3 Sisters Motel, Katoomba

The 3 Sisters Motel at Katoomba carries its full property frontage in this photograph: the building, the carpark, the sign at the kerb. The motel sits behind a wide front lot on the Great Western Highway in Katoomba, the single-storey brick building running along the back of the carpark with the room doors facing forward under a continuous awning. The pole sign at the kerb carries the name in white script on a blue panel, the same neon-outlined sign that the project documents separately in another frame. The carpark is empty. A small palm in a planter at the office end carries the standard postwar tropical-aspirational landscaping. The mountain air is cool.

The 3 Sisters Motel at Katoomba was photographed at 00:48 on 4 April 2018, on the western run of Hotel Motel 101. The project covered 101 traditional Australian motor inns across three sweeps out of Sydney in late March and early April 2018: south on the Hume Highway, north on the Pacific, west on the Great Western through the Blue Mountains. Drive-thru reception, parking in front of the rooms, low rise. The Katoomba name carries the Blue Mountains' best-known landmark, the Three Sisters rock formation visible from Echo Point a short walk from the motel's front door.