266:. When the Rover's gearbox was repaired, they proceeded to the broken down grader and repaired its gearbox. Road-building restarted on 30 October and Talawana was reached on 6 November 1963. From there Beadell drove to Ethel Creek to meet with anthropologists, who he took back to visit the unknown tribe, and Stoneham with the rest of the crew regraded the Talawana track on their way back to Giles. Thus road-building by Beadell and the GRCP on behalf of the Woomera rocket range had ended following eight years of desert work, isolation, heat, dust, and flies.
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smoke rising above the spinifex, so he approached the smoke, switched the engine off, and waited for a meeting with an unknown tribe which he knew would come. Soon after, two
Aborigines appeared while others kept their distance. Anthropologists were very interested in this discovery, and Beadell was able to take a small study group back to the spot at a later date.
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Survey of the
Talawana track was unusual in that Beadell began at the opposite end from where work started. His reason was that over the years, he had noticed that parallel sand ridges often came together at the western extremity, resulting in an insurmountable trap. He decided to approach from the
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who had been there 70 years earlier while building the fence. A major obstacle that lay across the path was the McKay Range, which
Beadell struggled to traverse. After he found a way through, he came to a crystal clear water hole, and noticed fresh human footprints near the edge. Further on he saw
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The length of track made by the GRCP from Windy Corner to the abandoned
Talawana ruins was 451 kilometres, where it joined existing station tracks. Access to the southern end of Rudall River National Park is via the Talawana track, at a turn 129 km west of Well 24 on the Canning Stock Route.
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Progress was good to Well 24, so
Beadell went ahead to search for Well 23 once more. He found it almost immediately, but further problems arose with the gearbox on the grader. The point was 160 kilometres from their destination, and another month's delay resulted. Beadell planned to drive to
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was the next objective, but he was unable to find it though being close. To save time, he continued on to Karara Soak (sic) where he discovered the location of Well 24. This left 200 kilometres to travel through featureless sand and spinifex before he arrived on the cleared path of the
233:. It was 7 August when he settled down to wait for the GRCP to arrive from the north, and for the next five days, the wind was so strong that he was barely able to leave the shelter of his vehicle. This led to his naming of the future corner where he camped, "Windy Corner".
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The
Talawana Track and Canning Stock Route are coincident between wells 23 and 24. When Beadell first came to the area in 1963, there was no evidence of the stock route's previous existence apart from the old wells and associated wood and metalwork fittings.
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western end, which kept him in open ended valleys between the dunes. From the beginning of construction of the Gary
Highway in April 1963, the bulldozer had been dispensed with, so all subsequent road construction relied on the grader.
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to carry out the repairs. Meanwhile, Beadell flew back to
Adelaide as his young boy Gary was to be christened. Once the grader was repaired, work on the Talawana road recommenced on 24 September, with Doug Stoneham as the driver.
197:, where Beadell parted company with the crew, as they were returning along the Gary Junction Road to regrade it, while Beadell set off in a southerly direction to begin a 600 km reconnaissance for the new track.
258:, to pick up the mechanic and parts, but when 120 kilometres from camp, the gearbox in the Land Rover lost several cogs, and he was restricted in gear selection. This caused a change in plan whereby he drove to
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When the GRCP arrived at Windy Corner, the clutch on the grader was inoperative, so it was decided to tow it behind a three ton truck to
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for badly needed maintenance, prior to commencing work on the next road. Once the vehicles were serviced, they made their way to
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The
Gunbarrel Road Construction Party (GRCP) arrived at Callawa Station 22 July 1963, having completed 1350 kilometres of the new
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for repairs. This resulted in a six-week delay to progress. The original mechanic Rex
Flatman was flown to Giles from
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to await the mechanic's arrival by air. It was during two weeks here that Beadell started writing his first book
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According to Mark Shephard's biography of Beadell, Len preferred to call his last road the Windy Corner Road.
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rocket range in South Australia. It was the final road they built.
