As tourism awards go, the gong for the ‘best toilet’ may not sound the most glamorous or most desirable … but that’s not to say it’s not a fiercely contested category.
For many grey nomads, tales of squeaky clean and spacious caravan park amenities blocks, as well as of cobweb-filled drop dunnies, often make for fascinating Happy Hour conversations points.
And, as the International Toilet Tourism Awards return for a second year, there are plenty of loo-with-a-view locations around Australia that will take some beating when the judges sit down to consider their verdict.
And the jockeying for pole position has already begun.
For example, the Bega District News newspaper in New South Wales has wasted no time in pushing the long drop toilets at Pipers Lookout as a frontrunner … saying they have ‘what it takes to flush out the competition’.
The paper even reckons the winding Snowy Mountains Highway leading up to the toilets atop Brown Mountain closely resembles the twists and turns of an intestine!
“Sitting at 904 metres above sea level, the long drops at Pipers Lookout could also boast one of the longest drops in the country,” it says. “At that elevation, the toilets offer sweeping views across the Bega Valley that can extend to the ocean on a clear day … if the smell doesn’t take your breath away, the scenery certainly will.”
The Pipers Lookout toilets are surrounded by old-growth forest and those doing their business there can apparently be serenaded by the songs of the native birds in the South East Forests National Park as they do so.
The International Toilet Tourism Awards rates toilets on their economic contribution, location, design, quirkiness of experience, accessibility, sanitation progress and overall commitment to toilet tourism.
