Toilets and travelling...

Last year while DH and I went on our road trip in the US, I wrote a post on my observations of toilets we had visited. Now while on our recent trip to Victoria, I found I had enough 'material' to write another lot of observations about loos/restrooms. Here's how it all started....

We decided over breakfast at 'Brunches' cafe in Ballarat, that we would head off to the town of Bacchus Marsh to see what was there.
It was a cold and wet day and when we arrived we immediately went in search of a public restroom. There was actually one just across the road from where we parked the car in the main street. I was a bit suspicious as we approached this stainless steel monolithic building with its winking green light. It looked a bit high tech to me. I volunteered to go first. DH found the button that would open the door. It slid back effortlessly; I poked my head inside, looked around and then entered. A male voice with dulcet tones, requested that I not only shut the door but that I should also press the button which would lock the door. Once the door was locked, the voice announced that I had 10 minutes to use the facilities and then the music started; quite nice music too!

This 'inner sanctum' was spotlessly clean. On my left was a toilet made of stainless steel. To the right was the washing area set into the recess of the wall.

Firstly a sensor operated soap dispenser, in the middle a sensor operated a water tap and finally an air dryer. The toilet flushed when the tap came on in the washing area. I was really impressed with all the technology and I was chuckling at the novelty of it all, as I opened the door.

While DH used the rest-room, I went back to the car and got my camera :-) , so I could get a photo or two of this novel rest-room. It had been a pleasant surprise after my 'toilet' experience at Maldon Railway station a few days before.

The 'charming' loo at the Maldon Railway station

So when later in the day last Sunday, when we spied another one of these 'high tech loos' in St Kilda in Melbourne, there was no hesitation in using it. Oh dear...it was so different to the one back at Bacchus Marsh. It was filthy, graffiti covered the walls, there was no beautifully spoken male voice and no music. The paper is dispensed/rationed by pressing a button. It took me ages to get enough paper with which to clean the toilet seat before I would even think of sitting down.  Despite washing my hands, I still didn't feel clean and this time I didn't bother to get out my camera which was in my handbag. Oh well...these things happen when you travel around.

Rockhampton and Emu Park...

The Tropic of Capricorn passes through the city of Rockhampton so part of Rocky is in the temperate zone and the other part is in the tropics zone.  Another claim to fame for this city is that it is the ‘Beef Capital’ of Queensland. It has a prosperous past and is not doing too bad in the present either. It has a number of private schools which cater for students from the country areas who need to attend boarding school.

The marker showing where the Tropic of Capricorn lies

The Beef Capital ? lol

Central Queensland University has its main campus in Rockhampton and in the mid 1990s I completed a bachelor degree in Education through CQU’s excellent external studies’ program. DH and I walked around some of the central business district and we found a charming ‘old fashioned’ department store called ‘Stewarts’ with beautiful stock. Another thing which visitors to Rocky can find to be a bit different from the norm...and that is that the train line runs down one of the city streets...cars, buses etc drive along beside the trains sharing the roadway...

here we are giving way to not only cars, but also the odd train or two!

One of the lovely old buildings in the city centre

A bridge over the majestic and wide Fitzroy river which flooded in January

Then we headed off to Emu Park to our motel. Emu Park is a beach district slightly to the north of the city and is not overly developed...it still has a 50s ambience and is very pleasant. We went for a short walk to the beach and happened to notice a bridal party having photos taken on the beach. Jessica (Bruce’s god-daughter) and Chace would be getting married in 24 hours...also on a beach.

The wedding party we saw on the beach at Emu Park

We finished our day with a pretty ordinary pizza from the shop near the motel. We expected to be able to buy some groceries and make our own meal but the new supermarket wasn’t opening until Nov 16...we were too early.

On the road again...

On Wednesday, DH and I started driving north. Our first stop was at my niece's place. Our little great niece has grown so much in the 2 months since last time we saw her and is now stringing sentences together.

We had time for story reading as well as a walk around the garden admiring the lovely healthy veggies that my niece is growing. We all shared the piklets that I had made and then after lots of hugs and kisses DH and I set off to continue our journey. Our destination on Wednesday night was Torquay in Hervey Bay.

I was spoiled in the US where we had free WiFi access in all but one place where we stayed in the 7 weeks. In Hervey Bay WiFi would have cost $20, and here in Emu Park, I've bought 2 hours worth for $12.95 but have spent so much time uploading photos to FaceBook and the photos in this post...I think I will post about this trip when I get home!

Making our way to Utah...

On Sunday we left Vegas and headed to the Hoover Dam. It was certainly a magnificent example of engineering. It was built in 4 years, 1931-1935 and was built using huge concrete blocks as to pour that much concrete would result in problems with it curing at different rates. Sadly, I have no photos of Hoover Dam as I did a very stupid thing. I left my camera’s SD card in the hotel at Vegas and guess what? The camera doesn’t work without it. DH rang the hotel but they obviously didn’t find it as they didn’t ring back. So at the first opportunity I bought a new card and that wasn’t until Mesquite later in the day...sad I know but DH has photos but he’s not uploading photos as we go like I am. So maybe some time later I’ll show the photos I took with his swish camera.

