For the past 37 years, Janice English has worked at roadhouses in the Northern Territory and South Australia.
For the last 10 years, she’s been at the Marla Traveller Rest Roadhouse in South Australia, where she works as manager.
Numerous truckies contacted Spy to say this roadhouse was a popular stop for them.
“It even has a great truckies’ room especially for us and has lots of parking, clean showers and toilets and friendly staff,” one driver told me.
So I decided to phone Marla Traveller Rest Roadhouse. I spoke to Janice about how many truckies stop there on average.
“It could be up to 40 a day but it varies. Many pull up and sleep the night across the road after they come over,” Janice said.
I asked Janice what are the most popular meals for drivers and she said the roadhouse’s burgers were on the top of the list.
“But they also like the specials including our roast meals,” she added.
The Marla Traveller Rest Roadhouse is open 24 hours a day and is located on the Stuart Highway, 1082km from Adelaide and 159km south of the Northern Territory border.
The busy roadhouse employs 28 staff at the moment but that increases to 35 during the tourist season.
Janice said that she had worked at several roadhouses across the Northern Territory before coming to Marla – and she says she loves it there.
With its official population of just over 70 people, Marla is primarily a service town. It is visited twice a week by the historic Great Southern Railway train, The Ghan, directly across the road from the roadhouse.