Tough Guy Book Club was born on a pub crawl back in 2014. Over ten years on, we still honour those roots every August with our annual crawl. This year we set the crawl as the monthly challenge. ‘Cause, why the hell not? Challenges are meant to add a page to your story. This time, instead of the usual pub-to-pub shuffle, the Goons had to come up with a crawl that links together five things, then post it in the Pool Hall (Our Facebook group) with #5things. Simple enough: pick a theme, plan a walk, hit five spots, and see where it takes you.
Turns out the hardest part isn’t walking or drinking, it’s agreeing on the theme. What links the crawl together? How do you motivate a bunch of guys to map out their town and come up with something clever? The best answer, of course, was food. No surprise really, since Goons can be hungry as hell before, during, and after beers. Ballarat led the charge with a dim sim tour, hitting up local hotspots to compare the best dumplings in town. Other chapters went down the bánh mì, noodles and bakery routes, proving that you don’t just need a tap list to keep spirits high.
Some chapters let the landscape do the work. Auckland went volcanic, trekking from one (extinct!) cone to another, with whiskeys in between. Singapore made it island-hopping, mixing ferries and beers in tropical heat. Surf Coast and Caloundra chapters stuck to beaches, while others took in rail stops or ferry piers. Undaunted by the task, the post journey beers never tasted so damn good!
A few chapters leaned into history. Brunswick went full Underbelly with a tour hosted by Dave Cropper, tracing Melbourne’s infamous criminal past. Albury wandered past its historic buildings, while Auckland (again…) hit up “Tough Guys and Gals” statues. The LA crew took in a cemetery crawl, visiting famous dead people. Newtown ran a local history tour through their streets. Nothing like a pint to bring the past back to life.
Frankston and Fredericton explored street art and murals. The Blue Mountains crew did a bookshop tour. Other groups worked in local landmarks, public art, or whatever else their towns had to offer. It’s one thing to see a mural, it’s another to stand in front of it with a beer in hand and argue about whether it’s any good.
Some groups filled their crawl with activities and games. Mayfield Goons went for a bowls crawl on bikes, while others chased down pubs with pool tables, arcade machines, or even axe throwing. Ocean pools got a look-in too. And in true TGBC style, Northcote “accidentally” fell into a bookshop on their cycle tour. No one was surprised.
For some Goons, the traditional route still rules. Pints of Guinness in St Kilda, rooftop bars, breweries, wine tours, or the added challenge of only drinking from the fifth tap. A joint chapters “brews with a view” in Williamstown pulled in sixteen Goons looking at water while they caught up, proving the classics still work.
What the #5things challenge showed is that a crawl doesn’t have to be just bars. It can be anything. Food, history, art, beaches, murals, even volcanoes. There’s no doubt though that drink stops were included in even the most intrepid of the crawls. It’s thirsty work wrangling a bunch of guys to the next stop. From murals to islands, from underworlds to street food, the #5things challenge had the Tough Guy Book Club Goons rallying around new shared stories.
By C. H. Yelverton
