Parkside Motor Inn, Lithgow

The Parkside Motor Inn at Lithgow sits on a residential street off the highway, a single-storey building with the rooms strung along a covered walkway facing the front carpark. The building is rendered brick, painted cream, with the trim a soft brown along the awning fascia. Each room door is set into the wall under the awning, the numbers in stencilled gold on small enamel plaques. The carpark is empty. A single security light above the office throws hard white light across the asphalt. The lawn between the carpark and the road is dry. A pole-mounted sign at the kerb is unlit at this hour. Beyond the carpark the residential street runs quiet, the houses dark.

The Parkside Motor Inn was photographed at 00:14 on 10 April 2018, on the western run of Hotel Motel 101. The series covered 101 traditional Australian motor inns across three sweeps out of Sydney in late March and early April 2018: north up the Pacific to the Central Coast, west through the Blue Mountains and on to the Central Western Tablelands, south down the Hume to the start of the South Coast. Lithgow sits at the foot of the Great Western Highway's descent off the Blue Mountains. Drive-thru reception, parking in front of the rooms, low rise. The Parkside is the residential-street type of motor inn, sited off the highway rather than on it, run for the slower trade.