You can tell a lot about a person by the reviews they leave online.
Will and I have developed something of a hobby. Before staying at a caravan park, roadhouse or dusty rest stop, we sit in the van and read the one-star reviews. Not because we’re trying to avoid bad places, but because the people leaving them are invariably far more entertaining than the destinations themselves.
“It rained all night.” As though the owners were standing in the back office operating a weather machine.
“The galahs were shrieking well into the evening. Had to turn up the television to hear my afternoon soap.” Poor Doris. She leaves suburbia to experience the Australian outback and is then horrified to discover Australia in it.
“There were bugs in the bathroom sink. Disgusting.” Imagine camping and finding insects. It’s like going to the ocean and being furious about all the fish.
We’ve learnt that some of the best places have the worst reviews, and that is usually where the real story begins.
We left Daly Waters, an iconic pub that seemed to contain every grey nomad in Australia. There were so many retirees there, I briefly wondered if Centrelink was running some sort of convention. Lovely people, no doubt, but after a while, Will and I felt like the youngest men at a very polite funeral.
We headed east in search of fuel and somewhere to spend the night.
The first caravan park had completely run out of petrol, which seems a bold business strategy for a roadhouse. So we consulted the great Australian travel bible and discovered another place further down the road. It boasted a swimming pool, vanilla slices and a bar.
As we pulled in, I said, “Shit, this place looks closed.”
I was judging this by the complete absence of customers, the empty campgrounds and the boarded-up window.
There were no petrol signs, no sandwich boards advertising schnitzel night, no laminated menus fluttering in the breeze. The bowsers were plain white with fuel types written on them in black texta by someone whose handwriting looked like they’d grown up texting.
I picked the one labelled “91” and squeezed the handle as the pump sprang to life, the display flashed Two dollars and eighty cents a litre.
They seemed to have noticed the place up the road was out of fuel and decided now was their time to shine. At that price, I wasn’t entirely convinced I was buying petrol; it could have been champagne.
We only needed a top-up, but it still cost eighty-one dollars.
The front door had a sign: NO T-SHIRT OR FOOTWEAR, NO ENTRY. I admired this immediately. There are parts of the Northern Territory where turning up wearing both shoes and a shirt practically qualifies you for public office.
Inside was a bain-marie containing exactly six chicken wings, sitting under a warm orange light, all moisture long since evaporated. Beside them sat a dozen of the famous vanilla slices.
“G’day mate. Number two, thanks.”
I said this as though the fellow needed to know the bowser number, even though I was the only customer within a fifty-kilometre radius.
“Eighty-one dollars, thanks,” he replied cheerfully, with the distinct air of a man who had just completed the greatest heist of his career.
“How much for a powered site?”
“Thirty-five dollars.”
I was pleasantly surprised. There were no forms, no registration details and no request for identification. I just tapped and went.
“Just head in and pick wherever you want.”
We drove past the sun-bleached, hand-painted signs reading “Caravan Park and Pool” and selected a shady spot close to the amenities.
Will was particularly excited about the pool. It had been hot, and nothing says luxury in the outback quite like immersing yourself in chlorinated water.
Then we saw it.
The pool was fenced off and surrounded by yellow grass that reached my waist. The water itself had abandoned all pretence of being blue. If colours had personalities, this one seemed tired and unwell.
We were noticing a theme: nothing here was quite as advertised.
We unpacked and decided to investigate the bar. Inside, we were greeted by a backpacker.
“G’day, can I get a couple of beers?” I asked.
“Um… I’m not sure.”
An interesting response, I thought. He opened the fridge, and inside sat exactly two cans of Great Northern.
“That’ll do, I guess.” For eighteen dollars, we drank the establishment dry.
Back at the van, we put on some tunes and began reading the one-star reviews.
“Go to the toilet first before you think about staying.”
“No vanilla slices, and the girl behind the bar was unhelpful.”
“Only if you are desperate to stay the night.”
“Filthy dirty place. Would not stop here. Keep going.”
“One star is a bit overstated.”
Yet there was one thing that everyone who gave a five-star rating agreed upon.
“Awesome pies and snot block.”
“Fantastic vanilla slice.”
“Ten out of ten vanilla slice. Absolutely delicious.”
At this point, the vanilla slice could be the one saving grace of this Roadhouse – so we bought one.
A vanilla slice is one of Australia’s great culinary contradictions. It looks as though it should be elegant, but eating one is like performing surgery on a custard-filled pillow. The first bite sent pastry flakes onto my shirt, into my lap and somehow behind my glasses. The custard had the consistency of expensive sunscreen and threatened to escape from both ends simultaneously.
And it was good, actually. Very good. Not five-star good. I’d probably give it four. But for seven dollars, it was rich, creamy and exactly what you want when you’re sitting beside a van in the middle of nowhere.
Things were looking up.
Despite the reviews, the amenities were perfectly fine. Hot water, decent pressure and, perhaps most importantly, nobody else around.
As darkness settled, we poured ourselves a bit of red wine and sat beneath a sky full of stars. The van was warm, the night air was cool, and there wasn’t another soul in sight.
We liked it so much that we booked another night, not because it was the nicest place we’d stayed.
It wasn’t.
But sometimes the best places aren’t the prettiest, the cleanest, or the most luxurious. Often they’re just the places where you unexpectedly find a decent shower, a surprisingly good vanilla slice and an entire caravan park all to yourself.
Besides, I had freelance work to catch up on.
And we needed another evening to read one-star reviews of places we’ll almost certainly stay at in the future.
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