The Old Sale Road, as the Gippsland Track became known, a name which seems to have been used from about 1878 when the railway was coming through Gippsland, was a new route created to follow the line, and the railway lines were carefully surveyed to minimise climbs with heavy loads.

There is a map which shows the coach route swinging south and east around Pakenham and the getting into the foothills, away from the swamp. It was north of the formalised Gippsland 'road' as it travelled through Garfield North and Buneep Buneep. To tell the story of the development of the road, in detail, would need hundreds of thousands of words, and a little more knowledge than I possess.
The Old Sale Road went east from the Robin Hood, up past the Drouin West cemetery to run into the Main Neerim Road from Drouin. It was the main route until the railway brought new towns into being along the line. At the Robin Hood the Princes Highway (which was not called that at the time) moves down to the railway and more or less follows it eastward. The Old Sale Road name has been kept but it is in very patchy use, at least as a name.
It is called that from the Robin Hood until it reaches the Neerim Road, the name used until the Neerim Road runs north from the Drouin West junction and then the eastward continuation is the Old Sale Road again.
It is joined by the Buln Buln Road and then swings south and east to run through Brandy Creek. It heads on through Buln Buln and onto the flats north of the highway, past Nilma and Darnum. It runs just north of Shady Creek and seems to be heading for Willow Grove and the Blue Rock Dam – but it doesn't.
Heading to Westbury it is known as O'Brien's Road for a short distance, regains its name, loses it again briefly as it takes in part of the Walhalla Road and dives into the wilds of Newborough. Westbury is a little northwest of Moe.
There were about 30 blocks in its initial survey, carried out by W.T. Dawson in 1861. There was already the Retreat Inn on the surveyed site but that did not bother Dawson, whose strictly rectangular approach meant that the inn was left straddling a boundary.
Now, from here I am making some assumptions. It seems to become Torres Street until that street runs into the Haunted Hills Road. I've not heard of this as part of the Old Sale Road but it is certainly a part of the original road into Gippsland, climbing and twisting through the Haunted Hills until it comes back down to join the Princes Freeway at the Marrett's Road overpass (from which, incidentally, McDonald's Track runs away to the south – but that is another story.
The Old Melbourne Road now appears on our map, appearing to reappear just east of the Morwell River – historically it ran right through, but the coal trade cut the road off. It once crossed the river there and the crossing was a well-known stopping-place for weary travellers, or any other kind. Is the Old Melbourne Road part of what was once the Old Sale Road? It seems likely that it was – there were not too many bridges available in the area.
That makes me wonder a little about the stretch east of the Haunted Hills. The open cut mine caused new routes to be opened up as it devoured all the old ones, including the Princes Freeway.
The Old Melbourne Road runs to the north side of Morwell and then runs almost due east in a long, straight run into Traralgon. That seems likely to have been the Old Sale Road (and the Gippsland Track), because that road would have to have been sandwiched into a relatively narrow strip between the La Trobe and hills.
The lack of a bridge at Rosedale would have kept the routes in place whatever it was called, then or now.
There was some traffic from Rosedale, in the earliest days that went south and then east to Longford and across the Latrobe at the Swing Bridge or the low level bridge which was there at first, and then up to Sale, running between the Dutson Morass (which was bigger and wetter than it is now) and the Thomson River.
The biggest obstacle for people riding the Gippsland Track was the mud. Horses and pack horses could ford rivers or even swim them, but drays and coaches and wagons needed bridges at a time when there was very little money.
There was a bridge of some sort at Rosedale but there is, or was, a significant length of flat, wet ground between Rosedale and the hill north of the river. The bridge opened in 1906 was built at the end of a long causeway that is still impressive for a construction carried out by horse-drawn equipment and wagons - and hard work.
By the 1890s the road into Gippsland was becoming quite civilised and in 1913, when the Country Roads Board came into being it was steadily improved. District Roads Boards, and then the municipal councils which replaced them had to build roads and maintain them using rates money 'taxed' from the locals and there was a real disconnect between what was necessary and what could be afforded.
The CRB was reasonably well funded by the government and was soon working on the Gippsland Road, even into far east Gippsland. The road was even graded and gravelled in many places, a real luxury for many travellers.
One other source of roads funding was toll gates. There was a toll gate at the Dandenong Cr eek bridge, another at the Bunyip and yet another at Brandy Creek. The tolls were set by the councils. "Sheep, pigs and goats were charged a farthing (a quarter of a penny), horses, mules and donkeys were charged threepence each and oxen were charged sixpence each." When cattle were worth a pound, the tolls could take one shilling and sixpence from that value. That was pretty steep.
There was a scale for vehicles that depended partly on the width of the steel 'tyres'. The wider they were the less damage they would do. Still, a six-horse wagon would be charged three shillings and sixpence.
Many a drover would make a wide detour to find another crossing place and avoid the tolls altogether.
Next week I'd like to talk a little about the magnificent road we now have in Gippsland, even though there are few potholes in the older bits.