Berry

When you’ve been flying for over 40 hours, time becomes a less constraining concept. Why limit yourself to the normalcy of getting up in the morning, when getting up at midnight offers a whole range of exciting new perks. Without a doubt, one of the great advantages is that for between 4-5 days, you can pretend to be those people that argue getting up at 5am has made them successful entrepreneurs. On closer inspection it’s nearly always the generational wealth created by their parents or grandparents. Details! Home in Berry was a high-end motel and the rear balcony offered a calming vision of this tree. It was my lunchtime by sunrise.

The wet mildew of a day full of promise occupied the otherwise abandoned cricket green. The mighty stand, far too good for a town of this occupancy. The pavilion (not pictured) was wrapped in a stench of aged leg pads and friendship. I longed to be out there, the crowd of seven screaming my name, as I edged for four and acted as if I intended it. A light fist bump with my partner explains that I think I’m in this for the long haul. The next ball strikes my off stump as my eyes and bat followed through to the far boundary line. A shot of hope. As I walked away, I thought I heard the faintest sound of a lofted carrom ball. A ghost of overs past.

Heritage Wall or Heritage Walk? I guess we'll never know for sure. Rotary International probably have a hotline for questions like that. Whatever the answer, I’d travelled the 143 kilometres from Sydney, to this small town in the New South Wales countryside for, you guessed it, a wedding. Berry is only here today thanks to the electric combination of red cedar, an agricultural show ground and four churches. Settlers thronged here in the 19th Century for a quieter life of exploitation and barbarism. All that stands today is the court house where they were tried, the hotels and pubs where they drank and fornicated and a wide range of floral trees.

This is a public service broadcast: don’t ever think it’s a good idea to order a longie.

Before my trip to Australia, I thought of Freemasonry as the stuff of slightly obese men who chant and wear cloaks to make up for a lack of intimacy in their marriage. Nothing in Australia explicitly corrected that view, but it was striking how many lodges I stumbled across. I like organised fun as much as the next guy and would have loved a chance to embrace my inner Louis Theroux and don a cape in a darkened room. No invite was forthcoming. It didn’t stop me attempting the Freemason Handshake ™️ with many of the more elderly gentlemen I stumbled across. Most of them seemed upset when my middle finger fiddled with their palm. If my friends had lied to me in secondary school and the Freemason Handshake ™️ is a fiction, there is no doubt charges will be brought against me.

Hiking options around Berry were not hugely plentiful. The drizzle didn’t make matters easier. But by 4pm I’d been awake for about 1,000,000 hours and I thought some exercise would do me good. I chose Lily Allen’s new album as the soundtrack to my hike. Who the fuck is Madeleine?