2nd stage of the trip was the Anne Beadell Highway...

The Anne Beadell runs from Coober Pedy in South Australia in an east-west direction,1,350kms across the Great Victoria Desert to Laverton, north of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

Coober Pedy is a pretty wild opal mining town int he outback where it gets so hot, over half the people live under ground.



The country has more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese with every hole accompanied by a mound of dirt.




This track crosses the restricted weapons testing area of Woomera which was the catalyst for all of the tracks I have been doing. All about access for monitoring equipment.




Also had to cross some of our Indigenous brothers country which required "special" permission only given to really good looking blokes.



Some great bush camping perfect for cracking a coldie with no one for 200kms in any direction.



The "highway" was Lens idea of a joke as it was cut as the double blade width of a D10 and over the years has widened a bit as people have tried to avoid the corrugations. These days it is jsut wall to wall corrugations which can be driven at speeds of under 5kms/hr or over 60kms/hr. Anything in between has the dash jumping into your lap.



The Poms set off a couple of atomic bombs at Emu in 1953 and this is me at ground zero. Eyes only glowed at night for a couple of days!!!!




The bombs were detonated above ground from towers and the effect on the tower footings are self evident .The only other known man made force equal to or greater is that exerted on Gunner_45's toilet bowl on a daily basis.



Still some equipment left behind in the desert at Emu Claypan which was used as the airstrip.




This more like it...long straight 2 wheel track over many many sand dunes... nugget country...




The old track is still there but over grown in sections and now by passed



Neale Junction is the intersection of 2 of Lens tracks..the Anne Beadell and the Connie Sue named after his wife and his daughter.





A light plane went down 10kms off the track aver 20 years ago....still in pretty good nick


Some spectacular country

Yeo Homestead is still in great nick



Even a first class bush shower..flash stuff in this neck of the woods....




The young bull and the old bull fighting over who was going to get to pose with the Defender



Sorry about some of the photos being off colour but a setting got changed on one of my cameras with out me realising.

Looks awesome, I would like to visit the woomera stuff one day but didn't get a chance in my recent trip.

Corrogations are a bitch lol, never encountered them until I went to oz

The area is full of history..and a lot of British history centred around the atomic tests.

Len was a real character and one of my favourite stories is that he was constantly being asked when the flies would go. Eventually he told one English scientist keeping a very straight face, 30th March. He always laughed that subsequently the new scientists would arrive from England on the 1st April!

Corrugations are the pain of the outback and the ones on the Anne Beadell go for a coupe hundred of kms. There is no speed at which they are comfortable. You can try to go 80kms/hr but the track is generally not suited to those speeds. Anything between 5 and 80 is torture on both the truck and occupants! All good fun though.

Cracking thread!

Thanks Bennehboy... great to get the feedback and glad you are enjoying it. I'll try and next the next bit up asap.

Cheers

fantastic country you have there! those roads are very close to what we have on the isle of man! next time put a snow plow on to level the roads!

Great thread, thanks for sharing. We're enjoying both the mods and demonstration of the skills, to make an awesome machine and then see the trips. I need to put my double cab on a ship for a bit of a holiday!

Fantastic thread, thanks

Thanks guys...appreciate the feedback. I'll post the rest of that trip and the damage report in the next couple of days. Cheers

This was part of the return leg of my trip across Australia from Brisbane to Perth and back with as much dirt road as possible. Apologies for the "blue" pics...hack with a new camera accidentally changing a setting without realising.

The Connie Sue is a 650km track, most of which is graded somewhere between rarely and never, and runs north - south across the Nullabor Plain and Great Victoria Desert from Rawlinna on the Trans Australia Railway Line to Warburton.

Out here, no expense is spared on signs. They may not be pretty but they are good for another 100,000kms!



