Located 114 km north of Melbourne between Seymour and Euroa and just to the west of the Hume Highway, Avenel was established as a stopover point on the road from Melbourne to Albury.
The area was settled in the 1830s and Henry Kent Hughes named his property 'Avenel' after a village in Gloucestershire, England. It was used in the title of a popular novel at the time - 'the Maid of Avenel'.
The township was established in 1849 when the government offered land for sale adjacent a ford over Hughes Creek which had, for some years, been used as a camping place by drovers and teamsters travelling on the Old Sydney Road, established in 1839 as the overland mail route between Melbourne and Sydney.
Avenel grew rapidly as gold prospectors poured north driven by dreams of riches on the goldfields. By 1859 a substantial stone bridge had been built to meet the needs of the increased traffic. Around this time the Royal Mail Hotel was built near the bridge.
Infrastructure developments in the late 20th century altered the town's connectivity. The Hume Highway, which had historically routed directly through Avenel since its early establishment as a key coaching stop, was diverted with the opening of a 16-kilometer bypass on 11 December 1981. The project, constructed to improve traffic flow and safety on the vital Sydney-Melbourne corridor, was officially unveiled by the then Minister of Transport, Robert Maclellan. This shift reduced through-traffic in the town center, influencing local commerce by decreasing passing trade.
The Old Sydney Road now dead ends before it gets back to the Hume Highway.
This cache is near the end of that section of road.