The drive from the bush camp into Onslow takes us past hundreds of huge termit mounds scattered on the northern side of the road and there are large milky blue pools saturated with salt and lined with salt depositis. This is a salt-mining town and a popular centre for fishing and there are no other distractions. It has a pleasant shady main street with trees down the centre of the road. A post office, supermarket, tourist information centre, a couple of petrol station, a hotel, two caravan parks a couple of other shops and a hospital. There are two beaches, Sunset and
Sunrise and a massive conveyor belt jetty which must be at least a kilometer in length and deposits salt onto waiting cargo ships for export. We have lunch and a spot of fishing at 4-mile creek just outside town. There are several others there, but no one is having any luck. So we drive out to 3mile Pools camping ground on the `Asburton River. This is beautiful spot right on the bank of this tree-lined river. No swimming though, as a croc has been seen in the area recently. No fish are biting either, but who cares, this is just a beautiful place to soak up the surroundings.
An Aussie stops for a chat, as Aussies do. It turns out that he is planning to take his 27 year old, 2wd van along the Gibb River Road (a challenging 4wd drive at the best of times, according to all the information we’ve received)! Perhaps we are just not crazy enough for outback travel?
Wild life is still proving to be elusive; although a feral cat or was it a dingo or even possibly a fox – it’s too dark to be sure – comes trotting passed our van after dark. On the other hand there is plenty of the irritating variety. Millions of little ants are scurrying everywhere and they bite. Trousers tucked into socks are the only way to prevent them running underneath your clothes. And having just read about hazardous spiders that come out at night, we notice an enormous big-bodied spider out for a stroll, and most likely it’s dinner, just by our feet! I feel the safety of the van calling. Time for bed.