Ashburton River | This Adventurous Age

June 17, 2019
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2004 Travels July 30

FRIDAY 30 JULY SOUTH HEDLAND TO NANUTARRA ROADHOUSE 490kms

Today’s was a long day of driving south.

The country was not particularly interesting, and we’d driven it before.

Refuelled at the roadhouse at the turn off to Karratha – $1.08cpl. Topped up the fuel again at the Fortescue River Roadhouse – $1.20 cpl.

For several weeks now, we had spent time in the very large catchment area of the Fortescue River. Now, we were not far from its mouth, about a hundred kms SW of Dampier. There was water in part of the wide bed. We had to detour through a section of the river bed, around the bridge repairs that were happening after the cyclone damage of earlier in the year. Clearly, this river could be ferocious at times.

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Fortescue River bridge – note flood debris

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Flood damage Fortescue River bridge

Overnighted again back at Nanutarra Roadhouse. The ground was dry, this time, but the place was still noisy. $20 a night.

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Dry Nanutarra, this time

Whilst we were here, John took the jerry can to be refilled – $1.36cpl.

He then retreated to the van for a rest. I went for a walk along to the Ashburton River and had a look at the works going on there on a new road bridge. It would be a big improvement on the old, one lane only bridge.

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December 12, 2017
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2000 Travels October 13

FRIDAY 13 OCTOBER ONSLOW

It was quite hot again.

I packed a picnic lunch and we drove out to Old Onslow. Had to go back out the road we came in on, for about 20kms, then take a gravel road that went west towards the Ashburton River.

It was initially a fairly uninteresting drive, past salt flats and creeks, through scrub. It got more interesting once the track started to run alongside the Ashburton River, where there were trees and some big pools. It was a sizeable river. As it originates way inland, near Newman, the catchment area is large and when there is cyclonic rainfall and similar in these parts, a huge volume of water comes this way. That is true also of the Fortescue River, where we stopped briefly the other day.

Ashburton River on the way to Old Onslow

It looked like there was some pretty good bush camping places out there, with no facilities, of course.

We found the old town ruins – they were definitely worth coming out to see. There were parts of some old stone buildings that once would have been quite substantial – no roofs left on them now, though

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10-13-2000 Old Onslow police station & jail ruins.jpg

Remains of once substantial buildings at Old Onslow

Broken glass set on top of wall at old Jail

The old cemetery was a very bleak, remote place.

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Life out here would have been rough, and it looks like many settlers died young.

After walking around and exploring the ruins and the cemetery for a while, we tried to find the sea – and ended up in mangrove mud flats.

We eventually found a likely fishing spot by a wide stretch of the lower river, but John was soon attacked by sandflies, so the fishing was abandoned and we left there.

The lower reaches of the Ashburton River, near its mouth

We drove back along the river to where it was crossed by a causeway that went to Urala Station and the Tubridgi Gas Plant, and had lunch by the river there. It was a pleasant, peaceful place. There were lots of little fish feeding in the water, so John fished there for a couple of hours. He caught one fish – which was more snagged than caught, but it was a good size.

It was a hot drive back to Onslow. We drove 112kms today.

Tea was chilli con carne. I rather overdid the chilli, but John enjoyed it.

December 10, 2017
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2000 Travels October 12

THURSDAY 12 OCTOBER ONSLOW

It was fairly hot today, but there was quite a strong wind blowing.

I phoned Melbourne and sold some shares at a good profit. Bought some more Telstra ones, which I think are on the rise again. The leftover profit will pay the coming instalment due on the original Telstra purchases. However, I realized later that I will have to follow up with the sharebroker again – they have taken out too much brokerage.

The main outing for today was down to the wharf/groyne area at the creek entrance. John fished. Because the wind was blowing a lot of sand and grit about, I sat in Truck and knitted.

After lunch, John had a sleep and I went for a walk around town. At least here I feel secure walking about the place.

The Visitors Centre was an old stone building that was moved here from the old town.

The initial township in these parts began in the 1880’s, when a port was established at the mouth of the Ashburton River, to export wool from the local pastoral properties. The town was called Onslow. It was not well located, having to be a few kms inland from the actual coast, due to the clay flats close to the coast. The river mouth tended to silt up, especially when there were cyclones, so, in the 1920’s a new wharf was built a bit further along the coast, at Beadon Creek. The, the town of Onslow was moved there, and Old Onslow was abandoned.

Onslow was the most southerly place in Australia to be bombed by the Japanese, in WW2 – a single plane that dropped three bombs. It was a refuelling base, in the war, for Navy ships.

I enjoyed my little history lesson.

We had tried the old trick of upending and shaking the Chescold fridge, and it is working better on gas. So we can cool drinks easily again.

Site by the sea at Onslow

The phone was still not working! Seemed to be a problem with the unit itself, not just the unpaid bill.

For tea, I cooked John’s long toms for him. I had some salad and a tin of tuna.

This Adventurous Age

Adventures travelling and working around Australia.

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