We turned north and westerly to put some distance between us and the high country in order to stay out of reach of the snow storm. After a couple of hours on the road in lovely sunny conditions we decided to stop for lunch at a bush pub that we came across enroute to our next stopover.
At this stage I must let you know the following so that you don't think of us as being dirty or strange (or both?): In order to attract clientele to their establishments, many small town pubs in Australia offer a free hot shower to travellers in exchange for buying a drink and/or a meal in their establishment. Being 'clean again', holds some considerable appeal to travellers who, like us, may have been 'free camping' for a while and have had limited access to hot and cold running water, other than what they can carry in their caravans or motorhomes, sufficient to really wash the smell of smoke from campfires and grime of camping off of themselves.
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| The Beehive Hotel in Coolac, NSW. Showers with running water - Optional! |
We went in and asked the proprietor of the empty bar if the offer of a shower with a meal was still good.
"No problem.", he said.
"There is plenty of hot water. The shower is out the back - go ahead."
We placed our order for lunch and as I am a gentleman, said to Heather;
"Ladies first."
Heather got her kit and went to take a shower.
I did a walk-around our rig to do some basic checks to kill some time and got my shower kit ready. It was going to be really good to have a hot shower instead of a 'bird-bath'.
At the same time as Heather emerged from the shower room, I heard the publican's wife yell out to her husband, saying:
"The power just went off."
Heather, who didn't hear this said to me;
"The pressure isn't that high, it was a bit dark in there and the exhaust fan just shut-off but the shower was nice and hot."
I told her about the power going off and as I was so eager to clean myself up a bit, I marched right in perfectly OK with the prospect of showering in the dark without an exhaust fan.
I stripped off, turned on the taps and stepped under a weak flow of water. I thought the water might cool off quickly without any electricity so I got straight to wetting and washing my hair to get the smoke out of it. I was pretty much done in just a minute or so when the water flow diminished to a trickle. Oh-oh! I directed every last dribble that fell onto me at the remaining soapy bits and luckily, by the time even the drips stopped, I was done!
As it turns out, the hotel uses bore water which is delivered using their electric pump. No power, no pump, no water. The water in my shower was what was left in the pipes from the upstairs accommodation section of the pub!
We ate our lunch, thanked the publican and his wife for the food, the shower (and the almost shower) then hit the road again.
In the next report, a clean WTF?- Where are The Farrows?, will describe what it was like towing a 3.5 tonne caravan with a diesel ute around Mt. Panorama, Australia's most famous motor racing circuit. It is a steep, tight and twisting track to say the least!
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