ON A WET Friday in early spring 2024, I’m driving alone through the river flats and undulating pastures of Melbourne’s north-west. I pass cows grazing in green-brown fields, eruptions of prickly pear cacti, one after another. Attached to one property’s fence is a banner: SAY NO TO AUSNET’S TOWERS. A few kilometres on, a steep incline announces itself as being unsuitable for trucks and buses. The tiny hatchback I’m driving trundles onward beyond the last point at which large vehicles can safely turn around and head back towards the comforting bosom of the big city.

My destination is one of those sprawling outer-metropolitan community centres that host youth groups, spiritual retreats and team-building weekends. For the next three days it will be home to the fortieth Australian Wiccan Conference (AWC), a ‘national event for witches of all paths’.