Rural road-stops mostly follow the same old recipe; A quaint shed like structure with basic supplies, a small range of food and sometimes bowsers. Just out of Kojonup on the Albany Highway is a stopover that is more than a little different.
Ever wanted to dine with a skeleton!?
sits 15 minutes north of Kojonup, about three hours south of Perth. It is easily one of the most eye-catching pit stops as it is adorned with vampires, werewolves, skeletons and all manner of scary creations.
The first section of Creepy Hollow is the cafe. Outside is a few neat benches sitting a top fake grass, whilst inside is a nice cosy run-of-the-mill country diner, complete with old school music, plenty of paraphernalia adorning the walls and cheerful, slightly quirky owners.
Decent slice of Malteser Cake for $4.50
While I wouldn't label the food restaurant quality, it's decent enough. The cafe has a big range of meals on offer from pasta dishes, pastries and cooked breakfasts to cakes, coffees and cookies. The large servings are all reasonably well priced and served pretty quickly.
Behind the cafe is a door that leads to what is surely one of the most unique markets in Australia. The indoor market is surprisingly big and choc full of all the interesting and odd bits and pieces you'd expect of a country marketplace. As is the case with the cafe, the market has a very comfy, almost homely feel to it as well.
Inside the markets at Creepy Hollow
What makes makes this market unique is all it's moving parts. The market room has animated creepy crawlies, skeletons, famous big screen murderers, witches, ghouls, ghosts and pretty well every other scary creation you can think of. It is absolutely fascinating walking through the market and having all these cheesy horror movie creations come to life to try scare you. While I'm not sure how it helps sales, it sure is a great talking point.
The market also has a good range of costumes, and I'm sure you can guess the theme of most of these costumes, which can be purchased amongst all the organised clutter of the house of horrors market room.
Jumping Spider in Creepy Hollow markets
Even the outside toilet block follows the horror movie theme, The ominously painted black brick building is cleverly adorned with Witches and Warlocks to replace the generic bathroom signage.
If you feel like staying the night there's room for you too. For $65 per night you can stay in one of the small dorm rooms behind the markets. If nothing else, staying here will give you a great pub story to tell of that time you "stayed the night at Creepy Hollow".
Look for Dracula and the Witch when driving on Albany Hwy
If you're headed towards Albany and need a pit stop, Creepy Hollow is a fantastically quirky addition to the scarce but interesting stopovers along the road south. When strung together with stops such as
Williams Woolshed, the
Deep Southern Chocolate Brewery and Kojonup Bakery you can actually make a pretty decent road trip out of the dreary Albany Highway.
