Anne Beadell Highway - a short cut across Aussie

Sorry I have been pretty slack posting of late but I have had the misfortune to have to go away several times on long trips into the remotest parts of the counry....damn!

Basically I have been trying to do as many of Len Beadells tracks which has seen me cross the country twice doing more than 20,000kms with about 14,000km of that on dirt.

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...Gunner_45 would be buggered of course.



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 inbetween has the dash juming into your lap.

The Poms set off an 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 efect 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.:giggle:



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

The rig is looking great, you seem to be fit as well. Apparently the roaming lifestyle suits you well or you are down to diet beer?
I thought only in America they would go to the trouble to go out in the wilderness and erect expensive signs to tell you where you are?
It's as if you had the wherewith-all to get there you would not know where you were, but then we would not have those "proof" photos that we actually were?
Great stuff ole scout!

I did notice a shift in some of your images white balance after visiting the bomb site. If it was film I would think the radiation fogged the emulsion but maybe it shifted the sensors sensitivity towards blue and wiped out the warmer colors?
Better check your fluid expulsions to see if they glow, I had that happen on the Gulf one night or so I thought, turns out it was phosphorescent plankton, whew!
It could have been caused by the Born-Oppenheimer and harmonic approximations affect so that you were recording infrared spectroscopy images or the resonant frequencies of the absorbed radiation energy, but I would not know anything about that.

hahahah...actually it was operator error with a new camera. It was my first trip with the D700 and I accidentally changed the WB instead of the ISO hence the "blueish" hue. The WB, ISO and Image Quality buttons are all on the same wheel and my enthusiasm got ahead of my skill level. Personally I am blaming the radiation fallout which I had been told coulkd be counteracted by consuming vast quantities of XXXX beer. Apparently I didn't drink enough! All part of the learning curve.

I was still using my D90 as well which explains why it is only some of the shots.

See, I'm watching you. I wondered how there were some that were correct. I thought maybe you had programmed a profile and somehow bumped the menu. Moved up to the full frame huh? Damn things are a computer with a lens now.
I got a really nice F4 that sits all the time and carry my D200 as a backup body but moved on to the the D300.
Keep um coming I love your trip reports and hope to have me some new ones in the Spring.

I have another 6 reports but I still have to write the actual articles for 3 of them so excuse me if I am drip feeding a bit!

Very happy with the d700..has taken a bit of getting used to but slowly getting there.

I like following you and Hunner -- the types of trips, pictures & places and write ups you make are awesome.

:yeahthat ME TOO!

I have a friend here with a D700 and asked me to set him up some profiles similar to the way I programmed my D300 to shoot. It was nice.
The most notable difference to me was the clean images at high iso.
What glass are you using on that FX?

I bet you could get some awesome star trail shots in time lapse.
Try centering the North Star and a long exposure with the camp in the picture and a little creative light painting.
I'm guessing it's slam dunk dark out there! No light pollution.
Here is a moon shot as seen from North America with the D300 and a 70-200 VR on my DX format camera so effective 300 mm, hand held!
Pretty good for digital.


We have discussed some interesting similarities in our methods on several things, of course that was before Nugget went over to the gray side. lol
Notice South of the equator he stands on the left side but also poses next to "you are here" signs. (that's so we remember where we were)
and his infamous quote "adventure before dementia" still sticks in my mind so I am planning another North American Humm about while I can!
Man and machine North America

I look forward to your future reports and they help motivate me to get outta here!!

Awsome trip. THanks for the report. Think I like the sands dunes best.

All Nikons handle higher ISO well but the D700 is superb in that department.

I got a bit caught out when I first bought it reading a Ken Rockwell review. Some good info but also some bad advice. He specifically said not to use a mid range zoom...all you need is the Nikor 50mm 1.4 and the Nikon AFS 70-200 VR11. I got the 50mm and was talked into a Sigma 70-200, then I started doing trips and found that I really wasn't happy.

After doing more research I bought a Nikon 24-70 f2.8 AFS. I now shoot 95% with that lens and am really happy with it. I use a CPL filter whenever the sun is out.

I am not really happy with the 70-200 as it is just not getting me close enough specifically for wildlife and topless girls on the beach...kidding...maybe...so I have decided to get a 2X converter. That is the good news but the Sigma 70-200 does not perform all that well with the Nikon converter where as the Nikon 70-200 works brilliantly with the Nikon converter so I have the Sigma for sale and will buy the Nikon converter.

Subsequently have had a lesson with a photography tutor and also spent a day with a pro photographer from the mag I do freelance for (they are featuring my truck )...both D700 guys and guess what lens they use esxclusively....Nikon 24-70 AFS and Nikon 70-200 VR11.

I am now going to set up the 70-200 on my D90 and use it for the 5% of shooting as it will save me changing lens in dusty places. The added bonus is that as the D90 is a 1.5, the 200 becomes 350 which becomes 700 with the converter should I need to check goose bumps on nipples....I mean shoot wildlife at greater distances....

Having said the 2X converter, I will wait till I have the Nikon lens and then decide if I get the 2x or 1.7 as the 1.7 has less distortion and the amount of zoom will be less important on the D90.

We probably should be having this discussion in the photography section...sorry guys!

Just on the non camera topics...are they zip off legs on your pants...I am going to have trouble sleeping if they are as the similarities would be a bit earie!!

I have a new singlet .... No I'm not on roids but thanks for asking ...

I guess we did wander off a bit but it was the hot side topic at the time. We should keep our photo info current. Do we still have a thread on that? I will go over there or re-start one and throw out some of my thoughts on some of that.

EDIT:Yep we do
http://www.hummer4x4offroad.com/forum/showthread.php?977-Photography/page5&highlight=photography

I am partial to Nikon glass and that is all I use. My favorite is the 17-55, huge but sharp and fast. 24-70 was not around when I moved to digital but that was on the D700 I messed with.
Rockwell has a good overall format for his reviews but gets a bit away from what I find works in the field and not on a test table of numbers but actual images.

Yep you know they are the zip offs! I started wearing those years ago when I was able to hike more and counted ounces so the pounds would be less on what I carried. Cool and light weight. Usually have on the color coordinated shirt of similar design but sort of wetted that out climbing the dunes that afternoon.
sorry:shifty: