The success of my attempt to travel for work for a week without a change of clothes depends on a rigorous laundry routine — and on my outfit drying fully every night. So I’ll do anything I can to help the process along.The bloke checking me into my Newcastle hotel did something of a double-take when he saw me head off towards the lift and realised I didn’t have any luggage. We’d already established that I didn’t need a parking space, so I can’t help imagining he assumed I’d booked the room for some illicit hanky-panky.
The truth is sadly less saucy. My key task for the evening was to wash all my clothes as quickly as possible. With a 6am flight out of Newcastle to Melbourne meaning a very early start, my window for getting things dry was pretty limited. And while I’ve had good results when I did test runs hand-washing and drying the clothes at home, I’ll have no choice about whether to wear them when the early morning comes.
So into the bathroom basin they went, and then onto the kinds of anti-theft coat hangers one Lifehacker reader was keen to shift into a bathroom (to save on ironing effort by steaming).
I didn’t want to do that, so I hung them up to dry in the wardrobe, with the bathmat underneath to catch the inevitable drips. I know from past experience that no matter how furiously you wring your clothes by hand, drips happen.
Given that, there was something else in the bathroom that I found all too tempting: the hairdryer. This is rarely something I think about or even notice in hotels, given my hair hasn’t been of a length to need a dryer since the mid-1980s. But I do know there won’t be one at the Formule1 I’m staying at in Melbourne, given that chain’s bare-bones approach.
All things considered, it seems stupid not to take advantage of the dryer, so I use it to blast my garments during TV commercial breaks. I’ll never know if this really makes a difference, but when I contemplate potentially having to put on damp undies at 4am, I can’t help myself.
Whether because of hairdryer blasts, careful garment choice or basic principles of evaporation, I’m happy to report that everything went on in a suitably dry state. One day down.
After landing in Melbourne, I’m hopping on another train to Bendigo for a side trip. History suggests it may be cold.
For the No Luggage experiment, Angus Kidman is doing his normal job while travelling Australia for a week with not much more than a BlackBerry. He can report that not many people catch the Newcastle Airport bus service.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.