The Nullabor has never been accused of being over vegetated, just plain and big



Part of the original track has been upgraded to a damn near highway as it joins two Indigenous communities. Fortunately there are some big sections of bulldust to make it a bit of fun at least

The old Premier Downs Station is not quite so premier these days



Survey markers along the track are handy navigation aids as generally the surveyors had a fair idea of where they were!




The track split at the "The Shed", a landmark in these parts. The car coming in on the right was coming from the community and turned out to be the only people we saw over the 650kms.

Recent fires have decimated sections of the desert regions



Neale Junction is the intersection of the Anne Beadell and Connie Sue Hwy's



Luckily fire hasn't gotten it all




the corrugations are bone shattering and the ultimate test for suspension

Feral camels are everywhere and these days we are seeing more camels than kangaroos!

Damn fine looking truck there..wonder whose that is???



This is the only reliable water for a couple hundred km’s in any direction

Even home to a unique Aussie tree…a 4WD spare parts tree!!!

The track gets a bit knarly in spots but a walk in the park for a Defender…


Another part of the Aussie outback mastered with truck and driver surviving to fight another day.

I imagine it would be a 'tad' inconvenient to break down given that you only saw one car in 650kms!

What kind of gear do you lug about to make sure you stay safe/can get yourself out of the ****?

I carry a comprehensive tool kit and a lot of spares such as seals, bearings, a full set of engine belts and hoses, spare suspension bushes as well as shocks and springs. On board compressor and plug kit for tyre repairs plus 2 spares, full oils ( engine, diffs, transfer and gearbox) plus a satellite phone and EPIRB.

Also carry plenty of water..about 80L plus plenty of food, first aid etc. plus a bit of bush mechanic experience built up over the years

I seem to remember hearing about a German family that took a minivan into the bush and got bogged down, abandoned vehicle and their bodies were only found years after, including young kids.

Darwin award for the parents but wouldn't wish that on any child.

Amazing how people go into the wild so unprepared, guess people just feel too safe these days.

I know it's no kind of comparison but a year or so back I was up Snowdon in wales at Easter, snow on the peak, 50mph gusts and bloody cold, yet all manner of idiots up there in jeans, trainers and cotton t-shirts. I was done up to the eyeballs in decent walking gear, very toasty and warm thankyou! The fact there's a train runs to the summit gives people a false sense of security, I've not been up another peak with that many idiots on it

A man died on crib gogh ( Crib Goch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )the same day, probably well equipped but he was a fool for trying the ridge in high winds.

Excellent as usual.

I love reading the stories and the history of places, especially the other side of the world.

Many thanks for sharing.

That might be the German couple who perished after getting bogged near Halligan Bay, Lake Eyre. went there in the middle of summer when the temperatures were 50C with no experience and little gear. They did leave a message at William Creek...who had advised them not to go...but they went anyway. They woman tried to walk out out and when they found her body, the soles of her shoes were melted from the heat of the gibber rock.

It is a pretty daunting place, I can tell you!

You have to be prepard and self sufficient...these are not regions to be taken lightly. Things go peared shaped very quickly and in a big way if something goes wrong and you are not prepared.



I have had similar experiences to you meeting people who are grossly under prepared. Met a bloke with is son who was about 12 half way across the French Line in the Simpson desert about 15 years ago when there were a LOT less people doing it and he was in an old Hilux with virtually nothing. Didn't even have a UHF let a alone a sat phone . Stopped us because he had leaking tyre and wondered if we had a compresor.

I doubt he had a trye guage! "Barnsey" the legendary mechanic in Birdsville used to make a fortune dragging dills like that out of the desert.

I collect Stubby Holders...neoprene beer coolers for "stubby" bottles...not sure if you have them, but my prized one is one of Barnsey original the motto of which is

"We may be rough, but at least we are expensive!"

I never get board of this thread. Keep these posts coming

landyfox said:

i never get board of this thread. Keep these posts coming :d

Click to expand...

+1

Thought it might be a good time to update how all of my mods survived the big trip.

