Old Stuart Highway

Which part of the old Stuart Highway are you referring to Ivan? Up until the 80's or 90's the Stuart Highway ran through Kingoonya, heading North. I am not sure if it went east to Glendambo or continued south.

Yes, we have driven the "old" Stuart Highway (when it was the "only" Stuart Highway :)), in 1967 (Mini), 1970 (Mini) and 1974 (VW Kombi Camper).
Bear in mind that the route changed over the years prior to that and possibly after that too, before it was extensively re aligned and surfaced.
Several sections of the old road are now "private property" and out of bounds.
This map is pretty much how I recall it...It essentially ran from homestead to homestead.

And this is what it looked like in 1967.

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 Motorhome

As I recall, it also passed through Mt Willoughby Station where you could obtain fuel. Much of the southern sections (pre Coober Pedy), lie to the east of the highways current location.

Many of the original stretches (pre-bitumen) were ploughed over to promote plant growth.

You'd have more luck trying to retrace the original Oodnadatta Track which previously hit the highway up at Granite downs above Marla. I did this in 2011 although there a quite a few station owners to be rung for permissions to cross these days (even though it's still listed as a Public Access Road!)

Ivan: l travelled that Rd many times in the 70s and 80s till the Hawke government re-routed the highway for a more all weather Road , bypassing some of the lower areas. Not much changed in the 9 years of the Fraser government. Till the next labour government ? Finished the bitumen ceiling as it is today ~ mid to late 80's ?
I can remember when there was no Marla ...
Chris Joseland used to run Mt Willoughby Roadhouse and built Cadney Park Roadhouse when the new Rd was introduced .
If you look on exploroz maps you can see most of the old Rd apart from north of Mt Willoughby from Kingoonya heading south east towards Woomera it then pretty well followed the existing road today.
As I recall not too much to see ~ lot better on the Oodnadatta Road where you could spend a long time checking out some of the old train line and buildings .

Funny. I was doing some planning for our next trip with Google Maps and this is what came up when I did a distance measurement to Coober Pedy



The gray track is mostly the Old Stuart Highway.

.
Hi Ivan,

Depends what you term the "Old Stuart Highway". The original road from Adelaide to Alice Springs was a series of tracks via Maree, Oodnadatta and Finke which followed the Overland Telegraph Line and old Ghan railway. It was never officially titled the "Stuart Highway" but is sometimes referred as such in later years.

The railway from Pt Augusta to Alice Springs was relocated westward and opened in 1980. An unsealed road ran adjacent to the rail. It was constructed in 1979 and was progressively realigned and bitumen sealed, being completed in 1987. The discarded sections were returned to a natural state.

No public accessible road ran via Woomera. This became a prohibited zone in 1949 from Pimba to west of Mt Eba where a corridor for the Stuart Hwy was established. The prohibited zone continued westward from the corridor. Woomera township became accessible to the public in 1984 but the prohibited zone then began just on the western boundary of the town.

That grey line is the range road. Ran from koolimilka to mount eba. It had phones for reporting position as you crossed. Koolimilka was the entrance to range e and policed by commonwealth police. The road was a short cut for when the kingoonya road at pimba was washed out and was also access to mirikata tracking station, which was north of mount eba. There was also another road to coondambo from koolimilka which could be accessed if the range was closed. I am talking 1967 here and clearance to access these roads was required.
The old road north of kingoonyaa went from bon bon, mt eba, to McDougal peak , ingomar and then longs creek to Coober pedy. 180 miles all up.

I was state police stationed at Coober pedy at that time. A single man station which required prisoner transfer to port Augusta regularly, so a bit of night driving over those roads happened. The range road at night was a lottery with wall to wall kangaroos .. there were a couple of times the commonwealth would open it with escorted convoy when the pimba horror stretch was a quagmire and dangerous for trucks etc.

Old Stuart HIGHWAY?? I went from Perth to Darwin to Pt Augusta and back to Perth with a mate, in July 1969 - in my HK Holden ute - and that section of miserable road from the Alice to Pt Augusta, could never be termed a highway! - in any sense of the word!!

What made our trip all the more memorable was stripping a timing gear in the HK about 60 miles S of Kulgera. Talk about "F .... ed, and far from Home"!!

The timing gear stripped mid-morning, so we sussed out the problem and promptly determined what it was.
We had lunch and waited for someone to come along.
Surprisingly, there were several cars a day on the "highway", even back then.

About mid-afternoon, a truckie rolled up with an ancient Foden - wooden cab and all! - towing a semi trailer.
In our youthful enthusiasm, we thought it would be a good idea for him to tow us to Coober Pedy, as he advised us that that was the nearest civilisation where we might be able to get some parts, or maybe even get the stripped gear fixed.

The truckie related how a mechanic had just built a new shed in Coober Pedy, and he was now open for business!

