Wildflowers inland from Horrocks Beach

Horrocks and Horrocks Beach
Sleepy little holiday village popular with people wanting to escape from the city and more boisterous holiday destinations.
Located 22 km west of Northampton and 496 km north of Perth, Horrocks is the northernmost of a series of tiny holiday-fishing villages which lie on the coast of the Central West region. It is a village which has been untouched by modernity with simple fibro holiday houses, streets which have evolved out of the sand dunes, and a simplicity of life which recalls the 1950s rather than the 1990s.

Like all of the fishing villages on the coast the small population of Horrocks (it hovers between 300-500) increases dramatically in the crayfish (rock lobster) season and during school holidays.

Horrocks was named after Joseph Lucas Horrocks, a convict who was sentenced to 14 years transportation for forgery and arrived in Fremantle in 1852. In Fremantle he worked in the medical section of the convict settlement and, due to a chronic shortage of medical officers in the colony, was appointed medical attendant for the new settlement of Port Gregory in 1853. He was given an unconditional pardon in 1856 and spent the rest of his life (he died in 1865) working in the Northampton-Champion Bay area running a store, agitating for improved conditions for convicts, and building a truly non-denominational church (it had separate Anglican and Nonconformists pulpits and a reading desk for anti-ritualists) in Northampton.

Today Horrocks is the kind of place for people who really want to escape from the hurly burly and the crowds which usually inhabit beach resorts.

Things to see:  

Water activities
Most people who come to this sleepy settlement are eager to escape the more developed centres. They come to fish for tailor, whiting, skipjack, herring, garfish and snook off the beach and near the Bowes River estuary or to take boats out to catch dhufish, schnapper, cod, mackerel and groper.

There is also the possibility of skin diving, windsurfing, or just mooching around the reef at low tide. In spring and early summer the area is alive with wildflowers. There are also some interesting Aboriginal cave paintings near the junction of Horrocks Road and Bowes River Road which are a reminder that before the arrival of Europeans the local Aborigines regarded this area as a place of good hunting.

	Cottages & Cabins
	Killara Cottages Glance St Horrocks WA 6535 Telephone: (08) 9934 3031 Rating: *
	Caravan Parks
	Horrocks Beach Caravan Park 1 North Court Rd Horrocks WA 6535 Telephone: (08) 9934 3039 Facsimile: (08) 9934 3039 Rating: **