Avoid the Overlander Roadhouse!
Christmas day sunset
Christmas day I decided to keep riding. It didn’t feel at all like Christmas, apart from the calls home to remind me what I was missing. It was windy as hell Christmas day and pretty unpleasant riding. That said when I got to the roadhouse at Wooramel the sunset was spectacular, which put a gloss on the end of the day. The roadhouse was closed so I kipped in a sheltered area out the side for the night.
The next morning at the roadhouse I decided to treat myself to a decent breakfast. The owners were up from Perth giving the managers a holiday and they were into bike touring, so we had a decent chat about my trip and the road ahead. Later in the day I got to the Overlander roadhouse at the turn off to Shark Bay. I took a break from the heat and the wind for a cold drink. There was an English girl working there, about as obnoxious and rude a person as I ever met. There was also a Malaysian girl too, it was her first day and the English chick was bullying her in front of the customers which was pretty appaling. The Malaysian girl was sweet and I asked her for water to refill my bottles. The English chick was obviously listening from inside the kitchen and came flying out saying no I can’t, that I have to buy it if I wanted drinking water. At $5.70 per 1.5 litres it’s not really cheap, but she wasn’t budging so I asked to see the boss, who was a severe looking woman.
She was adamant that I couldn’t have any drinking water, that it was too expensive. This is fair enough the next roadhouse was only 60km away so I wasn’t desperate but I was pissed at the English twits behaviour so I got stroppy and made a scene. In front of the other customers I demanded that even after spending nearly $20 on food if she was willing to let me cycle off with no water in 40+ heat, willing to let my suffer heatstroke, dehydration and maybe worse because she was too tight! I turned to the lady behind me and told her to put her stuff back on the shelf, that she’d be better served spending her money at a place that appreciated their customers stopping to give them business. That made her change her tune, and all of a sudden she was full of Christmas cheer, “Seeing as it’s Christmas, go on into the kitchen and fill your bottles”. So I filled my bottles and as I was walking out I flicked 10 cents onto the counter, just in case she thought she was giving me a gift. Score one more to me! I was so pissed at their arrogant attitude there, if I could have taken back the money I spent, I would have done so. Keep going if you ever pass the place!
I got to Billabong later in the evening and decided to call it a day there. The wind has been really cruel, it had been relentlessly blowing from the south right into my face since I left Exmouth and even though I’m doing shorter days I’m more tired at the end of every day.
January 10th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
Good onya Ross! Been to that place …like a hundred meters south of the Shark bay turnoff, on the east side of the hwy right? I got food poisoning from the food there….spent an awful night after a meal there. I’ll never forget it either.
Randy
June 28th, 2009 at 10:51 am
hi
Although you do have a point about heatstroke and sure they were probably rude….but what alot of people don’t realise is there is no water up there. If you dig for water all you get it salty water. In that area they are running on water tanks from the winter rains. If they don’t get those rains then water, (at great cost) must be shipped up by trucks. Everything has to be shipped up there.
So next time you are riding up there remember you are not in a city You must either pay for water or have aboriginal knowledge of the local water holes. Humans were never meant to live in those conditions and water is a luxury there.