South Eastern Freeway South Australia
West end East end
Coordinates	34°57′48″S138°38′38″E / 34.963398°S 138.644003°E /-34.963398; 138.644003 (West end) 35°08′59″S139°17′43″E / 35.149739°S 139.295331°E /-35.149739; 139.295331 (East end)
General information
Type	Freeway
Length	73.1 km (45 mi)[1]
Opened	1967–2000
Route number(s)	M1(2017–present)
Former route number	National Highway M1(1998–2017) National Highway 1(1974–1998) National Route 1(1967–1974)
Major junctions
West end	Glen Osmond Road Glen Osmond, Adelaide
	Cross Road Portrush Road Mount Barker Road Onkaparinga Valley Road Adelaide Road
East end	Princes Highway Long Flat, South Australia
Location(s)
Region	Eastern Adelaide,Adelaide Hills,Murray and Mallee[2]
Major suburbs / towns	Crafers,Stirling,Bridgewater,Hahndorf,Mount Barker,Callington,Monarto,Murray Bridge
Highway system
Highways in Australia National Highway • Freeways in Australia Highways in South Australia

South Eastern Freeway is a 73 km (45 mi)freeway inSouth Australia (SA). It is a part of theNational Highway network linking the state capital cities ofAdelaide, SA, andMelbourne,Victoria, and is signed asroute M1. It carries traffic over theAdelaide Hills between Adelaide and theRiver Murray, nearMurray Bridge, where it is connected via theSwanport Bridge to theDukes Highway, which is the main road route to Victoria.

It was formerly signposted asPrinces Highway, which refers to the coastal route fromAdelaide toSydney viaMelbourne.

It is often referred to by South Australians simply asthe freeway, as it was the first freeway in South Australia, and is still the longest, and the only one with "Freeway" in its name rather than "Expressway" or "Highway". South Eastern Freeway includes 500 m (1,600 ft) twin-tube tunnels – theHeysen Tunnels – in the descent towards Adelaide, the first of their kind on the National Highway.

South Eastern Freeway commences at the intersection withGlen Osmond Road, Cross Road andPortrush Road inGlen Osmond, and heads southeast as a six-lane, dual-carriageway route. As it traverses across – and through, in one section, via theHeysen Tunnels – theAdelaide Hills, and due the fact the freeway is a major freight route, it also featuresarrester beds and concrete median barriers, with street lighting between Glen Osmond and Crafers. The freeway narrows to four lanes just before it bypassesCrafers, and continues in a south-easterly direction, pastStirling,Hahndorf andMount Barker, before narrowing further to a two-lane, single-carriageway, crossing theMurray River over theSwanport Bridge, to terminate just east of the crossing inLong Flat, south-east ofMurray Bridge.

Prior to the initial construction of the freeway in the 1960s, inbound and outbound road traffic between Adelaide and south-eastern South Australia orVictoria used a two-lane highway originally built in the early part of the 20th century. With growth in Adelaide's population, issues of congestion and safety mandated reconstruction. Studies began in 1962 for a freeway commencing from Crafers, that endpoint selected arguably due to the massive expenditure required with the precedent upgrade of theMount Barker Road.^{[clarification needed]}

Construction began in 1965 from Crafers. The first stage of eastbound traffic lanes were opened in 1967, and the first westbound section opened in 1969. The freeway was opened in stages as construction progressed. The final section bypassing the town of Murray Bridge and connecting to the newSwanport Bridge over the River Murray opened in 1979, providing an alternative to the historic bridge in Murray Bridge.

The Adelaide–Crafers Highway extension came as a much-needed upgrade and replacement to the previous link road, the Mount Barker Road,^[3] which had been contoured to the Adelaide Hills, giving rise to many steep turns, ascending a tortuous route. The tightesthairpin turn on the Mount Barker Road was infamous as theDevil's Elbow, often the site of car andsemi-trailer accidents.^[4]

On 16 May 1995, Prime MinisterPaul Keating announced the construction of the new Adelaide-Crafers section. TheHeysen Tunnels, named after well-known South Australian artist and benefactorHans Heysen, were completed in 1998. Construction was completed in early 2000. In March 2000, Prime MinisterJohn Howard opened the new road.^[5] It was the largestSouth Australian road project at that time, costing A$151 million, wholly funded by theAustralian Federal Government.

