The Last Pub

The Biloela Hotel has been recently refurbished (nice paint job) and some work is still going on downstairs.  Our host showed us the upstairs common area and said they had decided against putting in a kitchen.  A bad decision in my opinion.  In the last seven years, we have stayed in a number of country pubs and some of them have great kitchen areas, one even providing cereal.  

The common area here has a lounge, a TV (the remote control didn't work), an electric jug, coffee, tea, wooden stirrers and UHT milk, two mugs, a few cups, and that's it.  So how do you fill the jug?  The sink in your room?  Jo's room didn't have a sink (but it had a chair).  My room had a sink 

and a mirror (but no chair); Jan's room had all three.  But the jug won't fit under the tap in the sink.  Off to the Ladies' then.  Jo's room was a long way from the Ladies'.  Or you could fill up the water glass in your room and bring it to the jug; except there were no water glasses in the rooms. With only two mugs available - presumably the others were in people's rooms - I was glad I brought the camping set.  So you make the coffee and leave a ring on the bench. You can't wipe it up because there is no water or Chux available (as there would be, in a kitchen).

Each room did have a fridge, but despite our rooms having been booked in advance, these were not turned on.  I turned mine to a cold setting, as the milk and other coldies had been in the cooler compartment of the picnic backpack all day.  Jo asked if we could have an iron and ironing board, and a brand new one of each appeared quickly.  Maybe no-one had asked for them before, but Jo remains convinced that they raced out and bought them.  We then went down to dinner and forgot about such mundane things as fridges and irons.  The meal came quickly and was quite yummy.

I slept well and it was time for breakfast. My milk, banana and yoghurt were all frozen.  I blamed myself, but Jan's food was all frozen as well, and she had simply turned on her fridge. Maybe the room's previous occupant had had the same idea as me.  I decided I would have a shower while they thawed.  The individual shower was not operational, just the one over the bath.  The bath had permanent stain marks in it, but I can live with that. The toilet, however was gross.  I realise that bore water or dam water can turn the water black, but this loo needed a really decent clean.

As we ate our breakfast we made a decision: it was time to ditch the country pub stay on future op shop road trips.  This was actually the most expensive night of our stay (I realise Billo is a mining town), and the facilities were by far the worst.  We are too old for this nonsense now; no more shared bathrooms.

We entertained ourselves for a while watching the elderly gents from the local services club load up all the empties that were redeemable for cash (their truck had parked us in) and then we were off on the last leg of the journey.