[4] Hamilton Highway commences at the intersection of Latrobe Terrace and Portarlington Road in Geelong and heads in a westerly direction as a two-lane, single carriageway through Fyansford, crossing the Barwon River and an interchange with Geelong Ring Road, before leaving the Geelong suburbs and continuing west as a rural highway through the localities of Inverleigh, Cressy, Lismore, Mortlake, and Penshurst to eventually terminate at the intersection with Glenelg Highway at the eastern edge of Hamilton.

[3] The Geelong end of the highway was once routed along Hyland Street through Fyansford, until the construction of Deviation Road between 1931 and 1932 with unemployment labour during the Great Depression.

Opened in 1933, it was cut into the hillside, the surface was originally of concrete construction.

[7] A new bridge over Woady Yaloak River in Cressy was opened in 1995, at a cost of $2.86 million, adjacent to and replacing a structure built in 1854 and rebuilt in 1880 after fire damage, retained but now closed to vehicular traffic.

The passing of the Road Management Act 2004[9] granted the responsibility of overall management and development of Victoria's major arterial roads to VicRoads: in 2004, VicRoads re-declared the road as Hamilton Highway (Arterial #6780), beginning at Latrobe Terrace at Geelong and ending at Glenelg Highway in Hamilton.