The Fishery Falls rest area which is located 39km south of Cairns beside the Bruce Highway should be one of the best for truck drivers.
After all, it has two unisex toilets, tables and chairs and signs advising most parking areas are for heavy vehicles only.
Just across the road is the popular Fishery Falls Hotel where anybody who stops there can wander over for a meal or cold soft drink.
Despite all these facilities, the rest area is not a great place to stop for anybody wanting to answer a call of nature.
Because the toilets’ interiors are mostly dirty, they smell, and generally are swarming with blood sucking mosquitoes or other disease carrying insects.
It is because they are what truckies describe as “hole in the ground” toilets.
These are the ones with no flushing system and just a deep hole into which urine or waste drops into chemicals.
Most of the smell is a result of people, who stop there and not truckies, who leave the lid of the toilets open.
I have been there at least six times in the past year and it has always been the same.
In early August I saw four lots of travellers pull up there for a comfort stop.
One man made a hasty retreat from inside a toilet and advised his wife not to use them.
He told her if the call of nature was urgent at least not to sit on the seat. But they took off to search for another venue.
Several others complained about the state of the dunnies.
It is such a shame considering many truckies tell me we need more rest areas and to find one which ticks most boxes, and has this problem is disappointing.
It certainly isn’t any fault of the poor people who have to clean the toilets.
And they wonder why people shit all over the place. If we had decent toilets that were clean and hygienic people would use them.
Unfortunately most of these so called . Hole in ground toilets are the same. Mostly because of just what they are ? But lack of service is a problem but dirty disgusting travellers aswell iam sorry to say.