ARMCHAIR JOURNEY

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday November 7, 2009

Reviewed by Bruce Elder

Len Beadell's LegacyBy Ian BaylyBAS Publishing, 144pp, $35EVERYONE who loves off-roading, and particularly loves exploring the vast flat isolation of Central Australia, should read this book about Len Beadell. Without Beadell, sometimes referred to as ��Australia's last true explorer��, journeys into the outback in South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory would be impossible.Never heard of Len Beadell? He was the surveyor and road builder who, with a team of eight dedicated assistants (bulldozer drivers, mechanics and a cook), built more than 6500 kilometres of roads in the 1940s and 1950s that opened up the Australian inland. It was Beadell who headed the ��gunbarrel crew�� that built that extraordinary track, the Gunbarrel Highway, from Victory Downs (just west of the Stuart Highway on the South Australia-Northern Territory border) across to Carnegie in Western Australia. It was also Beadell and his crew who constructed the Anne Beadell Highway (these were access roads across sand dunes and deserts rather than sealed highways) from Mabel Creek Station (west of Coober Pedy) across to Laverton.Beadell was proud of his work and he left small aluminium plates along the way to ensure that the drivers who followed didn't get lost. Each plate was stamped with the latitude and longitude and, frighteningly, the distances to the next waterhole or station.In this unusual and well-illustrated book, Bayly tells Beadell's story with such attention to detail that anyone wanting to travel these old, rough and difficult roads would be well advised to take a copy with them.The actual construction makes particularly fascinating reading: ��The typical modus operandi was for Beadell to carry out forward reconnaissance in his Land Rover by himself, and, on the basis of this, decide the best route for the road. He would then return to the rest of the group from which the bulldozer would lead off first with its driver guided by Beadell flashing a mirror (sometimes a flare was used) from the top of the Rover. The rough track was then smoothed with an ordinary road grader.��Remarkably, the roads are still there more than 60 years later and still present a challenge to adventurous four-wheel-drive enthusiasts.

© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald

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