Had a bit of collateral damage on the Centre Line Track. One tyre was staked twice and has a single plug repair on the inside and a 4 plug repair on the outside wall. This became a 5 plug repair when it started to leak a bit in Perth but has not lost a psi all the way back to Brisbane.

FOOTNOTE : this tyre not only made it all the way back to Brisbane but also did the next trip which was another 10,000km/7,000km of dirt affair. The hole spread a bit and ended up with about 8/9 plugs but I got an extra 15,000 very harsh kms out of it. Got to say something about the Mickey T’s!




Most damage was caused by my UHF ariel/height gauge which crashed back against the passenger’s mud guard leading edge. At limes it was being flexed back to almost 90 degrees. I'll make up a urethane cover/guard for future trips. Apart from losing the black tip, the ariel was not affected at all as it was the aluminium extension hitting the guard.



Top commendation must go to Safari snorkels as the snorkel took a hammer from the squillion branches and nothing more than some scratches..







Very happy with my snorkel adaptor for the Sy Klone pre cleaner given that Martyn lost his on the same track.

The roof rack got a few scratches as well but structurally was sound as..






The side mirrors didn't take long to be folded back flat and the passengers was punctured by a branch..





Had a small problem will diesel getting into the auxiliary tank breather line due to over filling but a quick blow out and that was hunky dory. Sliders and bash plates worked a treat, bullbar handled the trees and everything else thrown at it with easy, blew a relay on the spotties the last morning after a really early start. All the mods I did specifically for the trip worked really well with everything being easily accessible.

Biggest worry going into the trip was how the big screen of the car PC would handle the heavy corrugations and I was really happy. On the really bad sections of the Anne Beadell the whole dash took on the appearance of jelly on a wiggle board that was about to land in your lap but other than that it was fantastic. Ozi Explorer was a pleasure to use.



All in all, very happy with the way the mods held up under pretty extreme conditions.


Just replacing the flares after the last trip where 3 out of 4 broke one of the fixing points. Chook put me onto Flat Dog and they are chalk and cheese compared to the previous ones fitted, the brand Of which I won't mention.

These have a much firmer feel to them but most significantly the material does not thin out around the fixing points which were the major problem with the other brand.

The old...





the new....



So all in all given the remote and harsh territory covered, the truck held up fantastically with very minimal damage.

Loving this thread, keep it coming! I might have to price up putting my landy on a boat for a trip accross the Tasman as there isn't a huge ammount of scope for cross country expeds in NZ.

Thanks guys...and yes we do still let Kiwi's in. Not all mind you but we have a special section for Landy drivers!!

Just about to head off again and squeeze a last trip before Xmas. I will follow the green line the same as the last trip but then do the Blue loop.

From Alice springs I will head out to the Gary Junction Rd to well 35 on the Canning Stock Route, then the Kintore Track to Eighty Mile Beach on the coast between Pt Headland and Broome, over to Newman and then the Talawana Track to Windy Corner, Gary H/way/section of Gunbarrel to Warburton, Surveyor Generals Corner, Sandy Blight Junction Rd and then back to Alice and home to Brissie.






Main project still to do before leaving is a portable 9,500lb winch which can be rear mounted should I need to pull myself out of strife.

I finally manage to track down an ongoing rattle/squeak after the last trip to the rear disk protector plates which had cracked as a result of the odd corrugation...well maybe a few more than that! Apparently it is common on Puma's and the dealer arranged a spare set, but knowing what I do and had planned, suggested that I beef them up a bit to stop it happening again. Found a second hand set for $44 which I reckon was going to save a lot of time and mucking around.



Trimmed up the 2nd hand ones to so they would sit flat and allow the holes to line up. Also drilled some extra holes in it to allow it be tack welded to the new one.



Used the actual bolt holes to keep everything lined up and it is ready for welding..tomorrow night...



Welded up the backing plates. Just need a coat of paint before fitting.