New South Wales
Photo Gallery

New South Wales Road Photo Gallery:
National Route 1 (Pacific Highway) (Brunswick Heads Bypass (Pre-Duplication))

The Pacific Highway, one of Australia’s busiest and most important road links, passes through the heart of residential, farming and retail areas of many towns along the New South Wales coast between Hexham, northwest of the industrial city of Newcastle, to the NSW-QLD Border at Tweed Heads, about 90 minutes south of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland.

The route's southern terminus is located at the junction of the Pacific Highway (SR111) and the New England Highway (NH1) at Hexham, 16 km northwest of Newcastle, which is north of Sydney. The northern terminus is at the New South Wales / Queensland border, just west of the town centre of Tweed Heads. The route itself is a mix of freeway, arterial and rural highway standards. The highway has been progressively upgraded over the years, however since the late 1980s, an accelerated upgrade program has been undertaken. Despite the acceleration program, only approximately 40% of the highway is of dual carriageway.

This page looks at the bypass alignment of the highway in the Brunswick Heads area, which opened to traffic on 5 June 1998, removing a renowned holiday bottleneck from the Brunswick Heads township. This upgrade in itself has an interesting past, because the original contractor for the work went into voluntary administration. This stage of the highway upgrades in the area was done as a single carriageway, at a cost of $17 million.

The second stage, is part of the Brunswick Heads to Yelgun project, realigning old sections of highway not upgraded in the by-pass of the town centre, and also duplicating the works that opened in 1998. This upgrade covers an 8.6 kilometre section of the Pacific Highway between the Brunswick Heads South Interchange and the southern end of the Yelgun to Chinderah Freeway. For more details, click here.

The images shown on this page are of the by-pass before it was duplicated.

Length (NR1): 679 km
Internal RTA Classification: State Highway 10
Route Number:
Forthcoming Alphanumerics:
Information courtesy of the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority

Distance Sign
RD sign, southbound after the Gulgan Road interchange on the Tandy's Lane Freeway, which opened to traffic in 1998. March 2006.

Image © Paul Rands

 

AD Sign
Advance directional signage on the Gulgan Rd interchange (southbound) at Brunswick Heads, May 2005.

Image © Rob Tilley

Gulgan Road Interchange signage
Southbound at the Gulgan Road interchange on the Tandy's Lane Freeway at Brunswick Heads. March 2006.

Image © Paul Rands

Gulgan Road Interchange signage
Southbound AD sign for the Gulgan Road interchange on the Brunswick Heads by-pass. The by-pass is currently under upgrade to dual carriageway, which will link the Tandy's Lane & Yelgun to Chinderah Freeways with dual carriageway, which is currently not the case. Click here for close up of the sign courtesy of Rob Tilley.

Top Image © Paul Rands / Bottom Image © Rob Tilley

 

Northbound on Brunswick Heads By-Pass
Typical conditions in the Brunswick Heads area, with new northbound carriageway to left of shot. March 2007.

Image © David Whiteman

Brunswick Heads By-Pass
Typical conditions in the Brunswick Heads area, March 2006. Click here to open the construction web site for this upgrade.

Image © Paul Rands