Tag Archives: Onslow

The
Ashburton River is certainly a beautiful spot and particularly in the warm glow of early morning light;   the eucalypts that line the bank reflected in its mirror still waters.  In this area of the Pilbara trees only grow along river banks – the only places with sufficient water to sustain them presumably – providing an indication of river valleys long before the bed comes into view.  The nights are now quite chilly and the chill doesn’t leave the air until the sun is well up.  Even at 8am I still need a fleece to keep the shivers at bay.  Tiny ants are everywhere in this camping area and they are very invasive.  I have succumbed to wearing socks (the first time since we arrived in Darwin) with my trousers tucked into stop the little blighters running up my legs and forever nipping. 

We spend the day in Onslow trying to find enough to occupy us until the evening, for we have come here specifically to see the Stairway to the Moon.  This naturally phenomenon only occurs at certain points along the north-west coast hen only three days a month when the low tide and full moon coincide.  As the moon rises light is reflected in the pools left by the retreating sea creating the effect of stairway up to the moon.  The best place to see this is in Broome, but were there too early in the month.  Unfortunately, there is too much cloud on the horizon tonight and the moonrise is completely obscured.  It is only later that the moon emerges shrouded in streaks of cloud that a shaft of light reflects on the sea – beautiful still but not quite what we had hoped to see. 

We spent the day pleasantly enough visiting Old Onslow – which was moved, literally, to it’s present site in the 1920s due to the silting of the Ashburton `River estuary –  the beaches, walking along the foreshore boardwalk as far as the salt jetty and doing a spot of fishing (still nothing on the end of the line though! )  Onslow is small and very  quiet – people come here primarily to fish – and doesn’t warrant more than a couple of days.

In the evening we return to the Onslow Bush Camp which tonight has attracted several other campers. 

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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.

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