An additional exit was built atMonarto around 1999 to service an expanding commercial zone and theMonarto Zoo in the area.^[6] Another exit was announced in 2014 at Bald Hills Road, 4 km southeast of the Mount Barker interchange to service growing housing estates in southernMount Barker andNairne.^[7][8] Bardavcol started construction in May 2015, with the interchange including entry and exit ramps in both directions. The $27mil project was funded with $16mil by the Federal Government, $8mil by theGovernment of South Australia and $3mil from theMount Barker District Council.^[9] The new interchange opened on 15 August 2016.^[10]

An upgrade at the Verdun Interchange began in 2026 (site testing began 2025). The upgrade allows carriageway access to and egress from both directions rather than the previous city-bound only.

The Freeway bypasses many towns previously along thePrinces Highway, including:

Shortly after the Adelaide–Crafers section opened, several incidents involving semi-trailers drew media attention to the road. While the previous Mount Barker Road was a notorious stretch, its dangers were well known; the new freeway presented the new challenge of a sustained continuous gradient with traffic lights at the bottom. Heavy vehicles with inadequate braking found it hard to slow down once they had exceeded a certain speed; this was made worse with brake failures. It took some time, and the addition of several warning signs prior to the descent, for heavy vehicles to become familiar with the freeway's characteristics. Semi-trailers can be seen travelling as slow as 20–30 km/h downhill. In 2005 changeable electronic road signs were installed every 200 metres, so that the speed limit of the road can be adjusted from Transport SA headquarters inAdelaide. This has both improved safety for commuters, and emergency service workers like theCountry Fire Service.

In 2010 and 2011, after more incidents involving trucks having problems successfully braking down the hill, including one going into a bus stop, and another going straight through the intersection at the bottom, the government added new laws that any vehicle with 5 axles or more must stay in the left lane and must not exceed a 60 km/h limit from the interchange at Crafers to the old tollhouse. More safety cameras were installed in an attempt to ensure trucks abide by this new limit.

Additional signs for the twoarrester beds on the descent have been added, to encourage out of control drivers to use them as a safer alternative.

In August 2014, another truck descending the hills collided with cars at the intersection of Glen Osmond Road. Two people were killed.^[11] A driver of a sewage truck lost control after passing the arrestor beds. The driver was a new employee, who had never driven a manual truck before, and had never driven any vehicle on this segment of road.^[12] Driver Darren Hicks was seriously injured and testified against employerCleanaway at a criminal trial after being granted immunity.^[13] The prosecution, brought byComcare, heard that the brakes on the vehicle were defective. In 2021 Cleanaway was convicted of eight charges underhealth and safety legislation.^[14]

The Adelaide end of South Eastern Freeway leads downhill to traffic lights at the intersection ofGlen Osmond Road which continues northwest as route number A1 into theAdelaide city centre,Portrush Road north to bypass the city and towards Port Adelaide, and Cross Road which leads west towards the southern suburbs of Adelaide.

The southeastern end of the freeway, nearMurray Bridge, feeds onto theSwanport Bridge, a two-lane, 1-kilometre-long (0.62 mi) bridge over theRiver Murray, where it joinsPrinces Highway, adual-carriageway highway toTailem Bend. At this point,Highway 1 becomes a two-laned, two-way scenic route which passes through many coastal towns of South Australia and Victoria. The National Highway continues to Melbourne asDukes Highway (A8) from Tailem Bend to theVictorian border and beyond asWestern Highway.

v t e Route diagram
Legend
South Eastern Freeway
Glen Osmond Road Cross Road Portrush Road Old Toll House End Freeway Start Freeway Arrester Bed Mount Osmond Road Mount Osmond Interchange Devil's Elbow Interchange Heysen Tunnels Mount Barker Road Arrester Bed Eagle on the Hill Interchange Crafers Interchange Waverley Ridge Road Mount Lofty Summit Road Piccadilly Road Stirling Interchange Mount Barker Road Old Mount Barker Road Old Mount Barker Road Old Carey Gully Road Old Carey Gully Road Bridgewater Interchange Bridgewater Road Carey Gully Road Adelaide-Melbourne railway line Mount Barker Road Onkaparinga Valley Road Verdun Interchange Onkaparinga River River Road Hahndorf Pine Avenue Mount Barker Road Mount Barker Interchange Adelaide Road Adelaide Road Victor Harbor Rail Line Victor Harbor railway line Bald Hills Road Bald Hills Road Summit Road Summit Road Bremer River Callington Interchange Callington Road Callington Road Monarto Interchange Ferries McDonald Road Ferries McDonald Road Pope Road Pope Road White Hill Interchange Old Princes Highway Murray Bridge Swanport Interchange Jervois Road Swanport Road Start Freeway End Freeway Murray River Swanport Bridge Continues asPrinces Highway

