In Central Australia

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31007, 12 March 1966, Page 4

In Central Australia

Too Long in the Bush. By Len Beadell. Rigby Ltd., Adelaide. With 32 illustrations, maps and diagrams. 202 pp.

Never let it be said after reading this book that the days of the pioneer are past. The only difference is that today he operates with a bulldozer, a road-grader and a utility vehicle or so. In Central Australia he still has the loneliness, the thirst, the hunger, the terrific heat, the risk of death, and the ever-present need to improvise and adapt.

Another need—and this is continually demonstrated in this book—is the need to be cheerful no matter how great the adversity. Cheerful, Mr Beadell certainly is. His infectious sense of humour runs through his writing, even with the temperature at 100 degrees or more, as he and his men sweat their way across the arid no-man’s land skirting the notorious Gibson Desert to make a road 900 miles long. This was necessary because of Woomera’s rocket range and the

need for weather stations and aerodromes in the area. Members of the crew, nicknamed the Gunbarrel Road Construction Party, liked the comforts of civilisation as much as anybody, but they had the stamina and fortitude to forego them for months on end as they levelled interminable sand ridges to make the road and form runways for supply planes.

With only a compass and star sightings to keep him oh the way he wanted to go, Mr Beadell would drive 200 miles ahead alone to survey the next section of the road. As he thrashed through spinifex seed heads and bashed through tough mulga, his vehicle could break down or petrol could run short, and he would be far from anywhere, faced with death from thirst or starvation.

But there were compensations for those who could put up with the outback. There were the friendly people on the isolated cattle stations, the aborigines, both friendly and hostile, and the perpetually busy Warburton mission. Everywhere these men found cheerful friendliness, even where conditions were primitive, heat and sand abundant, and water and food scarce. Lightly written, this is an informative book touched all the way with irrepressible humour.