After leaving Port Augusta, the highway passes through hot and arid saltbush-covered and scrub terrain.

Continuing southwest it connects with such coastal towns as Cowell, Port Neill and Arno Bay which have good fishing spots.

The terrain here is interspersed with broad-acre grain cropping in suitable localities, and the scenery gets greener the more it heads southwest towards Port Lincoln.

[3]: 8  The highway runs along the eastern coast of the Eyre Peninsula but just so far inland as to allow only glimpses of the Gulf in certain places.

The first Europeans to traverse most of this route, in April 1840, were Governor Gawler and John Hill, who explored on horseback from Port Lincoln to the Middleback Range near the location of the site of Whyalla.