DAY 52 – Onslow

Good Morning Onslow!
 
Low 13°c (55°F) – High 25°c (77°F)
140km
 
What started off as a good sleep for the night ended at around 4.00am when the wind got up and we heard rattling and suddenly remembered that we hadn’t tied down the awning.  Hurriedly getting out of bed, undoing support bars and trying to hold the awning down while winding it up was done in record time and thankfully we safely got it secured against the van.  I always try to focus on making sure we do things completely for setup and pack down so we don’t miss anything.  It’s easy to get distracted and forget something that could be costly later but we did stop setup for lunch and a much needed cold drink and didn’t get the awning roped down.  Finally settled back in the van and minutes later the wind completely dropped, but of course by then I was wide awake.  It’s a good thing we weren’t moving on today as I did get to catch up on a bit of sleep and have a sleep-in - first one for a long while.
 
Onslow was gazetted on 26 October 1885 as a town to serve the port at Ashburton Roads, at the mouth of the Ashburton River, exporting wool from sheep stations of the Pilbara hinterland. It was named after the then Chief Justice of Western Australia, Sir Alexander Onslow.  Wool continued to be the major industry for the next eighty years, despite the extremes of drought and flood that characterize the region and are related to the passage or absence of cyclones.
 
A large jetty was built at the original site of Onslow (now Old Onslow), however repeated cyclone damage and the silting up of the river caused increasing problems with the loading and unloading of visiting ships. The cargo would be transferred by barge from the ships in the port to the jetty, then by horse-tram from the jetty across 6km (3.7 mi) of marshland inland to the town.  This led the state government in 1923 to develop a new town and jetty 18km (11 mi) north-east at Beadon Point.  The new townsite was gazetted on 10 January 1924, and the residents of Old Onslow moved across in 1925.  The new location for Onslow's jetty was better protected from storm damage with the townsite more conveniently located on the coast.
 
On 15 May 1943, Onslow became the most southerly town in Australia to be bombed by Japan in World War II, when a single plane bombed the airfield however there was no damage or casualties.
 
Since the war, the declining purchasing power of wool has, despite consistently good rainfall on the inland sheep stations since the late 1960s, led to a change in focus of Onslow's economy from wool to tourism.  It is an access point for Coral Coast activities, such as scuba diving on the coral reefs offshore from the town.
 
Onslow has a hot desert climate having very little year round rainfall with most of it falling in the first half of the year. The lowest average high temperature throughout the year is a comfortable 24.8°C (76.6°F) but Onslow has also recorded the joint hottest temperature ever recorded in Australia (along with Oodnadatta) at 50.7°C (123°F) on 13 January of this year.  Imagine that – no thank you!
 
It seems Onslow has had more than its fair share of cyclones over the years, the first recorded by white colonists was in 1880.  On 28 March 1934, a severe cyclone hit the town, with the new jetty nearly destroyed. All the buildings suffered damage, with some destroyed.  Another severe cyclone crossed the coast at Onslow on 7 February 1963, damaging nearly every building in town. Destructive wind gusts of 231kms/hr (144 mph) were recorded during the cyclone, which bent telephone poles, leaving them parallel with the ground. On 19 February 1975, Severe Tropical Cyclone Trixie crossed the coast near Onslow, with the cyclone's centre passing directly over nearby Mardie. A wind gust of 246km/hr (153 mph) was recorded at Onslow, with wind gusts of 259km/hr (161 mph) at Mardie.  This was the limit of the recorder, so the gusts at Mardie may have been higher. At the time, the wind gust recorded at Onslow was the highest recorded in Australia.
 
Many of the houses in town are quite rustic and you would wonder at their ability to withstand a strong wind much less a cyclone.  Most of the windows have wire shutters permanently attached and it seems that lawn mowing isn’t a popular sport here either.
 
One of the reasons we decided to stay the 2 nights in Onslow was to visit the old township site and so after doing a bit of a cleanup in the van we set off to do a bit of discovering.  There is a lot of work being done to improve the docking channel including a new boat ramp and works to the existing wharf.  There are lots of little beaches in the area, but still no surf to speak of.  The water in many places appears to be quite deep and the drop off from the sand would be incredibly steep at high tide judging where the water level rises to.
 
As we headed back to the main road we noticed an enormous amount of smoke just up from the caravan park which was unfortunately a house fire.  The fire brigade was in attendance but the house was already well alight with flames coming out the windows.  No idea whether the house was inhabited or not but several other homes adjacent had cars in the yard.  We couldn’t help but feel for whoever may have lost their belongings in such a tragic fire and hoped that everyone was OK.
 
We followed the GPS instructions to go to the Old Onslow township only to find that the road out there is only suitable for trucks and 4WD and by the look of the start of the road it was very rough and very sandy.  We were extremely disappointed as we had been looking forward to visiting but that’s a no – we’ve had enough rough roads for this trip I think.  The rest of our outing included some more lookouts ocean side and the salt piles just on the edge of town with the very long jetty and corresponding conveyor belt which obviously delivers the salt to the waiting ships in the bay.  Two large gas plants also in the area did not allow public access so it was view from a distance only.
 
Our last stop was back in town to get fuel and one last couple of photos for me of a sculpture on the waterfront called the Paparazzi Dogs, a custom designed replica of the world’s most notorious photographers, Gillie and Marc’s Paparazzi Dogs, that capture the daily sunrise and Stairway to the Moon along Onslow’s Front Beach.
 
Back at camp we spent a little bit of time trying to work out how to manage what will be an accommodation shortage through the next 2 weeks of school holidays here.  We will still try to get in to some of the places we had earmarked but at the end of the day we have to keep moving to be back home by the end of August so if we have to miss some of those places so be it.  There is plenty more to see and we will no doubt make up for it elsewhere.
 
With sunset looming, Shane opted to go out and take a few more photos.  After the mosquito plague of last night I was not so keen to join him so I stayed at the van with Kitty and got a start on dinner including fried chicken pieces and chocolate mousse with whipped cream for dessert.