Continental Baths, Wollongong
The name Wollongong comes from the local Aboriginal word for ‘seas of the south’
My experience in the pool
This is a pool where people work hard. The main pool is organised into four wide lanes, allowing everyone to swim clockwise with a passing channel down the middle.
On a cloudy morning in early February, there were about 10 people in the water, all doing freestyle at a fair lick. I joined two others in one ‘lane’ for my 600m swim – a really good work out for a new arrival still unused to doing 50m laps in salt water.
The pool is a fairly consistent depth, starting at about 1.5m in the shallow end and heading up to 1.8m at the deep end. If you want to wade or to lounge around, best use the pool next door, which is almost as wide as the main pool but still 50m long.
The only downside to the workmanlike approach to swimming here is that I didn’t feel comfortable switching to backstroke for part of my swim, though I may give it a try in a future swim once I’m more used to the local etiquette.
It’s a fantastic resource, though, and totally free entry, so don’t be put off if you’re a first-timer in the area and imagine – as I did – that there would be an entrance fee to pay because it looks at first like a formal swimming baths complex rather than a rock pool.
Getting there, getting in, getting changed
The Continental Baths are a five minute walk from Wollongong’s main harbour. If you’re driving, you won’t at first see the pool, even if you are lucky enough to find a parking spot directly above it in Cliff Road (I parked further north, towards the North Pavilion).
At the shallow end there are shallow steps to get you in the water gradually, but don’t forget this pool is 1.5m even here. At the deep end, there are vertical steps.
There is a disabled ramp directly into the water from the pavilion entrance for the smaller wading pool.
Excellent changing facilities with hot showers (3 minutes maximum).
Tidal differences
These baths are no longer tidal. Peer over the edge of the baths to the seaward side and you’ll see the original wall of the baths, but this is well below the height of the present day baths.
Other practical points
Lifeguards on watch throughout pool opening times.
Times vary slightly through different seasons but for the current winter timetable (till 18 September 2015) – 6am – 2pm Tuesday – Sunday (closed Mondays)
History and stories of the pool
The Continental Baths have been on this site since the 1920s (see the plaque at the entrance to the pavilion marking the official opening by Wollongong’s mayor). There are also photos on the wall of the pavilion showing the changing shape and popularity of the baths through the decades.
Of course, they were called ‘Continental’ because at the time they were built, gender segregation was the norm for public swimming. Mixed swimming was seen as a very modern habit following the ‘European’ (hence ‘Continental’, but not British) approach.
The now defunct website nswoceanbaths.info revealed that the baths were built by volunteer men, with lady volunteers serving the workers afternoon tea!
The same website spoke of a storm blowing a ship onto the rocks by the pool in 1955; and of a blue-ringer octopus being found in the pool by cleaners one morning in 2000.
People I met here included:
No chance so far to meet anybody for a chat here; far too workmanlike for idle things such as chit-chat; or maybe it was the cool morning making everyone rush off after their swim.
What’s your story? Any memories of swimming here? Any stories to tell? Or did you just have swimming lessons in the cold of winter in the 1960s?
Whatever you have to say, however brief, I’d love to hear from you and will add any stories to this section of the site as and when I receive them. Add your comment or story under ‘Leave a Reply’ below.
Links to other articles on this pool
This is the Wollongong Swimming Club’s background piece on the baths: WollongongSwimming Club website
In 2010 the NSW Ocean Baths blogger visited
In 2012 the Sydney Morning Herald wrote about the pool
In 2014 Swimming blogger Sally visited
Coffee, tea or milkshake after the swim?
Directly above the pool on Cliff Road are two coffee shops side by side. I liked them both.
Blu Orange – is the new kid on the block, having only opened in 2014. They use a coffee roasted by Chachis, a smaller local roaster. I like the colour scheme here. Open daily from 7am.
Aqua: they use the better known Toby’s Estate and they bake their own cakes, muffins and other nibbles to have after your swim. Aqua is open daily from 6am to 3pm (but open also for evening meals)
Both have fantastic views looking out to sea (though over the road).
Aqua seems more popular with groups of cyclists, so if you like the lycra this is for you; if you like it a bit quieter, go for BluOrange.
For the best coffee in the area (in my view, anyway), I say it’s worth going the extra mile to:
For coffee: Swell Coffee
Behind 135 Crown Street (down the alleyway to the left of number 135).
Swell Coffee reviewed by Fancy a Cuppa website
Closed Sunday
Otherwise open from till 3pm (1pm on Saturdays)
Some say this is the best coffee in Illawarra; others have compared it to Sydney’s best. It is certainly worth the mile or so walk from the baths, because these guys really care about the quality in their coffee and love to talk about it. Also great toasted banana bread (and pear and raspberry worth a try too).
There’s seating inside but also a terrace out the back, and lots of coffee paraphernalia for sale if you want to try this at home!
