"TOO LONG IN THE BUSH" - Len Beadell (Aust 1965)
Another OpShop chuckout (why do people toss away such treasures?!), this is the first hand account by the surveyor Len Beadell and his crew, of the putting in of a 1,350kms east-west "joiner" road, through some of the most godawful country in Aus, between the north-south Adelaide-to-Alice Springs Hwy, and Carnegie Station deep in Western Australia. Mostly done in the summer of 1957/8.
Even in the 1950s this area was so remote that Beadell and his team ran into bands of First Nation people who had never seen a European, let along a bunch of weary Land Rovers, a grader and a crawler bulldozer.
Beadell always went ahead of the main party, looking for the best line, navigating by the stars at times as he fought his way through either endless sandhills, spiky spinifex, mulga scrub, or gibber outcrops, carrying everything he needed, dealing with anything up to four punctures a day from the mulga root stakes, vaporising fuel lines (it was mostly about 120 deg F in the shade), and only hot water to drink. And one day even that ran out. Not far from where one of the 1880s explorers died of thirst.
It's a great tale, of ingenuity, endurance, and plain doggedness. Well worth a read. Shots below are of Beadell on the job, and the bulldozer. Tag is to the WIKI page.
Cheers...
T.R.E.