So we hooked the ute to the back of the trailer (yes, we even carried a chain!) and off we went.
Even though the old Foden was flat out at about 60kmh, we were choking on dust!
What was worse, the trailer wheels were throwing up lots of big nasty stones!

It didn't take too many miles before our windscreen was smashed - and our misery was compounded!

The truckie stopped to see how we were after about 20 miles, and we decided to leave the ute with my mate, while I went with the truckie to Coober Pedy.

It was getting dark now - but that didn't bother the truckie - he just kept going all night!
All I can remember of that trip, was lots and lots of short stretches of corrugated dirt road, interspersed by hundreds of creek crossings.

The truckie would wind the old Foden up through that ancient epicyclic gearbox (4 speed main and 3 speed "joey"), doing "split shifts" (jumping between the gear levers to even out the gear spread), get her up to near 60kmh - then a creek crossing would appear - and it was back down the gears again to bounce through the creek, and up through the cogs again, once we were out the other side of the creek!

This truckie kept up this routine all night without stopping, it was amazing to watch.
Come the dawn, and Coober Pedy appeared on the horizon. We pulled into the only roadhouse in town, and the truckie ordered breakfast for us, while he pointed out the mechanics shed where I could walk up to and question him about parts or repairs.

I got up there just after he opened for business, and one look inside the almost-new shed showed an almost completely empty building!
My heart sank at that view, I could see a trip to Adelaide for a timing gear, coming up!

I said to the mechanic, hopefully - "Mate, you wouldn't happen to have a timing gear for a Red Holden motor, would you?"

He furrowed his brow for a few seconds and said, "Actually - Yes, I think I do!"
He walked over to an open-topped 44 gallon drum in the corner of the workshop, leant into it and rummaged around - and pulled out a brand new Red Holden timing gear!! I could've kissed the bloke!

I paid him for it and walked back to the roadhouse where I enjoyed a good breakfast with the truckie - then we parted ways with a handshake and much thanks, and I started walking back towards Kulgera!

About 20 minutes after I left town, a truckload of Aboriginals pulled up! The cab was occupied with 3 blackfellas, and there were about 20 on the tray!
I told them where I was going, and they said they were turning off about 50 miles out, but I was welcome to ride!

So I jumped up on the back with all the other blacks and off we went. Of course, they were sharing a couple of flagons of plonk, which they eagerly offered to share - but which offer I politely declined!!

We got to their turnoff and I got off and thanked them for the ride, and started walking again.
After about half an hour, a bloke in a sedan pulled up - and I got a lift with him, right to the ute - because he was going to the Alice.

My mate was pretty glad to see me - I reckon he was pretty spooked at being left alone in the vast Outback all night - and hadn't expected to see me again for several days!

We then set to, to do a real bush repair on the timing gear. Fortunately, we were well-prepared with a good suite of tools.
You're supposed to pull the motor out of Holdens to replace the timing gear - and pull the camshaft out, as well!

But we just removed the timing cover and the fuel pump - broke the fibre part of the old timing gear off - and then chiselled the steel centre off the camshaft - holding the camshaft all the while, with a tyre lever inserted through the fuel pump hole!

We hammered the new gear on, holding the camshaft with the tyre lever - then re-installed the timing cover!
It was a bugger trying to get the gasket between the sump and timing cover to seal, but we managed after a fashion.
After all, you were supposed to drop the sump, to install that gasket!!

By mid-afternoon, we were rolling again! I don't remember a lot about that trip from where we repaired the ute, through to Pt Augusta! - but I can tell you this much, that bitumen we came upon, just out of Pt Augusta seemed like heaven to us!!

I can remember a lot of corrugations, and a lot of creek crossings and very few cars. When you came across someone, you usually stopped and had a bit of a yarn, such was the pace of life on that "highway", back then!!

Strangely enough, I cannot find when the road was officially named the Stuart Highway.
I do know it was just called "The Track" up to about 1940 - then it was officially termed the "North-South Military Road" during WW2 - and probably for a while after the War.

There is a lot of information via Google and in the digitised newspaper archives on Trove, if you do a search, using "North-South Military Road", for the search term.

Here's a NT Engineers pocket history of the Stuart Highway.

History of the Stuart Highway

The Territorians story of the "North-South Military Road".

The Territory remembers the "North-South Military Road".

Cheers, Ron.

G'day all.

Drove my Mum and Dad Pt Augusta to AS in 1956 after the Melbourne Olympic Games. It really was only a track littered with suicidal rabbits. Very dusty and rough, we had a few serious dust storms (which don't seem to happen these days) and a couple of minor breakdowns. Came across a busted truck loaded with coke, gave him some fresh water but refused his offer of the hot coke.

Mount Isa was a long drive in those days.
David