Mt Kuring-Gai Motel Sign

The neon sign for the Mt Kuring-gai Motel burns against a black sky on the Pacific Highway corridor north of Sydney. Red tubing outlines the main panel. A green cactus graphic glows beside bold white lettering. Below, an arrow points right toward the office. A yellow vacancy box sits underneath, lit and waiting. Real cacti grow in the garden bed at the base of the sign, their fleshy stems catching the spill light from the neon above. A palm trunk rises to the right, throwing the colour of the sign back as a soft wash. Nothing is moving on the road or in the carpark.

Mt Kuring-gai was on the northern run, the Pacific corridor up the Central Coast. Hotel Motel 101 photographed 102 traditional motor inns across three runs out of Sydney over 2018: north to the Central Coast, west through the Blue Mountains, south down the start of the South Coast. The inclusion criterion was the traditional motor inn typology, drive-thru reception, parking in front of the rooms, low rise. The neon signs are a defining feature of the form. Most of the surviving examples are independent operators, sustained by passing trade and a stretch of highway that still rewards them.