Mount Victoria

You're probably getting some information on your local stations already, but Chifley Road is closed in both directions, at Corney Town, east of Lithgow, due to a single truck crash approaching O'Connor Street.

Motorists are advised to delay their travel between Mount Victoria and Lithgow.

The Great Western Highway remains closed between Mount Victoria and Lithgow due to continuing work at Victoria Pass, as we all know.

And this crash means the diversion route is closed as well.

We've been discussing the diversion route with Mike, the Oz trucker, and how now that it gets so much traffic, you can probably see problems occurring, whether it's accidents or whether it's the decaying roadway.

But the amount of traffic that goes to Bathurst is enormous.

And with the Great Western Highway still shut indefinitely at Mount Victoria, if you're coming from Sydney, you've only got the Bell's Line of Road to contend with.

What sort of road chaos is this going to cause with the Great Western Highway and the biggest event inland in the Bathurst 1000 coming up in October? What's going to happen?

Mate, I know that they've extended some of the camping times to allow people to get in earlier to try and spread that load and the same to get out.

And it's interesting because we've got Bathurst coming up in October.

And won't that be interesting with the Great Western Highway closed at Mount Victoria? So if you're heading from, say, Sydney to Bathurst, you have to go the Bells Line of Road, which is often only two lanes.

Or you're going to have to come up or down the Hume Highway and then go inland and go up the Olympic Way.

It's going to be a massive pain in the arse, Kelsey.

Coming up this weekend, we've got a very big event happening in Mount Victoria.

And last year, it was BazFest.

This year, it's the Mount VicFest 2026.

Shane, thanks for talking to me.

No, thank you, Graeme.

Great to be able to connect and also kind of share what's happening on September the 12th on Saturday, which is pretty exciting for Mount Victoria and also for all the locals and travellers that come through.

Well, BazFest last year was a great initiative.

And, of course, it was really named because of Baz Luhrmann and his connection and his wife's connection with the Victorian Albert.

I doubt any did.

There's always ongoing updates on the length and budget blowout of the works on the Great Western Highway at Mount Victoria.

As you and I talked about this last week, the Bathurst 1000 coming up, it's going to affect that unbelievably.

But there are shops in Lithgow and in the Central West that are really, really struggling because of this main artery being shut down.

And so, yeah, infrastructure gets built, but what kind of work-life balance do you have? It's completely different.

And we have unions that would never allow that.

And there's always been talk of a tunnel connecting, say, Penrith, maybe a little bit higher into the mountains, Springwood, going through the Blue Mountains and coming out at Mount Victoria or a bit further down at Lithgow.

That's pie in the sky.