On Australia's vast lands, a summer religion unfolds: Sport

On an azure sea, a surfer dances with the waves. On a sloping beach, a man bowls to his son.

- Rohit Brijnath

In Ocean Grove, a seaside Australian town of less than 20,000 people, everyday athletes litter the landscape. Miles away in Melbourne, as cockatoos flutter, a stranger hits golf balls into the early morning sun on a neighbouring field.

Later, my daughter tells me about a note tossed over her fence. In pencil was written: "Dear neighbour, can we have our ball back." The football was found, returned and the kids returned to clattering it against her fence. This is part of the music of Australia.

On the road to Ocean Grove I noticed a church for sale. Religion is in retreat here. In the 2021 Australian census it notes "almost 40 per cent of Australia's population reported having no religion". Yet there is another congregation, with its own deities, which mostly stands undiminished.

Sport.

It's January and the cancer council has some old advice: Slip (on clothing), Slop (on sunscreen), Slap (on hat), Seek (shade) and Slide (on sunglasses). It's summer and Australia has headed outdoors, playing sport, sinking beers and occasionally resuscitating that unmusical chant: Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi.

Newcomers to these shores update their vocabulary. "Sledging" is the art of verbally intimidating a rival. "Larrikin" is a fellow with a cheeky disregard for convention. Old-timers know which bays to sit in and that by the evening alcohol loosens manners. But everyone understands sport is as Australian as the koala, which, god help us, is not a bear.