…Strange I have felt quite chatty today about other pools, but not this one. I do not understand why. This is also a great pool, and having just responded to the Newcastle Ocean Baths, I could say that the facilities here have been at the same standard for 18 or more years – same stalls, hot water shower, tiles and colour scheme. . . which is why I suppose Newy’s raggedness was a surprise to me. …
I got unlucky with the Continental Baths even after my first visit. Always seemed to be closed or the path down to it was closed each time I tried to get back there. And now I moved to Victoria, it might be a while before I get back to Wollongong sadly
I learnt to swim there as a new immigrant in 1972. We were frog marched from Wollongong Public School and taught to swim as new Australians. I was about 10 year old. Swimming was compulsory – as it should be in Oz.
They stood us all along the walk in step area. You were made to simply float face down and push off the wall about one metre with your face submerged. If you could do that you went to swimming lessons with one teacher. If you (like me) could not you went to water confidence lessons with another teacher. They strapped a foam float to you and made you just jump into the deep end of the big pool (it had stairs to clamber out in a blind panic like I did) each week they would remove a quarter of the floating foam until one week week you realised you were swimming with just the strap on your body! After that we were jumping unaided into the deep end. I recall my disappointment the next week when I was sent to the swimming lessons instead of confidence, and then started to swim laps – boring…Not long after I was in the nearby rock pools annoying the Blue Ringed Octopus – making them change colour! Still love Illawarra rock pools and use them when I visit my home town. Funny, I took my son there when he was about ten and made him stand there in the same steps to see where the water came up to on his body. It was about chest height. About right I thought for his age, but he could already swim as he was an Australian and not a 10 pound Pom…
We must be near contemporaries, Steve. This Pom had a year in Sydney as a 7 year old in 1967 and your memory of beginner’s lessons reminded me of my experiences up in the Garrigal National Park where I went through a similar process. Sadly that pool is no longer netted so I didn’t get to relive my 50 years old memories. But thanks for helping me remember those days!
I really like it here. After visiting during my childhood in the 70s …..it was great to go back in 2019…..and going back again 2020. Easy to manage by public transport along with freindly and informative pool staff. Being free is a bonus
Beautiful place to visit.. great place to bring the family to enjoy and all this fun is FREE
I swam in the Continental Baths with the Fourth Wollongong Cubs in about 1959. Neil Marrott’ s father from West Wollongong took us to the baths weekly for swimming tuition. We got our swimming certificate in these baths. I loved swimming so much I swam extra but was only awarded a certificate for 100 feet ( 30 meter equivalent) My memory is the pool was east / west orientation.
I still swim in ocean swims and earlier this year in my 70th year I completed the 2km Cleveland Cows Classic at the Gold Coast where I placed second. Thank you Continental Baths for the memories.
Alan Gregory
Congrats on still swimming today, Alan. Nice memories from Wollongong
It would have been early sixties when my family decided on a picnic at Stuart’s Park. I was 9 years old, and unable to swim, so when a couple of older children asked to go the pool, my mum said that I could go too but that I had to be very careful. The pool was filled with people, so rather than go into the pool, we played a game with a beach ball where I would walk along the adjoining wall between the two pools and my friends would throw the beach ball to me and I would throw it back. We did this a couple of times before a bigger boy, running along the adjoining well asked me if I wanted to have a swim. I said “No!!” But he pushed me into the pool anyway. I still had the ball in my hand, but my feet couldn’t touch the bottom. I pushed myself up for air and threw the ball to try to attract attention but nothing…. I pushed upward again from the bottom and felt someone close so I grabbed at them before I went down again. I felt as though I had no hope and for a second, wondered about my mum and how sad she would be. I had been very careful, but it wasn’t enough. Suddenly, I pushed myself up and saw a woman in a dark swimsuit and a swimming cap diving into the pool close by and then felt her arms lifting me from the water. I was exhausted, I have a memory of waking and I was on the floor and there was a dog sniffing near my face, then closed my eyes. When I awoke, I was in the hospital and my father was by my side. I was so grateful to that mystery woman who saved me. My friends had run back to my parents to alert them and my dad come to the pool.
What an amazing story, Catherine. Did you ever find out who the woman was?
I have lived in the Illawarra for 43 of 70 years. So I am now a local (almost). I have at various times been a regular at Austinmer, Thirroul, Bulli and Woonona pools. Following a recent home downsizing exercise my wife and I are now firmly members of the “Conti” crew, and loving it. I don’t think it matters what pool you come to call home, they all have their own tribe and special “Kulcha”. None are any better than the others. They all different while still the same. (Does that make sense?). P.S. Coffee at Levendi by the boat harbour is the shot.
True what you say, and thanks for the new coffee tip!
Would anyone know approx when the baths were divided into 2 pools – the early 60s?