Plenty Road is one of Victoria’s oldest, starting—as far as Bundoora, and northward is concerned—in 1838, when Robert Hoddle, as part of the process of laying out the Parishes of Keelbundora, Morang, Yan Yean and Toorourrong, allowed an easement for a Government Road. In the early days the Southern end of Upper Plenty Road (or the Road to the Upper Plenty) as Plenty Road was called; started at the intersection where today’s Queens Parade meets Heidelberg Road (the first road constructed outside Melbourne). In later years, the name of that part of Upper Plenty Road running between the Merri Creek Bridge and the Junction Hotel, Preston, was changed to High Street.
In 1843, when Alexander Hunter travelled from today’s Whittlesea to Melbourne, the Upper Plenty Road was little more than a mark on the map. His impression, though brief, is interesting: ‘Rode into town this morning, up to my hocks all the way, never saw such a road .’ [‘Hocks’ would refer to the fetlocks of his horse] In 1852, William Howitt, the author of the book ‘Land Labour and Gold’, found himself, and his companions struggling along the same road on their way to the Ovens goldfields. We join them, in the Bundoora area:
“28 October, 1852. This days journey was the most terrible that we had yet had. No sooner were we out of a bog than we were bouncing over these round great stones, which hard as iron protruded from the earth as thick as plums in a pudding. [For] mile after mile we bumped along over these horrible stones, two of us holding each a horse and the other driving.”
And at another place:
“We soon found ourselves involved in bogs and swamps. All traces of the road disappeared …but onward we pushed, now plunging through deep bogs, our carts up to their axles, and now bounding and reeling over volcanic boulders, or bluestones, as the people call them, till our carts jarred again and threatened to smash to pieces.”
Image: Moniers Bridge, Barbers Creek, Old Plenty Road, Yan Yean, 1901. Preserving the Past Collection, Yarra Plenty Regional Library
