Roadhouses and motels

We just arrived at Apollo Bay, after entering the state of Victoria earlier this morning. As we come to the end of our journey, I thought I'd write about the one constant over this 2 weeks - Motels and roadhouses. In the past, I used to have the impression that motels are seedy cheap hotels. This is further from the truth. In fact, motels and hotels serve two completely different customer base and therefore fulfil completely different needs. While the concept of motel is something I have somewhat gotten used to having done a number of roadtrips during my holidays, they don't exactly exist in Singapore.

Throughout this trip, we have gone through a grand total of 12 different motels/ roadhouses, almost all of which we stayed for a grand total of 1 night. Motels are essentially accoms designed for motorist travellers. These are usually no frills, basic accommodation located outside the town centre, compared to hotels which are almost always located inside or near the centre. There is almost always a parking lot right in front of the room booked, if not just a short walk away. In a country as huge as Australia, it is not always possible to travel from point A to point B in a day. And so motels come in to fill that need for basic accommodation at stops between point A and B without the need for motorists to spend insane amount of money on hotels located near/ at the town/city centre. Since motels are targetted at driving travellers and designed as stopovers, most of its patrons are short-term customers.

Roadhouses are a slightly different concept. One that I've only gotten to learn more about during this trip. While motels are located either in a city or town, a roadhouse is not. It is always assumed that when we are travelling on a roadtrip from point A to point B, there will always be small towns/ communities/ civilisation that we can stop at for our supplies, accommodation and fuel needs. However in Australia (an perhaps other larger conutries), there are often cases where the roadtrip passes through this long strethc of no-man's land - where there are no towns/ cities for whatever reason for a long long distance. And this is the case for the Nullarbor. 1200km between the last town of Western Australia and first town of South Australia. The kind of distance that is almost impossible for the average person to drive over the course of the day and impossible for a car to complete the journey without a fuel stop somewhere. And this is where roadhouses come in. Roadhouses are set up along a main highway. It is simply a structure that provides weary travellers whatever they need to continue their journey. It is a motel, restaurant, cafe, bar, petrol station combined into one tiny 1 level building. It is basic and it is relatively expensive (relative to other providers of the services they provide) given its remoteness. Along the Nullarbor crossing, there were 9 roadhouses. Since they are remote, it is also extremely difficult for them to hire. And given that they have to remain profitable (i.e. they cannot offer high salaries), provide a variety of services while not being an ideal employment facility given its remote location, its employees are called all-rounders. All-rounders who have to take on multiple job roles - chef, cashier, bartender, accommodation admin person, housekeeper etc.

So who actually owns these roadhouses? Each of the roadhouses we have visted along the Nullarbor had its own charm and quirkiness about it. Historically, these roadhouses are start up by random farmers/ travellers who saw a business opportunity based on the location. Today, while we (I) like to think that these are owned by mom-and-pop types, many of these roadhouses are owned by conglomerates. Roadhouses being a part of their portfolios - which, while depressing given that almost anything that is linked to big corporations eventually loses its charm, allows many of these to stay open during and past the pandemic where mom-and-pop types would probably not have survived. Still, many of them still retain a certain charm to it and I hope that that never goes away.