© irene waters 2015
These days when you visit the bathroom, no matter where you are you are greeted with gleaming white porcelain toilets and wash basins. There are liquid soap dispensers so that hands don’t go where hands have been before them. The whole scenario is one of germ-free hygiene.
© irene waters 2015
Not at this pub. Mind you I think that everything was no doubt as clean as a whistle but the flushing water probably came from an area of tea trees thus colouring the water brown. The constant dripping in the toilets led to those brown stains that once there become impossible to remove.
© irene waters 2015
The oldy worldy metal basins gave character but not only were brown but also very rusty. There are people that resurface this type of equipment and the ones here could certainly have done with it. However, I loved it.It was never going to kill me. It gave it atmosphere that I thought worthy of not one but three photographs and Cee’s Odd Ball challenge was just the place for them.
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About Irene Waters 19 Writer Memoirist
I began my working career as a reluctant potato peeler whilst waiting to commence my training as a student nurse. On completion I worked mainly in intensive care/coronary care; finishing my hospital career as clinical nurse educator in intensive care. A life changing period as a resort owner/manager on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu was followed by recovery time as a farmer at Bucca Wauka. Having discovered I was no farmer and vowing never again to own an animal bigger than myself I took on the Barrington General Store. Here we also ran a five star restaurant. Working the shop of a day 7am - 6pm followed by the restaurant until late was surprisingly more stressful than Tanna. On the sale we decided to retire and renovate our house with the help of a builder friend. Now believing we knew everything about building we set to constructing our own house. Just finished a coal mine decided to set up in our backyard. Definitely time to retire we moved to Queensland. I had been writing a manuscript for some time. In the desire to complete this I enrolled in a post grad certificate in creative Industries which I completed 2013. I followed this by doing a Master of Arts by research graduating in 2017. Now I live to write and write to live.
Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist) 
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This was SO gross :-p until I read about the tea trees. I wonder if my essential oils would discolor things? I don’t think it ever has so is it the bark of the tree or…?
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I think it is the roots that does the discolouring but I’m not 100% sure.
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I thought perhaps it was from too much iron in the water, but tea trees work, too. Rather awful looking, though.
janet
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Janet, You could be right. Or it could be a combination of both. The water is obtained from an area with tea trees and then sits suspended in an iron tank and gravity fed down. It could well be iron. I wonder if the new plastic tanks have less likelihood of causing this kind of thing. Irene
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Interesting photos.
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Odd ball 🙂
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I was sort of grossed out by what I thought was grime – glad you explained it. We’ve seen some incredibly horrible bathrooms facilities that we’ve actually had to use (!) in our travels, and not all in third world countries!
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Thats when you can find a bathroom. This I think was super clean just looked horrendous.
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Huh! So, if tea tree oil is used against germs, is the brown staining germ-free? 🙂
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I would say it was as clean as a whistle but I guess that depends on who has been blowing the whistle.
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One could call it “Rustic” – sorry bad pun. But you are so right, it won’t kill you, and it is part of the travel experience. How boring it would be if all bathrooms were the same gleaming white porcelain?
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I think because so many are white you forget that this was the norm when I was growing up. Not dirty at all – as you say (and I love it) its rustic.
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I didn’t know about tea trees either , but I’ve seen this type of reaction from high iron content in water.
I’ve had travels in the world where this washroom would have been considered luxurious … porcelain AND TP!! 🙂
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It could well be caused by high iron ( I hadn’t thought of that) and I’m sure that they keep them because their guests love that old world quaintness they provide. Certainly more luxurious than some places in the world.
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You nailed odd balls for this week Irene. Thanks 🙂 and yuck all at the same time 🙂
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Sorry Cee. They were photos with no home to go to. 👿
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Lovely shaped basins Irene, and serviceable too, just needed to be re-laminated, as you said.
Great photos!
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Yes they are likeable despite……
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Yuk… That is gross… I would have ran out of there…
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When you’ve got to go ….you’ve got to go. 🙂
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Just after I graduated from high school, my parents let me go to Wales with a group led by my English teacher. We stayed in the dorms at the University in Bangor. They were new and very modern but the water smelled of sulfur and was golden. We were all afraid to drink it but this was decades before bottled water. I loved the village and the people though I think they found a few hundred American students a bit loud.
BTW, I see you, Irene, in the last photo – the photographer in the wings – nice touch.
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What a great experience. I wonder why the water smelled of sulphur? Was it a thermal area? I had sulphur smelling water in Iceland and was told it was great for the complexion and I have to admit all the Icelandic girls had great skin.
I think a few hundred students from anywhere would be a bit of a shock to the system no matter where they were from.
Yes I couldn’t escape those mirrors. That was the old fashioned way of doing a selfie. LOL
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We were told there was sulphur in the area but not being inquisitive, at least about this, I never found out more.
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I wouldn’t have either when I was at school. I remember one skiing trip we went on with school. I couldn’t tell you a thing about the scenery or anything else about it but I could probably describe the boy that my friends and I fantasised about without any problem at all.
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