General News & Information

Pittwater Life Magazine – Feature February 2018

Thanks to website reader Kathryn Butler for alerting me to the February 2018 edition of Pittwater Life magazine, which had a fantastic feature article on all the northern beaches rock pools and the people who swim in them. The article covers an amazing 10 pages, with some wonderful shots of all the ocean pools and some great stories on the people who swim there. Here's a link to the online digital version of Pittwater Life. Read more [...]

Ocean Pools calendar & other connections

The best thing about the ABC Open story that ran on the ABC News website was actually not the spike in hits to this website, but the contact I gained from fellow swimming lovers along the way. Best of all was to hear from Mary O'Connell, a writer and historian who also loves the ocean pools of Sydney, and has produced a fantastic calendar for 2016. It's a great piece of work, not only for the photos but also the useful practical information and the background stories to the twelve Sydney Read more [...]

ABC Open catches up with Ocean Pools NSW

A journalist from the ABC Open channel joined me the other day at Coledale Rock Pool. ABC Open bills itself as for "real stories made by real people from all around Australia". I think the idea is to connect with local communities across the country, often with citizens' journalism, but in this case with a pro reporter catching up with someone like me, who is tapping into local communities via their swimming pools and coffee shops. The result of a very pleasant morning at my favourite Illawarra Read more [...]

50th Birthday Party at Oak Flats Pool

  Oak Flats Pool first opened its doors on 13 November 1965. My experience at the pool I couldn't resist returning to Oak Flats Pool at the weekend when I heard that Shellharbour City Council were organising a bit of birthday bash to mark the 50 years since Oak Flats Pool opened. The weather wasn't particularly kind to the organisers, with many probably put off by the soaking rain that fell through most of the morning. But by the time I arrived at the pool around 1pm, it had Read more [...]