Type Highway Major cities Donald, Warracknabeal Major settlements Warracknabeal, Donald | Length 140 km Via Warracknabeal, Donald | |
Route number(s) C234 (1999-present)
Dimboola - Litchfield
C239 (1999-present)
Donald - Charlton Former
route number State Route 138 (? - 1999)
Entire route West end Western Highway
Dimboola, Victoria East end Calder Highway
Charlton, Victoria | ||
The Borung Highway (C234 - Dimboola to Donald section and C239 - Donald to Charlton section) is a 140–kilometre rural highway in western Victoria 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).
Contents
Map of Borung Hwy, Victoria, Australia
History
The more notable features along the highway exist in the pastoral scenery, and the surprising appearance of lakes amongst the rolling hills. Buloke trees (from which the Shire of Buloke gets its name), are a regular feature along the eastern segment of the road.
The Borung Road, running from Charlton to Borung, is often referred to as the Borung Highway, particularly by locals of Charlton. 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 at the other. The Shire which includes 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 in 1938 to the Shire Warracknabeal due to confusion in mail deliveries with the township of Borung and more recently in 1995 during Victorian Council amalgamations it was changed again to the Shire of Yarriambiak. The Shire of Borung did not include Dimboola but the larger County of Borung does.
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 surviving. Stanbridge befriended the Booroung people near Lake Tyrrell, 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"