Retro magic at Auburn's Ruth Everuss Aquatic Centre

White, black, turquoise, red, mousey pink, mustard, dark grey, mint and pale blue.

That's what greets me when I walk into the Ruth Everuss Aquatic Centre at Auburn.

Colours, patterns and shapes abound at this 1959-model pool.

Above the water and below.

On the grandstand full of peeling paint.

On the tables, umbrellas, seats and chairs.

On the white walls around the centre's four different-sized pools.

Even in the change rooms.

The decoration continues in the waterless wading pool with nursery rhymes in the tiles.

And on the caps of the kids warming up for their carnival.

There's signs of wear and tear and the 53-year-old is showing its age in spots.

But I hope not all will be lost when the council commences its plans to redevelop this special place.

Swimming with Bruce and Stephen at the Werri Beach Rock Pool

On Sunday morning the water gushed into the Werri Beach Rock Pool and spilt over the sides.

Near the deep end turquoise waves reared up and splashed white on to the rocks.

Two boys stood near the edge and waited to be pushed into the pool.

I waded into the pale green water and stared through my goggles to the bottom.

"It's beautiful," I said to my swimming mates, Stephen and Bruce. "So much cleaner than yesterday!"

I cleared my goggles and set off again, delighting in the weightlessness that salt water brings.

We divided the pool into three and swam up and down in our marked out space, careful not to cut our feet on the wall of oyster shells and periwinkles at the end.

On the rock face a fisherman cast his line. Near the wading pool surfers waited for the perfect wave.

The sun started to peak through the grey turning the water from green to blue.

I paused in the shallows and looked across at the hills above the beach.

And wondered if I was ever going to be able to leave this pool.

*Thanks to our host Trudy for a relaxing Australia Day weekend stay at her lovely house at Gerringong's Werri Beach on the NSW South Coast.

Sea eagles, Dad's Army and the Black Head Rock Pool

Travelling up and down the Pacific Highway over the past three weeks we visited a number of pools. First stop was the ocean baths at Black Head about 235 kilometres north of Sydney.

NSW is blessed with 100 ocean baths but there are only five north of Newcastle. There used to be six but I will tell the story of that pool another time. As well as Black Head, the surviving ones are Forster Ocean Baths, Sawtell Memorial Rock Pool, Yamba Ocean Baths and Shelly Beach Wading Pool at Ballina.

The Black Head Pool is the second oldest of the five north coast ocean baths. It was opened on Boxing Day 1941, five years after the Forster pool came into existence. The Sawtell Memorial Rock Pool was opened in 1962 and the Yamba Baths in 1969. I couldn't find a date for the rock pool at Ballina's Shelly Beach.

But back to the Black Head Pool. It was very popular with the locals when it opened but with many away serving in World War Two it fell into disrepair. At one stage local fishermen used the pool for a lobster pen as the bottom filled up with seaweed and oysters covered the sides. Fortunately when the war was over members of the Black Head Surf Club and local volunteers cleaned and renovated the pool. They also modified the wading pool and built the footpath and concrete surrounds.

In 2005, Greater Taree Council reconstructed the wall separating the wading pool and larger pool and resurfaced part of the walkway and steps. Two years later, with funds raised from the community and a donation from Dr Billie Greening, Taree Council completely renovated the pool.

We had two swims in the 100 feet long (just over 30 metres) by 30 feet wide pool when we stayed at Diamond Head nearby with keen long boarders' Graham and Denise. We enjoyed our first dip but our second swim was even better thanks to 'Dad's Army'. 'Dad's Army' is a local volunteer group that empty, sweep, hose and refill the pool at low tide every second Thursday.

The second time we swam at the pool it had been cleaned that morning and the water was crystal clear. Late afternoon when we visited it was peak hour with locals and visitors enjoying a dip.

A woman I chatted to had that day recommenced her swimming routine and was pleased to have completed 14 laps. Another local told me she loved to float on her back and watch the sea eagles soar above the pool.

It was great to be back in salt water again and a nice start to our journey to Brisbane. Thanks to Graham and Denise for their wonderful hospitality.

The Moody family is a pool family now!

Those were the triumphant words of Kevin, father of the Moody clan on Wednesday night's final A Moody Christmas on ABC TV.

Photo from abc.net.au

The pool was a long term project of Kevin's which he announced in the first episode of the comedy series set over six consecutive Christmas days.


Photo from abc.net.au

Each year when youngest son Dan returns home from London, the hole is a little deeper and wider until finally Kevin gathers the family in the backyard to announce: "The Moody family is a pool family now!

"No longer will pool people be able to look down on us. No longer are we in the gutter looking up at the swimming pools in the sky," he waxes lyrical until wife Maree says: "Come on love, the oven's on." He cuts the red ribbon and sons' Sean and Dan christen the pool, bombing and diving and displacing water, like typical boys at the local baths.

When I was little I dreamed of having a pool in our backyard. But the only one we ever had was a canvas wading pool that Dad would set up on the buffalo lawn. Our favourite part was filling it with water from the garden hose. We would fight over who got the job like carrying the warm parcel of fish and chips to the car on Friday nights.

Back in the 1960s and 70s when I was growing up backyard pools were considered a luxury. Not today. A 2012 survey by Swimart showed that around 13,000 pools are built in Australian backyards and apartment blocks annually, and that Australia has the highest per capita rate of pool ownership in the world.

While our family wasn't as lucky as the Moody's, we had the next best thing. After years of nagging their parents, our neighbours, the Halls put in a pool. We didn't have to ask if we could have a swim. We just walked around the crescent and jumped in. So thanks Frank and Judy for finally giving in.

