Mount Davies Road
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Mount Davies Road South Australia |
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| Map of Mount Davies Road and Kintore Avenue | |
| Type | Track |
| Length | 397 km (247 mi) |
| Built by | Len Beadell |
| nw end | Mount Davies |
| se end | Anne's Corner |
| Permits | required |
| Fuel supply | none |
The Mount Davies Road is a remote unsealed outback track which runs from Mount Davies (Pipalyatjara) in the far north-west corner of South Australia to Anne's Corner on the Anne Beadell Highway 397 kilometres to the south-east. It was built during 1956 and 1957 by the Gunbarrel Road Construction Party (GRCP) surveyed and led by Len Beadell for the Weapons Research Establishment at Woomera, South Australia.
As a result of British atomic tests at Emu Field in 1953, a weather station was needed to the far north-west of the test sites, to determine when suitable weather conditions existed for future tests. Len Beadell was given the task of selecting a team and constructing access roads from the test locality to the future weather station. The weather station was subsequently named Giles after the explorer Ernest Giles who had explored that part of the remote inland. The access road began at Victory Downs in the Northern Territory and became known as the Gunbarrel Highway. The construction party reached Mount Davies in the Tomkinson Ranges at the north-west corner of South Australia on 4 December 1955.
On 26 June 1956, after the Gunbarrel Highway had reached Giles, and the airstrip was laid out, Beadell returned to Mount Davies to begin a solo reconnaissance towards the south-east to survey a route for another road to link up with Emu Field. There had been recent rains which made the going tough, and early in the journey he suspected that a front axle of his four-wheel drive vehicle was broken due to slow progress in moist sand. He continued on as he had seen a cluster of rocky mountains in the distance (Mount Lindsay), which would be useful as a survey trig point. The mountains reminded him of Ayers Rock by the smooth rounded shape of the formation. After scaling the highest point he noticed water in a creek below, which he later explored from the Land Rover. The vehicle sank into soft sand and it took him until the next day to extricate himself, as the rear wheels only were driving. He decided that the new road would pass by this feature due to the good supply of water.
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