Has anyone got any experience of driving on Route 1 in Australia, especially the northern section from Stuart Highway to Cairns? I would love to drive the whole of this route (yes, possibly that's a bit mad) and wondered what the unpaved sections were like.

Not quite the section you asked about, but I drove from Sydney to Brisbane on Route 1 back in 1996. At that time there was a lot of S2 / S2+1 particularly on the long distances between towns. The route went through towns rather than bypassing like you'd expect a major road to do here. There was some quality D2 in places.

The surfaces were varied but quite reasonable - for me nothing worse than a non-primary A-road here. There were a heck of a lot of roadworks on my trip where it appeared widening was taking place. These delays could be lengthy and frustrating - on exiting one of these I tried a quick overtaking manoeuvre and smashed my car backwards into a crash barrier! I'd imagine further north the surfaces could be pretty grim.

I have been driven from Port Douglas to Cairns. Much of this is Route 44 as well as Route 1.
This was a standard S2 road with stretches of D2 near Cairns Airport.

Thanks both - sounds like an interesting mix (although not much fun with the roadworks). I used to think the A1 / A1 (M) corridor from the City of London to Edinburgh was a good mix of road types and locations til I discovered Route 1.

In my 2010 AA road map there appears to be an error. It seems to show Route 1 veering off the unpaved Savannah Way onto a 4 wheel drive only track that terminates at a T junction with Route 83 going south and Route 1 going north to Normanton (whereas I think Route 1 just takes the direct route to Normanton along the Savannah Way). Having a 4WD only section would be a bit too eclectic!

I once went for a job interview in Adelaide and should have looked out for the A1 when there (but didn't know about Route 1 then).

I drove up the Pacific Highway from Sydney to Brisbane last year. There is currently dual carriageway all the way from Sydney to Port MacQuarie, but then you have hundreds of kms of single carriageway with overtaking lanes every 10-15kms between Port MacQuarie and Byron Bay.

North of Byron Bay the road improves dramatically, especially between the Gold Coast and Brisbane.

Did all of it, except Sydney to Melbourne (went direct National 31) and Darwin to Cairns. And don't forget Tasmania

I'm not sure how much longer it will last from Darwin to Cairns, as Queensland is renumbeing it's routes at present, bereaking the national grid numbeing system.

West of Adelaide to Perth and then North to Darwin is the best part.

I've only driven the Gold Coast - Brisbane section which was in very good condition

The route shown on your map is correct - this is the route that was officially allocated to National Route 1 from the beginning.

However, to complicate things, NR1 is not signed between the end of Gulf Developmental Road near Normanton and the NT Border. There used to be some signage on the duplex with NR83 south from Normanton to Donor Hills, however I think this is now long gone (route number signs are often missing in this part of the country).

Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads did have an official schedule of route numbers, however this is now at least 10 years old. In this document, NR1 was shown as signed from Gulf Dev Rd to Donor Hills, then 'allocated' but 'unsigned' from Donor Hills to the NT Border via local authority roads. That's another significant point - the roads west of NR83 are all controlled by Burketown Shire, not the State Government.

So to sum all that up - there is no signed route of NR1 between Normanton and the NT Border. However, the allocated route was always via Donor Hills, not the direct route which has recently been labelled as 'Savannah Way'.

As for road conditions, the road is unpaved and can be dusty and corrugated. In the wet season it can be frequently closed as there are few bridges - most watercourses are crossed either by floodways or by using the river bed itself. The direct route from Normanton to Burketown is much lower lying than the route via Donors Hills so is much more susceptible to flooding.

Edit: Hereis a map showing the 'allocated' route for NR1.

I have been on the section from Perth to Bunbury. It sort of reminds me of how an Ax road would be here in the sixties, mostly S2 with some D2 by passes, wide and with a 110 km/h speed limit( as close to the former S2 70 limit over here). Also traffic can be fairly sparse in places, which means 110 km/h is attainable over large distances.

I did many business trips to Australia in the late 1990s, which included visiting the contractor who was widening the Brisbane-Gold Coast section at the time which a couple above have mentioned. That section was straightforward but they described projects elsewhere where accessibility was a key issue; first stage on the job would be to grade an airstrip to fly crews and items in, and sometimes an aircraft would be permanently stationed there 24x7 in case of a medical emergency requiring evacuation to hospital. A different world of projects !

When was the Hwy 1 route across the Nullarbor from Adelaide to Perth finally paved ?

Perth was a modern city with high rises and freeways but you were occasionally reminded of its remoteness by seeing, mixed in with all the city traffic, a battered Land-Rover, maybe three spare tyres chained to the roof along with other supplies, and "Round Oz or bust" or similar scrawled along the sides.

The Perth-Bunbury section is now all D2 with the opening of a huge deviation bypassing Mandurah in 2009. The old S2 section (with overtaking lanes) had a bad crash record because WA drivers are dangerous and stupid - the usual holiday rushes down to the south west usually meant traffic jams through Mandurah and high speed crashes between there and Australind.



1976 - a long time ago now. WA sealed its section by 1969 but SA took a lot longer. For WA, the sealing was a hugely important project to overcome the isolation from the eastern states and it was funded mostly from state funds. SA, on the other hand, were heavily reliant on the then trickle of federal funding as the highway wasn't as important for that state's economic livelihood. The prolonged saga of sealing the SA section was, no doubt, a significant contributing factor to the federal government establishing the National Highway system in 1974 which meant 100% federal funding for designated interstate corridors.

A quick look with Google Earth at the border point on this road shows what looks like a somewhat-informal customs examination shed across the road. What is this? Is there some inspection of commercial vehicles crossing state boundaries ?

Probably quarantine inspection. I think there are restrictions on bringing fruit into South Australia.

As sydneynick said, it's a quarantine point mainly for fruit. WA has some pretty strict quarantine laws and you can't bring fruits, nuts, seeds etc across the border or through the airport.

There's some nice photos of this location on Expressway.

I was last there in 2006 so the Mandurah by pass might have only just been started. Also when I went was out of the holiday season, so traffic would have been quite light.

That's fascinating! That's the sort of historical detail that road enthusiasts, well, if they're like me, really find interesting. Just hope I can get to drive along it sometime.