Congratulations also to Kevin Moody for having the perseverance to complete his pool. If you missed the very funny A Moody Christmas you can watch it at the ABC-TV website.

Another day in paradise at Balmain's Dawn Fraser Baths

When I was swimming around Cockatoo Island on Sunday morning, the bushranger Captain Thunderbolt was on my mind.

Captain Thunderbolt aka Fred Ward was imprisoned on the island for stealing horses. In 1863 he escaped by swimming the 600 metres or so to shore. He emerged from the water at a place in Balmain that became known as White Horse Point.

Some say the name was inspired by Captain Thunderbolt's girlfriend Mary Ann Bugg, who was waiting for him on a white horse. While the romantics would like this to be true, the name is more likely to have been inspired by the white horses that appear on the Parramatta River when the southerly winds are up. An alternative explanation is a rock resembling a white horse rearing up that used to be prominent on the point.

If Captain Thunderbolt had scrambled ashore 19 years later, he would have noticed a new addition to the point: Balmain's new tidal baths. For the first year of the baths' existence they were named after their location at White Horse Point. In 1883 they were renamed the Elkington Park Baths after the park above, which honours a former Balmain mayor.  Also known as the Corporation Baths, in 1964 they were renamed after local champion Dawn Fraser, who learnt to swim there.

When swimmers gathered at the 130-year-old pool on Sunday for the annual 2.5km Dawny to Cockatoo swim there was a carnival atmosphere similar to the early days. Just like the swimming tournaments of the 1880s and 90s a band was playing as patrons enjoyed the after-swim barbeque and fresh fruit from Harris Farm. 

We were just missing the novelty events that were a feature of the start of the season carnival during the last two decades of the 19th century.  As well as a 'handicap race of 750 yards for all comers', club members could join in events like 'hands-tied behind the back', 'swimming in clothes', 'diving for objects' and 'underwater distance diving'. There was also a 'smokers' race' and the annual duck hunt involving swimmers catching ducks released in the pool.

Renovated and heritage-listed in the 1990s, in recent years the Dawn Fraser Baths have returned to their glory days. They survived many years being surrounded by heavy industry, polluted waters and threats of closure. They have emerged with a new lease of life into an era when the harbour's waters are cleaner than ever;  when art exhibitions and film festivals have replaced ship-building, prisons and industrial schools for girls on nearby Cockatoo Island.

As the Lizards, a group of 50 to almost 80-year-old men, who spend their mornings in retirement at the pool say: "It's the best place in Sydney; it's paradise!"

Dangling my legs over the edge of the wide timber boardwalk and looking up at the vista of jacarandas, towering palms and magnificent fig trees, it's hard not to agree.

The art and soul of the swimming pool

Visiting some of the Art and About exhibitions and installations in Sydney last month got me thinking about art at pools. The motto of Art and About is 'art in unusual places', and from 21 September to 21 October that's what you find in the city's parks, lane ways, streets and malls.

 

"We try every year to use places we haven't used before," said creative director Gill Minervini in an article in The Sydney Morning Herald. "We're always looking for new spots," she said. 

If Minervini and her team considered pools they would find that art is already a feature at a number of centres. 

By the 50-metre pool at Cook and Phillip Park Aquatic Centre in the city are eight murals by Sydney artist Wendy Sharpe depicting the life of Australian swimmer and performer Annette Kellerman.

The 'bold and sensual' studies tell the story of key events in the life of the 'Diving Venus' including becoming NSW 100 yards freestyle champion in 1902 and competing in the annual Parisian swimming race on the Seine.  Other panels portray her arrest for indecent exposure on a Boston Beach for wearing her self-created one-piece cossies,  her daring and exotic aquatic feats in shows around the world, and her rise to stardom in silent movies like the mythological underwater film Neptune's Daughter.

Swimming a slow backstroke is a relaxing way to view the paintings and take in the life of this trail-blazing Australian, who believed emancipating women from the chains of neck-to-knee swimming costumes was her greatest achievement!

Another pool with an artistic side is Leichhardt Park Aquatic Centre in Sydney's inner west.

In the native garden leading to the entrance are seven glass installations by Bronwyn Bancroft honouring the original indigenous people of the area. 

Called 'Weavings of Light and Life' they represent the land and foreshore, food collection, fishing, song-lines, kinship, a shield protecting lands and family, and water.

 

The Bundjalung artist said she deliberately chose glass as the medium for the panels so that the sun's rays would interact with the designs throughout the day. The works also connect beautifully with the native plants around them and are a colourful welcome to visitors to the pool.

A few kilometres up the road, a striking blue mosaic welcomes patrons to the Annette Kellerman Aquatic Centre at Enmore Park.

Near the entrance a chrome-plated brass ribbon designed by artist Julia Davis wraps around the building, connecting with the surface of the pool and reflecting the light and movement of the water.

In the foyer area is a glass sculpture inspired by the figure of Marrickville-born Annette Kellerman. Created by local artist Mark Wotherspoon, Silver Screen Mermaid depicts the shapely curves of a mermaid figure.

The almost two-year-old centre also features a remnant of a mosaic from the original Enmore Pool. It's displayed in one of the pool's outdoor areas and shows people of all ages communicating, diving and relaxing around water. It also features greetings in community languages.

The use of vibrant colours, spots and stripes and interesting shapes gives the centre a lively and creative edge that appropriately reflects the artistic spirit of its namesake.

I wonder if next year's Art and About will venture into the aquatic spaces of the public pool?