Country road legacy
Outback hero Len Beadell surveyed and built many classic desert highways.
LEN BEADELL’S road-building career began as a result of his relationship with the Weapons Research Establishment during his Australian Army tenure in the late 1940s. He selected Woomera as a base for weapons testing, which would include the Maralinga nuclear tests. After he left the army he was recalled to Woomera in 1949 to organise military transport movements around the bomb test sites. In 1953 Len recced, then constructed, his first road, between Mabel Creek and Emu, which would become the Anne Beadell Highway.
Maralinga’s construction followed and it was there he began the Gunbarrel Road Construction Party, so named because Len preferred to build roads “as straight as a gunbarrel”. The team eventually constructed more than 6000km of outback tracks, many of which Len named after family members, such as the Anne Beadell Highway, Gary Junction Road and Connie Sue Highway. Because Len’s work meant months in remote areas, he learnt to be fully self-sufficient – even taking a crash course in dentistry! Most of his tracks survive and many are considered bucket-list trips by keen outback tourers. The Gunbarrel Highway is one of the most challenging.
An unfortunate by-product of the fame of Len and his roads has been the theft of many of his original aluminium track markers, which were usually attached to a blazed tree or post and bore detailed magnetic bearings and dates relating to the road’s construction. Visitors along Sandy Blight Junction Road will see many replacement markers erected by
Beadell’s family, fans and 4WD clubs.