Still in the Bush

Description

Laden with trig poles, theodolites – and porridge – Len Beadell and his team built roads, laid out town sites and undertook an enormous survey programme in order to prepare a test launching area in one of the most isolated parts of the world. The problems ranged from taking astrofixes in a cloudy sky and becoming surrounded by a sea of red mud, to patching a bald spot on a pet joey. All were solved by using those two most necessary ingredients of life in the bush – ingenuity and imagination. In ‘Still in the Bush’, Len Beadell’s descriptions of the countryside, the adventures the team experienced, and the Australian bush characters they encountered are by turns illuminating and hilarious. His high-spirited account of the work that had to be done ‘before they called it Woomera’ makes vivid and entertaining reading.
Lean Beadell, who has been called the last of the true Australia explorers, was born on a farm at West pennant Hills, NSW, in 1923. As a surveyor and road builder he has worked all over the Australian outback from Arnhem Land to the Gibson Desert. In 1958 he was awarded the British Empire Medal for his work in building the Gunbarrel Highway across central Australia. In 1987 he was made a fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Mining Surveyors (Aust) and the following year was awarded the Medal of the order of Australia. The author of six best selling books, he was married with three children, all of whom have features in outback Australia named after them.