I just want to wash my hands. Please!?!

Trip 15: Perth to Mount Peak via Alice Springs

Purpose: Targeted flora and fauna survey

Total Distance Traveled: 4, 342km

Distance Traveled Year to Date:  56, 149 km

What is wrong with this picture?

There is a common theme between this blog and one previous. I apologise but when it comes to humanities most valuable resource no amount of my diatribe will be enough to express my disappointment in the lack of humanitarianism in the outback these days. 

It used to be that when you rolled into a roadhouse way out back of beyond you could depend on a couple of things. The roadhouse proprietor was pleased to see you, he/she was appreciative of your patronage and, if you had a problem, they genuinely wanted to see you right. You may have paid a premium, but at least you got good, honest and dependable service. If you needed something you could rely on these ‘salt-of-the-earth’ types to take the time and ferret around out the back until they found whatever it was you needed or, at least, something similar to achieve the same end result.

Sometimes the toilets left a little to be desired, but it was hardly like the scene in Trainspotting. The important thing was that you felt welcome to use them. 

That is not the case these days and more often than not I find myself driving out of these towns a hell of a lot more despondent than when I drive in. 

Just the other day, at a town along the Stuart Highway that was not Alice Springs and was not Darwin, I pulled into a roadhouse. I did not need fuel, so I did not buy any. I intended to purchase, at the very least a coffee and some grub but what I needed the most was the toilet. I must have had ‘which way to the crapper’ written across my forehead because when I walked into the building I was met by the most indignant roadhouse proprietor I have every had the displeasure of crossing paths with and the glare I got demanded that I explain my intentions. His glare was so belligerent I felt I had to espouse my intent to make a purchase after going pot pot. 

This is all very unpleasant I know, but what I find most upsetting of all is that you can’t even reach down by the pump to wash your hands at the tap. Why not? Because these people have removed every single tap handle from every single tap. Why? Because they can and because they don’t want you to take a single thing for free: and that, I feel, is just disgusting. 

Seriously, what is to gain from this? All it achieves is to infuriate me and compel me to move on without making a single purchase. And they say the city is a cold and heartless place.