Beating about the bush

“When your grader breaks down in the middle of the desert, there’s only one thing you can do – attach it to your bulldozer and tow it back to civilisation.

For Len Beadell’s team, that meant a journey of 800 kilometres at three kilometres an hour – the longest towing operation ever in the history of Central Australia. The party hitched up their ‘train’ and set off back along the road they had just built. But while they were all set for a long and arduous journey, the last thing they expected was for their ration truck to melt. This had its disadvantages but was the best entertainment they’d had for a year. It was just the start of a series of incidents which were to mark this journey out as one of the most eventful episodes in the team’s experience.

Returning slowly over the road, Len Beadell recounts in his own colourful style the outstanding events in its construction, the excitement and surprises that lay in store for them in opening up this extraordinary country: fantastic piles of boulders, mountain peaks and some of the most unusual flora and fauna on the earth’s surface.”