Great Northern Highway - History

History

Prior to the 1960s, with the exception of several better quality sections in the wheatbelt area, Great Northern Highway was mostly a series of tracks linking Perth to remote pastoral areas. However, several events occurred in the 1950s that moved the highway forwards. The federal government Beef roads scheme encouraged road building in the Kimberley, which meant trucks were able to transport cattle to port, as against the historical but slow cattle drives. In the Kimberley, a sealed single lane link between Broome and Derby was completed in the 1960s, as were a number of access roads to the port of Wyndham.

Meanwhile, iron ore was discovered in the Pilbara. Here, major improvements to the highway commenced in the 1960s and continued in the 1970s - the section between Meekatharra and Newman opened in 1978, having been upgraded and sealed to two lanes wide. Also in 1978, the road between Halls Creek and Wyndham was upgraded and sealed to two lanes wide, and was followed not long after in 1981 by the widened and sealed 476 km between Port Hedland and Broome, which runs parallel to Eighty Mile Beach and past the western end of the Mandora Marsh.

Work accelerated in the 1980s as part of the Australian Bicentenary roadworks program. In 1986, the widened and sealed section between Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek was opened after 5 years of work. Between Newman and Port Hedland the Great Northern Highway was changed in the 1980s to a new route running to the west of the original. It had previously passed through Nullagine and Marble Bar. The new Newman-Port Hedland link was finished in 1989. This marked the completion of sealing the Great Northern Highway (the inland route), and also completion of the federally funded National Highway around Australia.