End of an era

“The Gary Highway was to head north for 350 kilometres from the Gunbarrel Highway to Gary Junction.

Then a second highway of 650 kilometres was planned to join up with the West Australian road system near Marble Bar. A third would connect the road system near Ethel Creek to a point halfway along the Gary Highway, another 470 kilometres. And all this in one year’s work!

Len’s team had to contend with flat tyres and broken gearboxes as well as all the natural difficulties of outback country with its seemingly never-ending sandhills and limitless spinifex plains, in searing heat, bitter cold and violent wind storms.

But regardless of these conditions, the team maintained a much needed sense of humour and an awareness of taking part in an exciting venture. On one forward reconaissance Beadell discovered a small group of Aborigines who had neer before seen a white person and also rediscovered two wells on the Canning Stock route. These and many other adventures of the outback are retold in Beadell’s own lively and entertaining style.”