Picture the road trip: a Kingswood wagon or maybe a Fairmont. Olivia Newton John in the tape deck. Mum and Dad smoking in the front. The marginally cranked-open window only serving to corral the smoke into the back seat. When you pull up at a small-town motel, the race to run in and jump from one single bed to another is sweet relief from the past five hours of travel sickness.

Thirty-plus years later, you’re in the grip of a very different kind of sickness – nostalgia. In the 19th century, it was considered to be a malady so serious it might get you committed. But it’s the lifeblood of Kate Berry, the Melbourne-based founder of OK Motels: an Instagram account – and, more recently, a gig series – celebrating and documenting the unique world of regional Australian motels.

Werrigar roadhouse and motel, Warracknabeal, Victoria.

There’s a seedy romance to a rundown motel, which is why they’re been a staple of Australian movies over the decades, from 1981’s Roadgames, to 1997’s Kiss or Kill, 2010’s The Clinic and 2014’s The Rover. Berry puts on gigs in these far-flung roadhouses. She had the idea on trips with her kids, when she discovered that many motels – and indeed towns – remained unchanged since her childhood.

Manila's commutes from hell - a photo essay Read more

“My dad had a classic 1980s job of photographing display homes,” she says. “At that time they were in towns that no one wanted to go to – Traralgon, Moe, Shepparton. My brother and I would wrestle each other for the keys, to be the first one to see the room.”

L-R The Murray View motel, Motel Dimboola in Victoria.

The idea to archive her own photos in the OK Motels Instagram account began on a holiday to Kangaroo Valley in 2012. “The first motel that made me stop in my tracks was in Gundagai,” she says, of the quintessential New South Wales country town most famed for its Dog on a Tuckerbox statue. Berry and her kids were immediately treated like family by the late owner of Auto Cabins, Marjorie Annetts, who took to calling Berry “Strawberry”. The motel is a former petrol station, “so freaking original my heart leaped out of my chest,” says Berry. “I’ve searched for motels in similar original condition since.”

Berry takes photos on her iPhone, for the sake of spontaneity. “The owners and managers are a little wary of my enthusiasm to begin with,” she says, “but it doesn’t take long for them to see my love is real and they get a real kick out of showing me round and sharing stories.”

Berry is at pains to point out that she’s “not taking the piss” out of places the 70s never left. Rather, she’s troubled by the idea of once-thriving country towns marooned by new highways – a problem quite sinisterly expanded on in Shaun Prescott’s novel The Town, in which a writer visits the neglected spots of the central west of New South Wales and finds they are literally disappearing.

Her favourites include the El Toro Motel in Numurkah, Victoria, a Hacienda-style building with white stucco exterior and an outdoor spiral staircase. It’s her dream hotel, she says, in a town 30 minutes outside of Shepparton that’s all 1950s shopfronts. And Victoria’s Nathalia Motel & Holiday Park reduced her to tears when she walked into her room. “Everything is as it was, even the coin-operated vibrating bed,” she says. “The little sign said something like ‘To melt your worries away’. It was the noisiest thing.”

Then there’s the Charlton Motel. You can’t go past a bedroom with a spa built into the wall, bookended by infinity mirrors. There’s also a function room that has fallen into disrepair – and that sparked a new idea.

The Charlton Motel in Victoria

In August 2018, Berry took the bands Tropical F*ck Storm and Bitch Diesel to Charlton. Those were unfortunate names, she admits, for a Victorian town (pop: 1050) slightly suspicious of latte-sippin’ blow-ins. But despite selling no tickets to locals in advance, a good number of them slipped in through the kitchen of the Charlton Motel and wound up enjoying the action that way.

The bulk of the audience was made up of road-trippers from Melbourne, and Berry makes a point of advising them on sights they should see on the way: “Bridgewater has an ace op shop. Inglewood is full of incredible secondhand stores and it has an IGA for some snacks and travellers. And for the nature lovers, head up Mt Korong, just outside of Wedderburn,” she posted on the website.

Next morning, punters were served classic motel breakfasts on trays – tiny packet of cereal, eggs on toast, half a grapefruit – made by Berry and her team in the motel kitchen. No wonder people were keen to buy a commemorative shirt.

That first gig was such a success – and Berry so enjoyed working with Glenda White, the Charlton’s owner – that a second event is planned for 6 April, with Cash Savage, Laura Jean, and others.

This time, locals seem more enthused, but Berry hopes that the OK Motels gigs will also get city folk out of their bubbles. She’s found that her life has been enriched by the new friends she’s made out Charlton way.



“Charlton is an old town – the people that live there are all older because the young people piss off to the city. There’s no work for them,” Berry says. “What’s going to happen to these places? The local industry is wheat, but they’re losing all the family-owned farms. They’ve been swallowed up by huge farms owned by one or two companies. I’m always thinking about that.”