A Night at the Pink Poodle

The Pink poodle was an art-deco styled motel built on the side of the highway in Surfers Paradise in the late 60’s. Its bright neon sign and prominent location led to it becoming a Gold Coast icon seen on postcards for decades.

By the late 80’s the shine had worn off and the motel had become a den of prostitution and criminal activity. The sign still shone its bright sickly pink hue over the rain-slicked streets on summer evenings for years to come as the building continued to deteriorate beneath it.

My 11th grade teacher once made the class made read and analyse a fictional book called ‘A Night at the Pink Poodle’. It was about the Gold Coast, its tacky superficial materialism and how chasing it all may eventually leave you feeling like a big fat phoney. Near the end of the book the protagonist, a wildly successful High-rise Apartment Salesman, spends a night at the latter incarnation of the hotel after fucking up his life by questioning its validity. He has some kind of spiritual epiphany while he sits in the faded, stained, dated interior of his room listening to only the passing traffic on the highway and in the hallway.

In 2004 they tore the faded motel down. The sign remains. Next to a Hooters.

I regret never going inside and taking a few photos. When it was in its final form. I regret this now. Then it never really crossed my mind.

There were a similar motels in Palm Beach. There were actually dozens of similar motels up and down the Gold Coast Highway. Many have been knocked down. Some are still running. Others fell into gradual disrepair.

I remember walking past one that was near my house when I was 18 or so. A man called out asking for a light from a darkened door frame. I went up a flight of stairs to this strangers door and gave him my lighter. He pulled out a filthy pipe and had a cook right there on the balcony. He offered me some. I said no thanks and went on my way.

I’m finding something in them as the coastline becomes increasingly gentrified. They’ve become fewer and further between. So I’m trying to get a few shots whenever I see the chance. They have something you cant make.

Eyes Wired Up

That’s the last leg of the trip. The Kimberly to Queensland in about 6 weeks finished off with an 800km overnight drive up the east coast.

I caught up with an old mate from a lifetime ago…. then split in the evening. expecting to drive just a few hours and nap in the back of the car. I couldn’t swim or surf any stops up the coast because I’d had a tattoo done. I didn’t want to go bush. I just wanted out of the car.

So I kept going through.

There’s a lot of traffic going at night. Its a busy road. A lot of Lorries. They don’t give a shit. They know the road better than the backs of their hands. They’ll ride up your ass and blare their horns if you’re not going at least 10k’s over the limit.

I’d be cranky too if I had to drive that road all night all the time.

Bright lights kill when tired. Headlights passing made me cringe. Service stations blinded me with their kaleidoscopic fluorescent lights causing my head to throb. I knew it was time for bed but I was wired on 80 cent Caltex coffee. It was only another 4 hours away.

I got to the border at dawn. Got two hours sleep then met my family for a coffee.

They told me I looked like shit.

They weren’t wrong.

 

Bashers

Age’s backyard.

Cozy and Cool.

This is the best house I’ve ever been in. It’s Age’s place. His Mum built it in the hills behind Kiama.

Amazing. You can feel the love that went into it.

 

 

Everytime

 

Here’s the routine when I get to Melbourne. Spam anyone I know who’s living there to see if they want to catch up as I get into the city, giving all involved as little time to make plans as possible. Go crash on a friends couch, eat all their food, make a big mess of their kitchen and facilities and then wander into the city. I go to All-Star Comics and throw down a few hundred dollars on books I don’t have a bookshelf for, then go to the markets and drool over the produce until I become overwhelmed and have to leave. Afterwards I’ll drink beer whenever I’m thirsty and always… always catchup with Larry Boxhaul because he’s… He’s Larry man. 

And I’ll take a few lousy photos along the way. 

Strange Places

It was 5am and I’d been skunked for waves. I amused myself by playing with a replica great White hanging in the Shell Station. I should have been shooting two hours South to catch a few waves at a break Known as ‘Monuments’ or ‘Monys’ or ‘That place with all the boogie-boarder farkin blowins shitting in the sanddunes’.

I decided to go West looking for another wave.

I got lost on a bunch of empty dirt roads that lead no-place in particular. I rolled slowly through grasslands turning towards the coast whenever a road became available, trying to remember how many turns I’d been making in order to find my way back out.

I found more of the same sandstone cliffs and wild, windy seas growing wilder and windier by the minute. I had blown it for sure. Blown it bad. So… Adelaide. It was only a Nine Hour drive. I’d Already been driving around for 5 looking for waves. Burning petty, cursing myself for getting my explorin’ blood up when I should have gone the safe option.

It was a long drive. A hot drive. A flat, dull ugly drive through rocky farmlands and milltowns that consisted of giant wheat silos, a service station, the occasional shearing shed and little else…

Some Cop stopped me midway across the continent. He scraped my tongue and looked pretty keen to find me to be the dope fiend I looked with my glazed tired eyes, stained teeth, filthy wagon with shit written in the dirt overflowing with a weeks worth of garbage. It was a pretty decent bet.

Though it was Snake eyes for Bored Rural Copper. No dice that day.

Iron Knob was a mining town and looked to be active again. 17 years ago it was dead, the mine was dead too. Now there’s a FiFo town of Dongas propped up alongside the base of the mountain. The mine is active with giant tonka trucks racing up the side of the open cut. Highway signs indicated there would be petrol and food there.

There wasn’t shit but rusted out cars and gutted houses. Some dude in a bowling shirt walked down the empty main street. Solidly built with scruffy matted hair and a downcast face watching the dead ground under his feet. The front of his shirt was covered in keys. Keys sowed onto the breast of the shirt in three thick rows. Shiny in the afternoon sun.

I wondered what his life must be like in a dead town like this.

I wasn’t going to ask him.

I got into Adelaide after Sundown.

I got into Victor Harbour late in the night.

Near Enough to No-Place

This is one of my favourite parts of the country.

It is all wild and weatherbeaten. The towns, the people, the coast, the sea.

All of it.

Ahead

Where Dirt Meets Water

It seemed smaller than I remembered it. It had been almost 20 years I guess.

Things get built up in the head sometimes.

My minds eye held a frame of hot orange and yellow dirt clashing with the cold dark grey blue of the sea divided only by a gash of shadow sent by the setting sun in the west.

The great sea cliffs where the barren desolate waste of the Nullarbor falls into the crashing, moody South Pacific Ocean.

Yeah…. Sea. Cliffs.

 

Straight Lines