Hibiscus Lakeside Motel

The Hibiscus Lakeside Motel sits on a Central Coast lakeside street, the property name reaching for the tropical-flower postwar holiday idiom. The building is single-storey, brick, with the room doors facing the front carpark under a continuous awning. The brick is pale, painted with a contrasting trim along the fascia. A pole sign at the kerb carries the property name in a cursive script with a small hibiscus graphic beside the lettering. The carpark is empty at this hour. The lakefront across the road is dark; the property is sited to deliver a daytime water view from the upper rooms. A single security light at the office end throws warm cones across the asphalt.

The Hibiscus Lakeside Motel was photographed at 01:01 on 5 April 2018, on the north 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, north on the Pacific to the Central Coast, west on the Great Western. Drive-thru reception, parking in front of the rooms, low rise. Hibiscus and other tropical-flower naming was standard along the postwar Australian beach-and-lake motel strip, even at properties hundreds of kilometres south of where hibiscus actually grows.