Stuart Highway

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Stuart Highway
Darwin-Daly Waters:

Daly Water-Port Augusta:

Length	1761 miles (2834km)
General direction:	North-South
From:	Darwin, Northern Territory
To:	Port Augusta, South Australia
Towns along highway:	Katherine, Daly Waters, Tennant Creek, Alice Springs, Coober Pedy

The Stuart Highway is one of Australia's major roadways. It is often referred to simply as The Track. The highway is named for John McDouall Stuart, the first European to cross Australia from South to North, and more or less follows his route. The highway was only fully sealed in the middle 1980s as part of the Australia's bicentenary roadworks programme. The entire highway is part of the National Highway system: it forms part of Highway 1 from Darwin to Daly Waters, and is assigned National Route 87 for the remaining 1243 miles (2,000km) south to Port Augusta (redesignated National Route A87 in South Australia). To read a report of a cycling trip along the 'Track' visit WWW.stuart-highway.com The Stuart Highway covers approximately 1700 miles (2,800km), connecting Adelaide in South Australia to Darwin in the Northern Territory, via Alice Springs. Its proper routing is from Port Augusta to Darwin. There are no police patrolling the majority of this remote highway and before the end of 2006 there was no actual speed limit outside towns and other built-up areas on the Northern Territory part.^[1] The bulk of the Northern Territory's population not living in Darwin lies along its track.

There was no absolute speed limit in the Northern Territory before 1 January 2007 but maximum speed limits are posted on some road sections. Drivers were simply required to drive at a safe speed to suit the conditions. Thus the majority of the Stuart Highway had no speed limits at all.^[2] The Northern Territory traffic laws were updated from 1 January 2007 to be similar to the rest of Australia. This included placing a speed limit on all roads (130 km/h (81mph) on major highways such as the Stuart Highway) and significantly increasing penalties for speeding.^[3]^[4]

In 1994, the first, and only, Cannonball Run in Australia ran from Darwin to Yulara and back again. Based on similar events in the United States, this event ended in tragedy when a Ferrari crashed into a checkpoint south of Alice Springs, resulting in the death of four people.^[5] The remainder of the race had to have a 150 km/h (95 mph) speed limit imposed to prevent further accidents, and then had regular traffic overtake the competitors.^{[citation needed]}

The highway became the centre of media attention during 2001 after the disappearance and suspected murder of English tourist, Peter Falconio while travelling on the road.