Australia Day in Cororooke, 2025

Cafe Locked Out On The Road

Once upon a time, on a lonely road, fudged by night and a thick mist, Andrew suddenly found himself outside of his car. It took him a long moment to understand what had happened.

Another car had missed a give-way sign and hit them.

As he started to piece this together, he heard a voice calling. It was his wife, Mary. Everyone in their car had survived, except their baby, Carolyn.

Andrew was a shrewd dairy farmer who had built a dairy empire on the foundation of a small paddock he had bought from his parents.

The town was called Cororooke, a speck on the map near the larger town of Colac. The town had died in Andrew's youth; he had grown up amidst its decline, and the abandoned factories were still here, slowly being dismantled by time.

In the town, too, was a church that no longer had a congregation. When it came up for sale, Andrew bought it and initially converted it into an art gallery and theatre. He called the theatre Carolyn, after his daughter.

But he did not stop there. Now he has added a restaurant and an old tram. And not only can you dine in the gorgeous tram, but it also acts as a backdrop to the amphitheater he has built at the rear of the venue.

Over the years, I’ve staged a few plays here, but this weekend we brought the Kulture artists there for their first concert.

Sadly, few people turned up, and we knew most of those who did. They were all from our tribe—no one from the town, no one we didn’t know.

Meanwhile, online, over a thousand watched the stream, and chances are we knew most of those as well.

Graciously, Andrew let us camp in a neighbouring paddock, where our red 8:32 flags blew over the roofs of our caravans and buses. It was like we were a brief gathering of gypsies, and maybe we were.

In the evening, David Ricciuti kept singing his songs—the ones we knew all the words to—as we climbed to the crest of the hillock Andrew had built behind his amphitheatre.

This was the eve of Australia Day, and while we were proud to be Australian, we were also keenly aware that we were a minority within a minority.

We were those who came together regularly to try to stem the dismal tide that most people seemed unable or unwilling to see.

It was here, listening to the music and listening to my tribe passionately sing along, that I watched the last pink tendrils of day dissolve into the night. For the long night was where these people—and my country—were headed.

Beyond the view from this hill, many appeared resolved to this journey. Meanwhile, here, this small group of apprentice gypsies, part of the great tribe cast out of society and their families for not taking the jabs, were smiling, hugging, and dancing on the dirt.

And this, I knew, was the only chance we had to attract more numbers to our tribe and our cause: which is to remain human and free.

Despite the reality of all our lives besieging the bottom of this hillock, thanks to Andrew—and us—we had erected the briefest of forts. One where the walls were built from our love for each other and mortared by our organic ability to have fun, and to share joy.

I don’t know if we will win, for the mountain is steeper than this dark was deep.

Our brothers and sisters, who we don’t understand, seem determined to continue this cultural descent. And I’m wondering now what it is they are after—what treasure they can sense below—that has so much worth that they have chosen to no longer see what we can see, which is the beauty of defiance and hope.

We have been igniting lamps in their darkness since the beginning, none brighter than the light of Epic. But even though there was only a handful of us here, we still shone our light as brightly as we could from the top of this tiny hill, as those in the nearby towns, for their own reasons, pulled down their blinds and turned their backs to their windows.

Michael Gray Griffith

Cafe Locked Out

Searching For Australia One Voice at a time

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