It’s been a few months in the works, but yesterday afternoon the doors opened to an impressive new truckies’ shower block at this popular stop in the west.
Located just off the Great Northern Highway near Broome, the Roebuck Plains Roadhouse is one of the major truck stops between Perth and Darwin.
It gets countless trucks stopping by each day, with ample parking space for up to 20 road trains.
For the past 12 years, the Roebuck Plains Roadhouse has been owned by brothers Leeland and Matthew Sharpe.
Leeland told Big Rigs that the new truckies’ facilities have been a long time coming, representing a significant investment – and this is just the beginning of what’s in store.
“The updates were long overdue but with Covid and then the Fitzroy floods, it’s taken longer to get these completed than we’d hoped,” said Leeland.
“The new showers have just opened and we had people in there before we’d even had a chance to take the tape off the mirrors!”
Leeland says the facilities have taken about three months to build, at a cost of roughly “a couple of hundred thousand dollars” and have been designed with truckies in mind.
The new block features four showers, toilets, tea and coffee facilities and even complimentary towels. “They’re self-contained rooms with plenty of space. They’ve been built and done right,” Leeland added. “We want to look after the truckies.”
The Roebuck Plains Roadhouse was originally built in the mid 1980s and has undergone several renovations since then – with more planned. Leeland says that when he and Matthew took over the site, they had hopes of delivering something special.
“We had seen the poor state of some of the roadhouses and thought we’d like to try and do it better – so we gave it a crack,” Leeland said.
He also revealed, “We’re about to do a massive redevelopment which will make the roadhouse bigger and better again.”
Though he didn’t reveal too much, Leeland said, “Works will hopefully be commencing shortly.”