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Our little planet is criss cross by millions of miles
of roads. From giant multi-lane expressways to grubby dirt tracks,
they’re the main means by which most of us get from A to B but we rarely
give them a second thought. We should though. The world’s roads are
amazing, particularly the ones that take things to extremes crossing
nature’s most formidable natural barriers. These record-breaking roads
are incredible feats of engineering and an enduring testament to man’s
unquenchable desire to drive. Click through the gallery assembled with
the help of Guinness World Records to take our tour of the amazing
record-breaking roads of the world…
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The coldest road in the world - Kolyma Highway
(M56), Russia
You’d better stock up on anti-freeze before taking a trip along the
Kolyma Highway in Russia. The road, otherwise known as the M56, passes
through some of the coldest places on Earth. The road is 1,262 miles
long and goes from Nizhny Bestyakh in the west to Magadan in the east.
The section between Khandyga and Magadan is often referred to as the
'Road of Bones'; the bones of prisoners from the Sewostlag Labour Camp
who died constructing the road are buried beneath it. The road is
regarded as a memorial to these souls. The town of Oymyakon on the road
has an average January temperature of -46C and temperatures as low as
-67.7C have been verified. That makes this the coldest road on Earth. |
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The highest road in the world - Khardungla pass
The world’s highest road is the Khardungla pass in Kashmir at an
oxygen-starved altitude of 5,602m. It is one of the three passes of the
Leh–Manali road which was completed in 1976 by the Border Roads
Organisation, New Delhi, India. Motor vehicles have been able to use it
since 1988. |
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The longest continuous
road in the world - Highway One, Australia
Australia's Highway One gets the nod as the longest road in the world.
It actually circumnavigates the whole of the vast country via a network
of fully interconnected roads. Its total length is 9,024 miles, which
makes it over 2,200 miles longer than its nearest rival, the
Trans-Siberian Highway. Over a million people drive on Highway One every
day, with the road passing through every state in Australia, but they’d
need a lot more than a day to drive all the way around it. |
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The longest ice road in the world - Tibbitt to
Contwoyto Winter Road, Canada
Canada's Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road is the longest ice road in the
world. That’s right, a road built entirely on ice. The road was first
used in 1982 as a supply route to the mines in the Northwest Territories
and Nunavut. Open from January to the end of March every year, the ice
road is rebuilt annually. It is 353 miles long, 308 miles of which
traverse frozen lakes. The first vehicle to use it each season measures
the thickness of the ice with sonar for safety. |
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The longest road tunnel in the world - Aurland to
Lærdal, Norway
Not one for the claustrophobic, the tunnel between Aurland and Lærdal on
the main road between Bergen and Oslo, Norway, measures 15.2 miles in
length. The two-lane Lærdal Tunnel was opened by King Harald of Norway
on 27 November 2000. It cost a reported $113.1 million to construct and
is officially the longest road tunnel in the world.
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The most dangerous road in the world - North
Yungas Road, Bolivia
The most dangerous road in the world is a tough one to nail down but the
Guinness World Records goes with the North Yungas Road in Bolivia and
that’s good enough for us. The North Yungas Road runs for 43 miles from
La Paz to Coroico and up to 300 deaths occur annually along its length –
that’s 6.9 fatalities per mile! For the majority of its stretch, the
North Yungas is a single lane mud road but traffic travels in both
directions and there’s an unbarricaded vertical drop on one side. At its
highest point, the drop is 4,700m and the road becomes even more deadly
during the rainy season.
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The most southerly road in the world -
McMurdo–South Pole Highway
The McMurdo–South Pole Highway is a 900-mile road built in Antarctica
from the McMurdo Station to the Amundsen-Scott base at the South Pole
and it’s the most southerly road in the world. It takes a
caterpillar-tracked vehicle around 40 days to pull fully loaded sleds of
fuel and supplies along the route. Smaller vehicles can do this more
quickly. The road is not paved, but made from flattened and graded ice
and snow. The route offers a means of contact with the outside world for
the Amundsen-Scott station staff, when trips by plane are not possible
in the harsh Antarctic summer.
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The most complicated roundabout in the world –
‘Magic Roundabout’, Swindon
It’s a little tough to quantify the world’s most complicated roundabout
but given the unique layout of Swindon’s ‘Magic Roundabout’ it probably
deserves the title. Local drivers seem to understand it but to outsiders
the system of five mini roundabouts positioned around a central island
looks absolutely baffling. Practice makes perfect they say so the only
option is to drive in and hope for the best.
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The straightest road in the world – Eyre Highway,
Australia
The straightest road in the world must also be a candidate for the most
mind-numbingly boring. The Eyre Highway is a 1,056-mile cut through the
Australian outback designed primarily for use by gigantic road trains.
One stretch on the Nullarbor Plain in Kalgoorlie is dead straight for 90
miles. This is not a place to run out of petrol.
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The twistiest road in the world – Lombard Street,
San Francisco, California
You might think that the twistiest road in the world would have keen
drivers flocking to thread their sports cars and hot hatches down it but
Lombard Street in San Francisco is far too twisty for that. Think of it
as an alpine pass in miniature with a series of 8 hairpin bends in just
400 metres as the road descends a 27-degree gradient. The speed limit is
just 5mph and this is definitely one to approach with caution. |
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