LGA[15]	Location[1][16]	km[1]	mi	Destinations	Notes
Unley–Burnside–Mitchamtripoint	Myrtle Bank–Urrbrae–Glen Osmond tripoint	0	0.0	Cross Road (A3 west) – Plympton,Unley Park Glen Osmond Road (A1 northwest) –Adelaide CBD,Frewville Portrush Road (A17 north) – Northfield,Payneham,Norwood	Northwestern terminus of freeway and route M1 Route A1 continues northwest along Glen Osmond Road
Burnside–Mitcham boundary	Mount Osmond–Leawood Gardens boundary	2.2	1.4	Mount Osmond Road – Mount Osmond	Four rampparclo interchange
	Leawood Gardens	3.2	2.0	Mount Barker Road – Eagle On The Hill,Devil's Elbow	Southeast bound exit and north-westbound entry only
Burnside		4.1	2.5	Heysen Tunnels northern portal
Adelaide Hills	Crafers West	4.6	2.9	Heysen Tunnels southern portal
		6.7	4.2	Mount Barker Road – Eagle On The Hill,Devil's Elbow	Northwest bound exit and southeast bound entry only
	Crafers	8.0	5.0	Mount Lofty Summit Road (B28 north) – Crafers,Mount Lofty Waverley Ridge Road (B28 south) – Belair
	Stirling	9.2	5.7	Mount Barker Road (B33) – Stirling,Aldgate
	Bridgewater	13.8	8.6	Carey Gully Road – Bridgewater,Carey Gully
		15.1	9.4	Adelaide–Wolseley railway line
	Verdun	16.9	10.5	Mount Barker Road (B34) – Hahndorf to Onkaparinga Valley Road (B34) – Balhannah,Birdwood	Southeast bound exit and northwest bound entry only
Mount Barker	Mount Barker–Littlehampton–Totness tripoint	25.2	15.7	Adelaide Road (B37) – Mount Barker,Littlehampton,Strathalbyn
	Mount Barker–Littlehampton boundary	25.8	16.0	Victor Harbor railway line
	Mount Barker–Blakiston–Nairne tripoint	28.9	18.0	Bald Hills Road – Mount Barker,Nairne
Murray Bridge	Callington	45.5	28.3	Callington Road – Callington,Strathalbyn
	Monarto South	54.2	33.7	Ferries McDonald Road – Monarto,Monarto Safari Park
	White Hill–Murray Bridge boundary	63.5	39.5	Old Princes Highway (B55) – White Hill,Murray Bridge	Southeast bound exit and northwest bound entry only
	Murray Bridge–Murray Bridge South boundary	69.2	43.0	Swanport Road (B35) – Murray Bridge,Swanport,Wellington
Murray River		70.6– 71.6	43.9– 44.5	Swanport Bridge
Murray Bridge	Long Flat–Monteith boundary	73.1	45.4	Old Princes Highway – Murray Bridge East toKaroonda Highway (B55) – Loxton,Berri
				Princes Highway (A1) – Tailem Bend,Pinnaroo,Bordertown,Mount Gambier	Southeastern terminus of freeway and route M1 Route A1 continues southeast along Princes Highway
Incomplete access       Route transition

• 
  Eastern portal of the Heysen tunnels on the revamped freeway.
• 
  Driving towards Murray Bridge on former Adelaide–Crafers Highway.
• 
  Former Adelaide–Crafers Highway on a foggy day.
• 
  Former Adelaide–Crafers Highway at Crafers.
• 
  Eagle on the Hill is directly above the tunnel entrance, with the old road winding round from Devil's Elbow.

• Highway 1 (Australia)
• Highway 1 (South Australia)
• Highways in Australia
• Highways in South Australia
• Freeways in Australia
• Freeways in South Australia
• Metropolitan Adelaide Transport Study

• Ozroads: South Eastern Freeway

• Highways in South Australia
• Roads in Adelaide
• Freeways and highways in Adelaide
• Highway 1 (Australia)

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