This is the Virgin River

The road seemed to stretch into the distance and come to a dead end at the mtn range. As we got there, we found this amazing road through the pass...it took about 10 minutes to get through.

Our journey took us through beautiful country; the scenery was breathtaking! In many ways it was like the Grand Canyon. The colours were amazing, as were the landforms. Some of the land was obviously used for ranching, although we didn’t see cattle, we did see quite a few sheep. We also noticed more and more snow on the mountains as well as drifts near the road and the temperature dropped significantly  as the day moved towards nightfall.

After the Pass, we went through country with canyons like this

Snow-capped mtns on the way to Cedar City

Our overnight stop was at Cedar City; a lovely town. It was amusing to discover that upon checking in, DH had to sign an agreement that we wouldn’t smoke or bring alcohol into our rooms. ( We always ask for a non-smoking room but we've never had to 'sign the pledge' before! lol) Dinner was at Sizzler and no alcohol was served unlike the Sizzlers at home. There was snow in the garden beds near our room last night but no new snow this morning. It (the temp was supposed to drop to 29 F which is below freezing, during the night, but it didn’t)

This morning we headed off to Salt Lake City (SLC) with more and more snow on the landscape. We passed more ranches and did see lots of cattle today. We noticed a speed advisory sign of 80 miles per hour which is ca 128 kph! It was a good road but the fastest legal speed at home is 110 kph.

We lunch at Nephi in a Wendy’s restaurant. The girl serving us asked if we were Australian. She told us that her sister is moving to Oakey (in Qld) as her husband has a job there. And to digress a bit, a woman at Hoover Dam, asked us where we came from then said her son had been a Rotary Exchange student for a year in Warnambool (Victoria) and that’s my grandparents’ home town!

Back to the travelogue...we arrived in SLC mid an hour or so later and found a hotel etc after we’d stopped at the Visitor Centre. We wanted some brochures so we could work out our itinerary for tomorrow. The hotel looked ok but as DH said, it’s not as good as last night’s...we had to ring the office and complain about the loo (toilet); it wouldn’t flush. A guy came over and fiddled around with it and it worked...once. When we came back after dinner (after 9) wouldn’t work would it...we should have complained but being those ‘tough’ queenslanders that we are, we took the lid off the cistern and pulled up the wire ‘thingy’ and flushed like that. Tomorrow morning we will have a serious talk with management.

The capitol building in SLC

Arriving in SLC

Anyhow, I’ve meandered off the topic again! This afternoon we drove out 20 miles to Olympic Park where the 2002 Winter Olympics were held. It was great...the actual snowfields are still there despite it being Fall.

Just before Olympic Park on the lower level

Outside the Visitors' Centre at Parkview just below Olympic Park

Just showing how much snow is still around in the 'arena' area of Olympic park

Another view inside Olympic park

After that we came back to SLC and went straight out to dinner. I couldn’t face a Fast food place again and said dinner was ‘on me’!  I didn’t care what it cost as long as we had some healthy, well-cooked nutritious meal. We went to Cucina Toscana and the meal and service were sublime. A lovely restaurant with cloth napkins and tablecloths, free breads and olive oil, coffee, and hot chocolate. The waiters wore smart shirts and aprons just like my dad used to wear when he ran a milkbar in the 1950s! I asked our waiter John, to explain what the word ‘entree’ means on a US menu. At home it means a tiny sized first course usually after the soup. Here it apparently means, ‘main course’! There you go! Yet something else I’ve learned!

On my mind today...of all things... is toilets!

My mum used to have a saying, 'small things amuse small minds'...and perhaps that is very apt at present. So what in particular about toilets has been occupying my attention recently since DH and I arrived in the US? Well the shape is the same as I'm used to in Aussie...the aspect of my recent obsession has to be the flushing process! The button is pushed or the lever pulled and all of a sudden it's like the vacuum effect that happens in an aeroplane loo; everything gets sucked out with a rush...and then water rushes in. Boy does it rush in...almost up to the top of the bowl. That doesn't happens to loos back home; the water level is quite shallow and the flushing just pours water into the bowl, forcing what's there to go around the s bend and into the big pipe that leads to the sewer. Now this higher waterlevel caused some consternation to me on my first day here. I prefer to stay seated for the 'paperwork' but if you do that here, your hand goes into the water (plus things unmentionable!) eewwwhhh. lol

This photo was taken in a public loo; if others in the Ladies, noticed the flash, they may have wondered about me!!! Unfortunately it doesn't really show the water level that clearly.