I woke rested from a good night’s sleep in what appeared to be, judging by the state of the motel room next door, recently renovated motel room. The night’s stay had cost me $147, which, seemed pricey, though as I would discover I would soon get a lot less for not much less than $147.

Going back along the Eyre Freeway it remains my favourite part of the journey across the Nullarbor.

The range of landscapes from the lakes that are around Norseman through the hilly and bush-filled landscape and the onto the Eyre Highway and properly off along the Nullarbor.

The Madura Pass was still surprising, even though I knew it was there and had driven along it. It’s still surprising given the landscape around it.

I can’t really say much about this day’s drive without repeating myself from the previous blog. I’m also cheating with this first photo, which is actually from my westward journey at the Madura Pass, though one of many I didn’t use in the other blog.

What I can say however has to do with my evening’s accommodation and stop for the night.

Border Village.
I didn’t stay at Mundrabilla because the distance from Norseman to that was somewhat too short, so I’d decided to push on to Border Village. I came to wish I’d pushed on further...

The price for a room at the Border Village motel was $120.
Plus a $10 room key deposit. Which you got back when you gave the key back.
For reference and reminder my room at Mundrabilla was $95 and didn’t have any sort of room key deposit.

Once I had paid and got into the room I was left wishing I had continued up the road to the Nullarbor Roadhouse. It however was 2 hours up the road and by the time I had gotten into the room and thought about it, it was already approaching twilight and therefore, for me, with my rules of ‘try not to hit a kangaroo’ too late to be driving again.

On my last road trip, also on the way back it was Morgan that gave me a bad night’s sleep. But that was down to the locals and a few other issues I had.

With Border Village it was solely down to the price and condition of the room.

Border Village and Mundrabilla share several things, they’re both isolated roadhouses, they both have diesel generators going all of the time and they both are attached to petrol stations.

Border Village is larger, it’s right next to the Western Australia / South Australia border.

Said border is notable in that while you get met by a border patrol person going into Western Australia you have to wait until you get to Ceduna in South Australia to go through a similar process for entry into South Australia, despite actually crossing the border here at Border Village.

Border Village has much more of an air of it being run by a large business / corporation, just everything seemed a little too...I’m not sure. Not exactly prescribed, but there was just an odd sense in the bar and building.
Maybe it was that you couldn’t get a pub meal at any time unlike Mundrabilla. Maybe it was that (at least the information booklet in the room) seemed to suggest they were stuck on the Eucla timezone and that’s when meals were severed from 6 pm Eucla time till...I can’t remember, probably 9 or 8:30 pm.

Border Village motel, other side of room.

I wasn’t expecting much of the room.

But by this point I did have something to frame my expectations against. Mundrabilla, which is in a similar location and situation. Its room was clean and simple (ignoring the bathroom ceiling, which was easy enough to do).
The rooms at Mundrabilla looked like they’d been there since the 60s, but at least they had the look and feel of actually being built there and they were clean and well kept.

Border Village’s motel rooms were quite clearly portable buildings that had been cut in half to form motel units.

The ‘carpet’ in the room was I think damp and very dirty.

The walls were very thin, I could hear the neighbour’s TV quite loudly through the wall.

The bed was also very wobbly and the castors on it made it very easy to move. This was something of a positive as I was able to rotate the bed around so it was essentially in the middle of the room with the top of the bed against the desk at the back of the room and away from the paper-thin walls.

Inside the bathroom there were signs informing you that Border Village was on a limited water supply. This wasn’t stated at Mundrabilla, but it was stated here in Border Village.
The water pressure was fine (in fact it had been fine everywhere I stayed), I only mention this now because there seems to be a lot of people banging on about water pressure on sites like TripAdvisor.

I slept badly at Border Village, just the state of the room and especially the price vs the state of the room made for a bad night’s sleep.
The following day I left very early, eager to be away from Border Village. The night’s sleep, and in fact the whole experience there left me feeling unclean and just an unpleasant taste in my mouth.

There are no positives about staying at Border Village, it’s expensive, unpleasant and has the feel of a big corporation running it. On any future trips I will avoid it and stay at Mundrabilla on the way over to Western Australia and then at the Nullarbor Roadhouse on the way back, something I sorely wish I had done this road trip.