Highway Quiz #2

The section from Warakuna (Giles) down to Jackie Junction is basically closed nowadays and is referred to as the Old Gunbarrel hwy on some maps (and is really difficult to get a permit for anyway), hence the trip down to Warburton and back up again (which is what has perhaps led to people calling that section of the Great Central rd as part of the Gunbarrel - it's not, it's a detour around a closed section!)

I suppose I cant fight Wikipedia as they have the source and I suppose they have driven it .

But next time I will get you . Dave

Allan I have traveled on the old Gunbarrell and I did have a permit. dave

Deadly..
Source Wikipedia:

The Gunbarrel Highway is an isolated desert track in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia. It consists of about 1,400 km (870 mi) of washaways, heavy corrugations, stone, sand and flood plains. The Gunbarrel Highway connects Victory Downs, just north of the Northern Territory/South Australia border to Carnegie Station in Western Australia (this is the direction the road was constructed).[1] Some sources also incorrectly show the highway extending west to Wiluna.

Gunbarrel Higway
by Nigel Buxton
LOCATION.

The Gunbarrel Highway links Carnegie Station in central Western Australia with the Meteorological Station at Giles just west of the Northern Territory border. The original highway then extends south east to Victory Downs Station in South Australia. This extension pass through traditional Aboriginal lands and is not open to general traffic.

Source - Wikitravel

The original Gunbarrel was built in the direction from Victory Downs just north of the Northern Territory/South Australia border to Carnegie Station in Western Australia. This route is almost never used since some parts of it are abandoned or prohibited for tourist vehicles. The Gunbarrel, as it is loosely defined nowadays, runs from Wiluna to the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and includes part of the Great Central Road, the Heather Highway and the connecting road from Wiluna, west of Carnegie Station. This is how it will be described in this article. The trip can be made in both directions, but we will travel from west to east.


Wiluna to Carnegie Station
At the western end of the Gunbarrel
Although this stretch of 350 kilometers was not part of the old Gunbarrel, it is now generally considered to form an integral part of a Gunbarrel Highway trip.

Gunbarrel Highway
Beadell's best known road is the Gunbarrel Highway, so named after the Gunbarrel Road Construction Party[2]which was assembled under Len - he said he tried whenever possible to make the road as straight as a gunbarrel. The road was built with initial reconnaissance and survey by Len, usually alone, pushing through raw scrub in a Land Rover. He used a theodolite to observe the sun or stars for latitude and longitude calculations. Once the line of the road had been decided, a bulldozer followed to cut a raw track, clearing away the spinifex and mulga scrub to form a basic level track. This was then graded using a standard road grader.
The Gunbarrel Highway was begun at "Victory Downs" homestead[3]which is 316 km (196 mi) by road to the south of Alice Springs, then pushed west to the Rawlinson Ranges, skirting south of the Gibson Desert, via the mission at Warburton, to connect to an existing road at Carnegie Station. Total distance was about 1,400 kilometres (870 mi). Len's stories of the building of this road are told in the first of his numerous books Too Long in the Bush, a reading of which will give some insight into the incredible feat that building this road was. Len suffered near starvation, many mechanical breakdowns, countless punctures and other mishaps, all in searing desert heat, but seemingly took it all in his stride with good humour



chocs

PS
i wish Onetrack was here to read that!
What a post!

How that for starters Ron?

chocs

It's only in the last 15 to 20 years that the Warakurna-Jackie Junction bit has been closed I'm thinking. But some travellers still manage to get permits for that section for 'research' and a few small groups still get to go through each year.

...read all of lens books after travelling the length and breadth of the continent in two big overlapping circles in 1982 with 'ol mate in a rusty 1969 safari wagon taking in 23,000 miles of coast and bush...

even when len wrote his books, permits were an absolute must as ''tourism'' to these parts was discouraged, in part because of the infrequency of travellers, amongst other things.

..len beadell, serving with the australian army was originally seconded to the woomera rocket range for the survey of roads to roughly follow the trajectory of the experimental ordnance that was being tested there, and went on at the behest of the government to open up other areas with his ''gunbarrel highway construction party'', for various projects planned, as well as the trials expected to be carried out in more remote areas, including emu field and maralinga...

Detective, I've read all of Len's books a couple of times, truly a great man, no BS, just quietly on with the job, a great read. Christmas a couple of years ago my Wife got me a book written by some wombat Victorian Acedemic, (mind my Wife didn't realize it was written by the afforementioned chap) that is just a totally miss alighned way of looking at Len's work at his (I believe) fair and good treatment of Aborigines.
If any of you are into reading books, all of Len Beadell's are still in print, easy to get, easy to read, and great entertainment, just make sure you buy the ones by Len and not some BS about him.

just make sure you buy the ones by Len and not some BS about him.

I agree that Len's books are absolutely great and are a 'must read' (as are the ABC documentary video and the later video based on the off-cuts from the doco), however don't discount 'A Lifetime in the Bush - The Biography of Len Beadell' by Mark Shephard.

(Mark also authored the highly acclaimed 'The Simpson Desert: Natural History and Human Endeavour')

One of Len's daughters, Connie Sue, and her partner Mick Hutton still run outback tours on many of the roads that Len built.
www.beadelltours.com.au/index.html

HI Allan, I was referring to another book "Len Beadell's Legacy". I hadn't heard of Mark Shephard's book, though I'll see if I can find it now.