The day started much like any other – a sluggish enough start, a little bit of necessary admin, quite a lot of unnecessary brunch…little did we know that this day would go down amongst the darkest of our lives, let alone the trip.

Well…one says, “little did we know” – actually we had a pretty damn good idea what we might be facing that afternoon and evening – it was to be an Aussie ‘buck’s party’ after all, and one ‘organised’ by The World’s Worst Best Man at that. Deep down, I feel, we always knew what was in store. Hence, perhaps, the slow pace of proceedings that morning – as if through base procrastination we might put off the inevitable pain and suffering which was later to come.

Firstly, we had more accommodation to book. Not only had we yet to find somewhere serviceable in Hong Kong for the stopover on our return voyage, we also had the exceptionally pressing issue of avoiding (at all costs) having to ‘crash’ in the homestead of The WWBM, post-bucks. Who knows what might befall there? Would we even get out alive?

We cried out to the internet, ‘take this cup away from us!’

And lo, the internet doth reply, ‘here’s a studio room near Manly Beach for a notably affordable sum. Book away, my children, book away.’

All praise to the internet! Hail the good god of wifi!

The Manly apartment was booked post-haste and Chatham House Rules, The Eagle and I could finally relax. (A Gay Arctic Monkey and The Associated Press were to fly to Brisbane early Sunday morning, so had not suffered with us our pangs of worry.)

Futures thus secured, we went over to Crown Street, where we enjoyed reportedly ‘the best brunch in Surry Hills’ (though not, in my opinion, the best in Australia – that is still to be found in Melbourne, VIC) and an ice cream at the repeatedly recommended Gelato Messina, which very much lived up to its top-billing.

And then, for there was really nothing else for it, we took a taxi across town to meet our fates in the crucible of the bucks.

Now, the eternal rules of stag parties everywhere mean that one can only hint at that which took place. Let us just say that it started off innocently enough, with beers and sports in the sunshine, and The World’s Worst Groom dressed amusing coquettishly.

However, as the sun lowered in the sky, matters took a turn. There was, in no particular order and with no particular punctuation, a good deal of the following:

Laws broken (moral and actual) and unpleasant male and female nudity and shirtless Greco-Roman wrestling and violence and cruel laughter and a show, a bad show, and a very cold girl and victories and losses with cups and bats and balls and little food and too much of everything else and things seen by fathers and fathers-in-law-to-be as well as all and sundry which should really not have been seen but which were and were bad and horrid and there were bouncers both friendly and unfriendly and house music, such deep house music and arguments and other clubs and venues and people far too young and fevered conversations and fear and sweat and mockery and then long cold journeys home with muddied palms and souls and then the black, the silence, all else as nothing.

Quite good fun, to be honest, if you like that kind of thing.

*

We had a really rather early checkout the next morning. Of course we did.

Spirits were simultaneously low and high – low because we were plunged into cruel movement, action, and the realisation that a Gay Arctic Monkey and The Associated Press had (comfortably) missed their flight up to Queensland; high because we were still, to a man, absolutely slippered.

Gingerly, oh-so-gingerly, we packed and left the house. A GAM and The AP found a cab and rebooked their Brisbane flights; Chatham House Rules, The Eagle and I found a café and attempted to converse with a fellow human being, with limited success. Eventually, the kind and pleasant German waitress took pity on us and brought us a random selection of hot drinks and cold water, steeling us for our upcoming train/ferry trip across the bay to Manly and Manly Beach.

We did not, my friends, feel manly, or womanly, or any positive -ly word one might care to mention, yet through unexpected reserves of something or other, we made it across town, found the correct boat and then watched central Sydney slip away behind us, bridges and opera houses and strippers and all.

Once in Manly we were struck by how much ‘fuller’ and crowded it seemed than even the most popular parts of Sydney. That it was full of and crowded with the most beautiful girls imaginable did not really help matters – following ‘instances’ witnessed the previous night, all three of us were now avowed celibates, monastic in sentiment and garb.

We found our studio flat – pokey enough and quite noisy, but perfectly suited to our humble needs – and threw on some beachwear. With our final mental and bodily strength we wandered the fifty yards or so to the main beach, found a likely looking spot of sand, then collapsed senseless upon it.

We are joined there in our sandy stupor a little later by Agent Cooper, heiress to the Coopers beer fortune and old friend of Chatham HR from Cambridge. She is a lawyer by trade, not a doctor – yet she is quick in her medical diagnosis: “You lot need bloody marys,” she states, authoritatively, “and quickly.”

In her wake we wander, across to the rather swanky Papi Chulo on the wharf, where the drinks mentioned – ‘bacon tequila’-based masterpieces of quite exceptional quality – are purchased and consumed. Both Chatham and The Eagle are instantly healed, ordering many subsequent schooners of Coopers Pale Ale in celebration and attempting (unsuccessfully) not to pay, due to our Coopery company.

I, however, am too far gone down the dark and choppy River Styx, and can barely manage to nibble upon my hubristically purchased king prawns, despite both their beauty and their flavour.

The party is then extended further by the arrival of Bernstein & Woodward, along with her sister and friend. Pleasant damsels all, and ill-deserving of such wretched company as I proffered. Fortunately The Eagle and Chatham were now back to approaching mid-season form and, as we went off to the nearby Manly Wharf Hotel, where we saluted the setting sun with more beers and prawn pizza (actually quite good), this fine and scholarly pair very much took up the conversational reins.

One by one, it being a school night after all, the good ladies bid their adieus, allowing us three, once alone in our masculinity, to hotfoot it back to the flat for an impressively early night. I fall asleep around eight, then again at nine, then at one thirty, then twice more at four and six. Chatham HR, you see, has a devil of a cold, and snores like a chainsawed giraffe.

I ask myself what I might have done to deserve such torment. Then I remember the buck’s party, and all becomes clear.

*

The next morn is a kinder one and we feel almost human. Chatham House Rules and The Eagle pop out for another fine coffee; I stay in and do a wee spot of writing – there is plenty to jot down.

We then set out to tick a few things off the Manly list Bernstein & Woodward had kindly provided us. First we walked all around the brush-strewn and swamp-pocked North Head headland, enjoying some fantastic views right across the bay and exploring the abandoned military structures dotted about the place.

We stop for a fantastic lunch at the Bella Vista, well worth a visit for its ‘bella vistas’ back across to Sydney city alone. Then, replete, fine white wine, calamari and squid ink tagliatelle in our (expanding) bellies, we finish our sunny trek, finding a couple of quieter little coves and beaches, and scouting out a location for dinner [eating, as you may have gathered, has proved a pretty central part of our voyage to date.]

Strolling back into town, we indulge The Eagle’s proclivity towards souvenir t-shirts, then enjoy a couple of local beers at the Hotel Steyne (sic). Following a quick nap, shedding the last of our post-buck’s party weariness, we head to the ‘Manly 16ft Skiff Club’ – a key recommendation from B&W.

It is $10 Steak Night here and it seems like the whole town has sauntered on down, guzzling away surprisingly succulent and excellent fare, considering the price point. After a few somethings and tonics, we decide to head out and hit the town – but lamentably find no ‘town’ to hit, Monday nights being pretty darn dead here in sleepy Manly.

‘Perhaps this is for the best,’ we reflect, heading back to the flat. ‘We ain’t young men no more – a couple of nights a week off might do us the power of good.’

Hell, after Saturday’s ungodly antics, one might consider it a miracle that this inebriate trio made it to beautiful Manly at all…