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161:, a distance of 596 kilometres. The majority of it was built by
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is a remote unsealed track that runs between Windy Corner on the
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in 1963 as part of a series of connecting roads for the
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A Lifetime in the Bush:The biography of Len Beadell
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341:(Map). Eight Mile Plains Queensland: Hema Maps.
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216:. He discovered a survey marker placed by
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212:spinifex, and crossed the remnants of the
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339:Australia’s Great Desert Tracks NW Sheet
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459:Canning Stock Route (Exploroz website)
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373:. New Holland Publishers (Australia).
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313:Jigalong Community, Western Australia
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167:Gunbarrel Road Construction Party
94:Gunbarrel Road Construction Party
16:Remote track in Western Australia
936:1963 establishments in Australia
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454:Talawana Track 4wd4life website
429:. Seaford Vic: Bas Publishing.
46:Map of the Talawana Track in WA
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1:
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651:Coolgardie–Esperance Highway
401:. Adelaide: Corkwood Press.
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676:Geraldton–Mount Magnet Road
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946:Roads built by Len Beadell
827:Sandy Blight Junction Road
721:North West Coastal Highway
941:Australian outback tracks
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711:Manuwarra Red Dog Highway
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270:Supplementary information
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73:596 km (370 mi)
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614:Highways and major roads
318:Karlamilyi National Park
256:Trans-Australian Railway
185:from Liebig Bore in the
494:Road infrastructure in
397:Shephard, Mark (1998).
300:Australian roads portal
696:Great Southern Highway
691:Great Northern Highway
570:Great Northern Highway
200:Beadell travelled via
741:South Western Highway
686:Great Eastern Highway
590:South Western Highway
560:Great Eastern Highway
538:Metropolitan highways
510:Graham Farmer Freeway
369:Beadell, Len (1983).
866:Goldfields–Esperance
767:Anne Beadell Highway
706:Mandjoogoordap Drive
427:Len Beadell's Legacy
264:Too Long in the Bush
777:Canning Stock Route
736:South Coast Highway
425:Bayly, Ian (2009).
337:Hema, Maps (2005).
226:Canning Stock Route
206:Ethel Creek Station
55:General information
812:Great Central Road
802:Gary Junction Road
787:Connie Sue Highway
701:Indian Ocean Drive
681:Goldfields Highway
605:West Coast Highway
214:Rabbit-proof fence
187:Northern Territory
183:Gary Junction Road
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817:Gunbarrel Highway
782:Cape Leveque Road
496:Western Australia
348:978-1-86500-159-3
308:Gunbarrel Highway
159:Western Australia
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30:Western Australia
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751:Victoria Highway
636:Brookton Highway
631:Brockman Highway
595:Stirling Highway
550:Brookton Highway
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772:Buntine Highway
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671:Forrest Highway
656:Dampier Highway
646:Coalfields Road
641:Bussell Highway
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555:Canning Highway
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224:Well 23 on the
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155:Marble Bar Road
131:may be required
100:Major junctions
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448:External links
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371:End of an Era
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857:Major roads
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797:Gary Highway
666:Eyre Highway
580:Reid Highway
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231:Gary Highway
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191:Port Hedland
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151:Gary Highway
146:
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123:Restrictions
117:Windy Corner
18:
908:Road routes
837:Tanami Road
792:Duncan Road
585:Roe Highway
237:Road making
163:Len Beadell
136:Fuel supply
90:Len Beadell
930:Categories
896:South West
408:1876247053
380:1864367334
324:References
195:Marble Bar
901:Wheatbelt
876:Kimberley
260:Warburton
247:Maralinga
202:Nullagine
881:Mid West
861:Gascoyne
853:Highways
503:Freeways
286:See also
165:and the
153:and the
86:Built by
891:Pilbara
171:Woomera
128:Permits
113:ESE end
105:WNW end
564:Bypass
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78:Opened
70:Length
886:Perth
846:Lists
243:Giles
64:Track
431:ISBN
403:ISBN
375:ISBN
343:ISBN
145:The
139:none
81:1963
60:Type
157:in
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
