Fact: People who work in customer serving businesses in the outback are weird.

So what is a roadhouse? Essentially, it’s a petrol station with a shop, cafe and possibly some overnight rooms situated slap-bang in the middle of nowhere. These much-needed pitstops know their worth and charge through-the-nose for everything they sell and who can blame them? The same ninety-eight cent bottle of water from our Freo supermarket just cost me five dollars, fair dinkum. City unleaded petrol fluctuates between 91-107 cents for a litre, in the Western Australian outback we’ve paid 145 cents.

With the marked exception of the keen-to-please staff at the Billabong Roadhouse (the petrol station, not the motel next door), everyone we’ve met in outback roadhouses are grumpy-as-you-like. Must be the heat and the flies — they’ve got to us too.

Example 1: The Overlander Roadhouse
As I stand at the counter about to pay for $50 of fuel, Squiffy drops a $3.50 bag of plums on the surface and a small handful of paper serviettes.

“Uh, uh, uuuuuhhheeeerrr! Too many napkins! It’s supposed to be one per person.”

After my momentary confusion, I return three of the five serviettes to the holder and the deal proceeds as before.

Example 2: The Billabong Motel
Let me clarify here that the Billabong Motel is a very different business from the Billabong Roadhouse. In fact, when I asked in the Roadhouse about our options for camping, the helpful staff told me to camp over the road in the rest area, ignoring the “no camping” sign completely. When I enquired about the camping sign that appeared to be next to her property, she went to great lengths to emphasize that the motel-with-campsite next door was a completely separate operation from hers. We soon found out why.

This was actually the second time that we had walked into the Billabong Motel. The first time is was to sample the “delicious, homestyle food served all day”. We were told that the chef had gone home. This time we needed food, drink and a pitch for our tent (we weren’t keen on sleeping in a deserted rest area in the outback).

Aside from his circular-motioned hand polishing the bar, the grey-haired man stood completely motionless, eyes transfixed on these two idiots–us–walking up to his bar.

“We’ve been told that you offer camping here?”, I offered.
“It’s too hot for camping”, he countered.
“Oh, we’ll be alright thanks, we’ve come from further up north and we know all about the heat!”, I smiled politely.
“I don’t think you do”, he said closing the matter, “it’s nine dollars a night.”
“Great, And we’d like to eat, do you have a menu?”, we moved to the next point on the agenda.
“Food’s off”, and he stared.

We muttered something about going next door to get something from the roadhouse before they close for the night. A couple of sandwiches and a cup of chips, to take away. We carried the booty back into the motel bar to order a drink to go with our food and again our host stood completely still, although this time with a open-mouthed disbelieving stare.

Momentarily, we all stood in silence (a game I love) but Squiffy curled and broke the stalemate.

“Can we order a drink?”, she asked.
“YOU CAN’T BRING THAT IN HERE!”, he bellowed, motioning to the food.
Perplexed, “why not?”, I asked.
“YOU CAN’T TAKE COAL TO NEWCASTLE!!”

It was one of those moments where, afterwards, the mind conjures up all kinds of witty retorts like “but Newcastle hasn’t got any coal!”, but at the time we could muster no better response than, “well… where should we eat it then?”

“OUTSIDE!!!”

Outside, in the heat, with one hand we munched our way through a sandwich and batted-away flies with the other. After gobbing our illegal food, we returned indoors to request some liquid refreshment. The doors were open and a large fan blew misted-water into the room. The air conditioning unit was switched off.

“Is it cool enough in here for you?”, our caring host asked.
“It’s ok”, hummed Squiffy.
“WELL DON’T EXPECT IT TO BE COOL WHEN ALL THE BLOODY DOORS ARE OPEN!”

We chose not to enquire any further about the doors and their residual positioning.

My coke, still in the can, was thouroughly pleasurable. Squiffy pushed her luck further by politely requesting a glass with some ice.

“OICE? OICE! WHAT ELSE DO YOU BLOODY WANT?!”

Spotting the Fremantle football paraphernalia, Squiffy made one last-ditch attempt to make friends.

“So you support the Dockers?”, she beamed, content at her local football-team knowledge.
“I USED TO PLAY FOR SOUTH FREMANTLE. I HATE THE DOCKERS.”

We gave up and amused ourselves at how we’d just met a distant ancestor of my friend Martin. (Hi Martin!)

Here’s a couple of photos of us waking up in his campsite the next day, for your amusement:

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