated to B12 in 1997 (within Victoria), and in 1998 (in South Australia).

The passing of the Road Management Act 2004^[11] granted the responsibility of overall management and development of Victoria's major arterial roads to VicRoads: in 2004, VicRoads re-declared the road as Mallee Highway (Arterial #6650), beginning at the South Australian border at Panitya and ending at the New South Wales border in Piangil.^[6]

State	LGA[12]	Location[3][6][13]	km[3]	mi	Destinations	Notes
South Australia	The Coorong	Tailem Bend	0.0	0.0	Dukes Highway (A8) – Adelaide, Keith, Bordertown, Melbourne	Western terminus of highway and route B12
		Moorlands	14.5	9.0	Old Dukes Highway – Coomandook
		Sherlock	29.7	18.5	Kulkawurra Road (north) – Karoonda Tynan Road (south) – Yumali
	Southern Mallee	Lameroo	98.5	61.2	Billiat Road – Alawoona	Roundabout
		Pinnaroo	132.7	82.5	Ngarkat Highway (B57 south) – Bordertown, Naracoorte	Concurrency with route B57
			139.3	86.6	Browns Well Highway (B57 north) – Loxton, Renmark
State border			145.0	90.1	South Australia – Victoria state border
Victoria	Mildura	Panitya	148.4	92.2	Panitya Road – Panitya
		Murrayville	166.4	103.4	Murrayville–Nhill Road – Nhill
		Boinka	205.9	127.9	Boinka South Road – Tutye
		Underbool	226.3	140.6	Underbool–Patchewollock Road – Patchewollock
		Walpeup	246.1	152.9	Walpeup–Patchewollock Road (C247) – Patchewollock, Hopetoun
		Ouyen	273.0	169.6	Ouyen–Patchewollock Road – Patchewollock, Hopetoun
			275.3	171.1	Calder Highway (A79 south) – Ballarat, Bendigo, Melbourne	Concurrency with route A79
			275.5	171.2	Calder Highway (A79 north) – Red Cliffs, Mildura
	Swan Hill	Manangatang	330.0	205.1	Robinvale–Sea Lake Road (C251) – Robinvale, Sea Lake
		Piangil	371.1	230.6	Murray Valley Highway (B400 south) – Swan Hill, Melbourne	Concurrency with route B12
			373.0	231.8	Murray Valley Highway (B400 north) – Robinvale
			374.4	232.6	Tooleybuc Road – Tooleybuc, Balranald	Eastern terminus of highway and route B12; road continues as Yanga Way to Balranald
State border					Victoria – New South Wales state border
New South Wales	Murray River				Tooleybuc Bridge
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi       Concurrency terminus       Route transition

• Highways in Australia
• Highways in Victoria
• List of highways in New South Wales
• List of highways in South Australia

Mallee Highway Touring Route

Media related to Mallee Highway at Wikimedia Commons