Sturt Highway
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The Sturt Highway is a Australian highway located in New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia.
The Sturt Highway is the main highway route between Sydney and Adelaide. The Sturt Highway commences at its junction with the Hume Highway near Gundagai south west of Sydney. The Highway heads more or less due west, passing through the northwest of Victoria, and linking the towns of Wagga Wagga, Narrandera, Hay, Balranald, Mildura, Renmark and Gawler to Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. The highway carries the route number National Highway A20 in South Australia and Victoria, and National 20 in New South Wales.
The Sturt Highway is named after Charles Sturt, who explored south western New South Wales, the Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers and also parts of the deserts of central Australia in the 1820s and 1830s. The highway crosses the Murrumbidgee at Balranald having followed that river for much of the route from the Hume Highway, and crosses the Murray a total of four times:
- At Mildura over a high arched bridge
- At Paringa (near Renmark) over a lift-span bridge which used to have a railway through the middle as well as the road carriageway on each side
- At Kingston over a high bridge from an embankment on the right bank to the cliffs on the left bank
- At Blanchetown over another high bridge to cliffs on the right bank.
As well as linking with the Hume Highway, the Sturt Highway connects with:
- the Newell Highway at Narrandera
- the Mid-Western Highway at Hay
- the Mallee Highway at Balranald
- the Murray Valley Highway east of Euston
- the Silver City Highway in New South Wales just over the bridge from Mildura
- the Calder Highway at Mildura
- the Barossa Valley Highway at both Nuriootpa and Gawler.