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Once upon a time there was a man who went by the name Len Beadell, he was employed as a surveyor and his job was to survey and lead a group of people who were to be known as "The Gunbarrel Road Construction Party". These men were the ones who made many thousands of kilometres of access roads over many of Australia's Deserts during the 1950's and '60s. On building a road later named "The Sandy Blight Junction Road", Len decided that after having driven his Landrover to the summit of the Sir Fredrick Range that a side track should be bulldozed and perhaps graded to allow easier access. This would later help surveyors build the trig point at the summit to assist in mapping the mostly as yet unmapped country, but also Len seemed to have his heart quite set on making the Sandy Blight Junction Road a bit of a tourist attraction, which he succeeded quite well in.
Most of the Sandy Blight Junction Road is no longer maintained and the main track has been bypassed in places due to the original track being washed away. Certain sections are quite heavily corrigated. The photographer of this image visited the area in the peak tourist season, yet did not see another human for over 2 days whilst travelling in the Northern section of the road.
The Sandy Blight Junction Road skirts the Eastern edge of the Gibson Desert and bridges 2 "main" roads, the Great Central and the Gary Junction Road (the latter built by the same party), both of these roads are unsealed gravel roads.
There are no kangaroos in Austria. We're talking about Australia, the world's smallest continent. That being cleared up, let's dive right in! Australia is a sovereign state under the Commonwealth of Nations, which is in turn overseen by Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, Queen of Australia and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth. The continent was first sighted and charted by the Dutch in 1606. Captain James Cook of Britain came along in the next century to claim it for Britain and name it "New South Wales." Shortly thereafter it was declared to be a penal colony full of nothing but criminals and convicts, giving it the crap reputation you may have heard at your last cocktail party. This rumor ignores 40,000 years of pre-European human history, especially the Aboriginal concept of Dreamtime, an interesting explanation of physical and spiritual reality. The two biggest cities in Australia are Sydney and Melbourne. Sydney is more for business, Melbourne for arts. But that's painting in very broad strokes. Take a whirl around the panoramas to see for yourself! Text by Steve Smith.
