The Western Highway is the Victorian part of the principal route linking the Australian cities of Melbourne and Adelaide, with a length of approximately of single carriageway, then of dual carriageway known as the Western Freeway. It is a part of the National Highway network and designated routes A8 and M8. The western end continues into South Australia as the Dukes Highway, the next section of the Melbourne–Adelaide National Highway. The Western Freeway joins Melbourne's freeway network via the Western Ring Road, in the western suburbs of Melbourne. The Western Highway is the second busiest national highway in Australia, in terms of freight movements, with over five million tonnes annually. It provides the link between the eastern seaboard and South Australia and Western Australia. The towns along the way, including Ballarat, Ararat, Stawell and Horsham, are agricultural and manufacturing centres. Plans are underway for the freeway to be extended west to Ararat, and eventually, to Stawell. The Western Freeway has subsumed or bypassed numerous sections of the older Western Highway alignment. Bypassed sections of the former Western Highway that remain are generally designated sequentially from C801 to C805, or as Metropolitan Route 8 (within suburban Melbourne). The Melbourne section of the Western Highway is shown in the 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan as part of the F12 Freeway corridor. Route The Western Highway begins at the Victorian–South Australian border, east of Bordertown. It is mainly a high quality single carriageway from there to just outside the Melbourne side of Beaufort, with adequate numbers of overtaking lanes. The highway passes through several agricultural centres, for example Horsham, Victoria. Just west of Buangor, the Western Highway becomes the Western Freeway, adopting freeway standards with two lanes running each way, and begins bypassing most of the towns the old alignment of the highway used to serve. The newest sections of freeway standard dual carriageway opened on 6 March 2015 for the Ballarat to Beaufort section (running in length), and on 17 April 2016 for the Beaufort to Buangor section (running in length). The first section runs between the end of the Ballarat bypass between a new flyover/interchange with the C805 (Avenue of Remembrance, Burrumbeet) to just outside the eastern side Beaufort (including a bypass of Trawalla) providing of freeway standard road between Melbourne and Beaufort. The second section runs between just outside the western side of Beaufort to just after the Buangor bypass, where