A long tow of 353km from Point Samson to Onslow. Thankfully it went smoothly and reasonably quickly. We decided to bypass Karatha based on other peoples recommendation. Despite being a larger town it is off the highway and we weren’t in any need of the facilities offered in larger towns.
Onslow turned out to be a little bigger than Point Samson with one hotel, one resort, a decent supermarket with small hardware store and a couple of fuel station. The information centre also had a small museum and an array of old machinery on display.
Onslow Ocean View Caravan Park is located at the end of the main street, next to the Memorial Park and has full beach frontage. The park itself is immaculate and well laid out with gravel sites, each with an artificial grass area to sit under your awning. It was quite windy most of the time we were there so we were glad that our site was in a back corner where we got a bit more shelter.
The park has a small herb garden that is being regenerated where you can pick some basil, snake beans or mini eggplants if you wish. The garden also had some roselle bushes so we picked a dozen or so of the flower buds to make a rosella infusion. Two buds in a mug of boiling water results in a tangy, tart red infusion that’s quite refreshing and a change from tea.
Onslow Memorial Park is located next to the caravan park and is noteworthy for the rising sun archway that is situated so the sun rises and sets directly in the centre of it. There is also a very tasteful stone bench near it that has a bronze sculpture of a pair of army boots sitting on it.
There are sculptures along the foreshore of the beach with the most striking of them being the ‘Paparazzi Dogs’. Onslow is another place in Western Australia where you can view the Staircase To The Moon. The Paparazzi Dogs represent the media pack vying to get the best photograph of it.
The main street of Onslow is set back a short distance from the waters edge and you can follow it from one end of town to the caravan park and up to the Memorial Park. From the Memorial Park you can walk along a boardwalk for about 1.5kms, which takes you over the dunes, past a derelict World War 2 Hose Locker and jety and down to the newer salt loading jetty.
Onslow has a salt producing facility (Shark Bay Salt) that exports 300 million tonnes of salt per year from Onslow. The salt loading jetty is very similar to the iron ore loading jetties in Port Hedland and Point Samson. The ships are towed in by tug boats and the salt is loaded directly into them via a conveyor belt that runs along the jetty. It’s quite staggering to think how much salt is used around the world since there a quite a few salt fields in operation between Port Hedland and Onslow . And each of the salt fields we saw contain hills of salt that you would struggle to walk up…
We had a bit of an attack of the ‘lazies’ whilst we were in Onslow. Settling in for seven nights we mainly stayed around Onslow town except for a half-day trip to ‘Old Onslow‘, another derelict township that was the original site for the town.
We did two pub nights at the Beadon Bay Hotel because the steak sandwiches were both cheap and fully loaded with betroot, egg and all the food groups! Speaking of which… if you accept that beer is a food group (who doesn’t?)… we were utterly flabbergasted to see a woman at one of the tables near us drinking a pint (NSW Schooner) of beer through a straw… Wonders will never cease!
Our only sightseeing trip in Onslow was to take a drive out to the derelict ruins of Old Onslow, the original town site. It’s a 40km dirt road drive even though it’s only about 15km as the crow flies. The drive takes you past termite mounds and over the semi-dry Ashburton River. The crossing is a concrete causeway with shallow pools either side until you travel a bit further down towards the mouth where it has constant depth and tidal flow.
The river is quite picturesque regardless of whether it is a dry section or deep section because of the arid landscape and the big deep blue sky above it. The deeper section looks like it would be a decent fishing spot and there are free camp sites dotted along it that would be brilliant for a lazy weekend in a camper trailer. The local fishermen reckon they still see the odd saltwater crocodile but that may also be a tall tale to keep people away from their fishing spots.
The road is a graded dirt road that has the usual corrugations and lumpy bits but nothing that requires any serious 4WD skills. It could be done in a 2WD car as long as you’re careful and dont mind getting shaken around. One distinctive feature of the area, and this applies to new Onslow as well, is the ever-present Green Birdbush (or Birdflower). It is a stunningly beautiful, soft and delicate green flower in the shape of a bird that grows in bunches around a central stem. It’s a quirky and fascinating plant that grows wild in the region. Indigenous people used the flowers and bark of the bush to treat eye infections and swelling of limbs.
There is not much left of the old town save for the ruins of the Police Station and Gaol Cells. The whole site is marked out with number signs describing what was there and you can often see the odd bit of rusting machinery or what’s left of the fence around the tennis courts. The old Community Hall was dismantled some while back, transported to new Onslow and re-constructed in the main street where it serves as the Information Office and museum.
The rotting pylons of the original jetty still poke up out of the ground. It must have been a long jetty because it looked to us to be a long way from any water. Old Onslow was abandoned due to cyclone damage so perhaps the river channel has altered as well.
Old Onslow gets a bit of a bum wrap in a lot of the traveller reviews that your read but we think that’s a bit unfair. The whole site is dotted with numbered signs that correspond to a map that gives information about the town as it was. If you take the time then your mind builds the picture for you and it is a good way to spend a couple of hours. Too many people seem to want force-fed, Disneyland experiences these days where everything is laid out without the need to think or work to hard.
As you head towards the west side of the site you can see the massive gas plant in the distance with it holding tanks and tall flare tower burning off excess gas… If you look around in Onslow you can see that there is a fair bit industry in the region from the salt and gas export facilities. Despite the heat and flies it was well worth the drive to see a bit more hidden history from tougher times…