00:02A neighbourhood park in Bendigo becomes an epic battleground.
00:08The main part is hitting each other with foreign swords and having fun.
00:12And in the middle of the melee is Michael Henry.
00:15Running around in armour is hard work, but it's a lot of fun.
00:21But when he's not swinging his sword, the Harcourt Cidergrower is facing a very different fight.
00:27His home and orchard were decimated in January's bushfires.
00:32And bark's just flaking off. These trees are done. There's nothing for it.
00:40In a multi-million dollar hit to the family cider business, the trees aren't covered by insurance.
00:46It's just going to take me the 10 years to get them up and running again, which is a kick
00:53in the guts.
00:54Michael also helps manage the town's makeshift relief centre.
00:58These are brilliant.
01:00But for a few hours each week, he leaves it all behind and steps into the medieval world of swordcraft.
01:06Without the fun of being able to vent my frustrations by swinging swords at people, I probably would be insane
01:15by now.
01:16It's combat sport meets live action role play. And everyone is welcome.
01:21It's not the typical nerds that you'd think or that you see and sort of that you imagine would come
01:26to a larp.
01:27I work at a timber yard, for example.
01:29There's a long way to go for Harcourt residents as the recovery and rebuild continues.
01:33But at least for Michael, he's got his community of role players to help him win his battle.
01:38The tight-knit group has helped raise more than $15,000 for their valued warrior.
01:43He's like our Sawcroft dad, so it's very much just he deserves the support that we've given him.
01:50A lot of our guys will throw up our hands if any of us are in trouble.
01:54There's a sort of carloads of people willing to do whatever they can to assist each other.
01:58A community wrapping its arms around one of their own.
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