The thermos is always ready most mornings, ready for when we feel like pulling off the road to have our mid morning coffee. The picnic basket has all that we need, cups, biscuits or if we are lucky, scones or cakes I have baked the day before. There are various types of rest stops, we like the ones that show diagrams of toilets and seating. Otherwise it’s just a truck stop, a dirt road and a garbage bin.
John’s no 1 job in the morning is to empty the night toilet, the little cassette has wheels and a handle like a luggage bag. There are men everywhere pulling their “luggage bag” to the dump point. John watched one morning as the pouring nozzle dropped into the depths of the deep dump, never to be retrieved. We had the only toilet cassette that was minus a nozzle and had to wait until we got back to Sydney to get a new one, we had tried every big town with no luck.
Some of the caravan parks don’t have a dump point , so the search is on in the town to find one, usually at the showground. . The motor home club brings out a little booklet telling you where they are located around Australia
Roadhouses serve the traveling public in isolated areas where there are no caravan parks. They are usually cheaper because the facilities are basic and usually no mobile, tv or internet service. We can always get a powered site but ok for only an overnight stop, as they are in the middle of nowhere, usually half way between towns, sometimes over 200 klms in either direction.
Roadhouses have that one important requirement of every traveler, Fuel!
I guess the roadhouses were set up for the many trucks and road trains that are on the highways. They are quick one stop places for fuel, toilets and meals.
I try not to think of how isolated we are when we stop at a roadhouse. Any medical emergency would be a call to the Royal Flying Doctor, who service the whole of the outback. The highways are emergency landing strips if the need is there to give medical treatment and to fly anyone who is in a bad way to the nearest big hospital, maybe several hundred klms away. The outlying cattle stations have their own landing strips for such emergencies.
John and I have stayed in a few roadhouses on our trips.It’s a welcome change sometimes to buy a hamburger or hot chips for dinner, some even sell roast dinners, but you have to be lucky, I still cook most nights.
People usually start pulling into a roadhouse around 4pm, good to get off the road before dusk, when the wildlife come out. We hook up about 3pm on average.
Free camping is popular for some travelers. John and I didn’t free camp for a few years but have done some in recent years. Caravan parks are are our first choice. We often see free camps in the most beautiful spots, near rivers or waterholes, with mountain ranges surrounding them. Lots of travelers have solar powered panels and genorators, plus their own showers, they just have to make sure they have plenty of water. Fishing spots are very popular.
Caravan parks are more expensive and harder to book in school holidays, still, compared to other holiday places, they are the cheapest. Powered sites are a few dollars dearer, people with tents don’t always want a powered site.
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