Glenn Stewart posing for the camera at the gym on Tuesday.
At 4.11am on February 10, 2025, the Harden SES Unit received their first call of assistance to a house in Boorowa after reports of hail damage to the area.
The biggest event that the unit had ever seen, the 223 calls for help that were received was almost as big as the previous five years’ worth of calls, combined.
Flooding, hail damage and flood rescue were all attended by the team with help from volunteers. The Fire Brigade, the local Council, volunteers everywhere chipped in to assist. The Hard Rock gymnasium and health club was just one of those calls.
12 months later, owners Glenn and Ros Stewart say their gym is now a whole new business.
“It was 50 shades of eggshell,” says Glenn.
Leaving the building in favour of a quick cuppa with Ros out back, the gym’s attendees – a group of three woman and a young man – were “put in charge”.
“I said, ‘I’m going to go have a coffee with Ros’,” says Glenn.
“I was out the back in our tiny house having a coffee and then the heavens opened and it was like a glacier of ice going between our house and the gym, you couldn’t even get back in.
“When I came back in, the ceiling was on the floor, and I joked to the young man, ‘what did you do?’”
While there hadn’t been much to laugh about, Ros says it was funny to see a selection of dog bowls scattered around the room in a desperate attempt to catch the dripping water before the roof caved in.
All of the electrical gym machine equipment was lost to the storm.
“It was horrible,” says Glenn. The cable machines were also in need of repair.
“I pulled it all down and got it repainted and now it’s a colourful retro gym.”
Glossy new machines sit in their updated gym space and bright colours deck the walls. Suffice to say, the Stewart’s ten-year dream has faced more than its fair share of rough patches, but it is now sturdily serving the community, in more ways than one.
Glenn and Ros stumbled on across an old house in Albury Street by pure fluke.
“10 years back, we were on a motorbike ride through Harden and saw an old house that needed doing up,” says Glenn.
“By coincidence, we met the people that owned that house in Canberra, from Wollongong.”
Sitting across the table in a Canberra restaurant, a man saw Glenn, keen rider and now recently retired life member of the God Squad Christian Motorcycle Club, was asked
him about his shirt.
“This guy says, ‘oh do you ride bikes or just wear the shirt?’,” he says.
Telling him yes, the shirt was not merely decorative, Glenn says he launched into a tale about his recent ride through Harden, mentioning this house they’d seen with a rickety veranda.
“The man says, ‘oh, we’re from Wollongong, but we actually own a house in Harden,” says Glenn.
“He showed me a photo, and it was the house!
“Not long after that, asked if we and many volunteers did it up, could we utilise it for five years for crisis housing. This ended up being ten years of use.
“Things snowballed and the need for helping people rurally became more apparent.
Also coincidentally, Glenn’s brother was selling the Hard Rock gym in Wagga. Shortly after moving to Harden to run the business and be closer to the crisis house, Glenn says they have never looked back.
“We fell in love with the town and we take great pride in presenting a service that otherwise wouldn’t be in the country, and that’s always been the goal,” he says.
“We wanted people to walk in the door and say, ‘oh, it’s a proper gym’, and that’s the best when we hear that.”
Recently, the couple put a café into the gym as a meeting place for parents and others to sit.
“We invite other people to share their passions, whether it’s dance instructors or martial arts, but the parents had nowhere to mill around or hang out,” says Glenn.
“They would either be in their cars or in dance, and it’s pretty common to not want the parents there because it’s a distraction. So, this area is just a comfortable place to sit, and if people want a coffee, that’s a plus!”
The café was the only area in the building that was untouched by the hail storm.
Ironically, the day before the storm hit, Glenn had just retired from active membership with his motorcycle club. Paired with the horrific damage done to the building/town and a life-changing biking incident three years prior, he says his health plummeted, something that he says needs to be spoken about more.
Fitness, he says, was his saviour.
At the Hard Rock Gym, Glenn says everything has been designed with the purpose of inclusion and good health (both physical and mental), furthered by encouraging community and communication.
This nature can even be seen in their colour coded machinery, grouped by muscle groups as a way to help others easily see and understand their purposes. “The green is for upper body, the blue is for legs, the red is multi-focus, the white is core, the black is cardio, the benches are all orange and where you put things away is pink,” says Glenn.
This idea, he says, was inspired by a sight-impaired individual who had once commented on the confusion caused by similar colours.
“It’s not the same business that we had when we closed after the storm,” says Glenn. “Which is exciting.”
Often seeing 80 people a day in the gym, Glenn says the health benefits of having a thriving gym within the community is a boom.
“I fight the drug scene all the time and it’s something else for kids to do,” he says.
“That’s the only way I can fight the drug scene.”
Members of the South West Slopes Times team also frequent the gym,
with one of our journalist’s utilising the premise on a regular basis.
“It’s amazing how some of these young kids are getting in there, and you see them on a continual basis,” they say.
“They look to be healthy, strong kids.”
Glenn says he tries to make it easy for anyone to use his services.
“I hate signs and rules, and I tell them that, which they relate to,” he says.
“There are only two rules, you’ve got to respect each other and respect the equipment.
“I could write 100 rules that just say the same things but that’s it.”
Only one other (unofficial) rule is enforced in the gym.
“I make sure they say hello to us all the time and they all know that it’s a bit of a funny thing,” he says.
“It’s not about it being our house, it’s just about respect and that’s part of being in the bike scene too.”
Discovering the health benefits of fitness when recovering from his biking accident, Glenn likens the comparison of mental and physical health to separate weights. Mental health, he says, is considerably heavier.
With rods now sitting from his hips to his knees following the accident, he says it was his faith and connections that helped him through his own declining mental health.
“If you’re exercising a lot, it certainly helps, especially if you’re hanging out in a gym full of positive people,” he says.
Now leaning on his own experience, Glenn says he hopes the gym can be that place for others.
All of this, he says, he couldn’t have done without his wife.
“I’ve got the most amazing, strong woman of a wife,” he says.
“She’s super Ros.”
A year on from the damage that changed their business, Glenn and Ros have created a haven that encourages long conversations and mental health check ins.
For anyone needing a reminder, as Glenn would say (and as is written on the walls), “Remember, you are amazing.”
– Elizabeth Kovacs
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