Get back to nature with a dip at Sydney’s best waterholes and rock pools
Our city is famous for its golden beaches but if you want to escape the crowds and get back to nature, here are some great spots to take the plunge.
NSW
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When Sally Tertini was growing up in Yowie Bay in the Sutherland Shire, she loved exploring the area’s bushland, waterholes and other swimming spots. She had no idea that what she, and many Australians, love to do — get out into nature and find beautiful places to have a dip and cool off — has a proper name in Europe. It’s called wild swimming.
“People are quite mad for it over there and it’s a real grassroots movement, a sub-culture,” she says.
“In Sydney and Australia, it’s been going on for generations — we just didn’t have a word for it. It was through my husband I discovered that what I’d always loved doing was kind of a ‘thing’.”
That “thing” has now resulted in a gorgeous book, Wild Swimming: Sydney Australia, that Tertini wrote with her husband, Steve Pollard. A guide to 250 of the Sydney region’s rock pools, beaches, rivers and waterholes, the book is part of a series published by the UK-based Wild Things Publishing. The series also covers UK, France, Italy and California.
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It seems only natural that Tertini and Pollard, a Brit, should end up writing a book about wild swimming, since they first bonded over their mutual love of the water.
They met by accident on a photo-sharing website, where Pollard — who only learnt to swim at 30 and quickly developed a passion — posted pictures of swimming spots, and himself swimming, in the UK, including in the middle of winter.
“I thought, ‘If he can do it there, surely I can swim year-round in Sydney,’ ” Tertini says.
Their online friendship grew from there, and the pair would share stories of their latest swimming adventures.
Then they met in person. That was 2007 and now Tertini, 35, and Pollard, 40, have a one-year-old daughter and, after living together in Sydney, have been based in England, in Dartmoor
in Devon, for the past year.
Tertini says the idea for the book evolved slowly when they lived in Yowie Bay.
“We spent a lot of time exploring or visiting the places we knew about,” she says.
“They were great, but we quickly started to wonder what else there was. So it started quite organically, just going a little bit further and little bit further. Then we decided it would be wonderful if a compendium existed of these places. It was a resource we wished existed for ourselves, so we thought we’d do it.”
Tertini and Pollard began to research, looking at historical texts, topographical maps and Google Satellite,
as well as reading bushwalking guides trying to find mentions of suitable and unusual places.
“All up, the research took us about five years and we visited over 400 places, some many times,” Tertini says. “The book represents the best 250-odd of those we visited.”
When it comes to favourite spots, she says it’s difficult to decide. “It depends on people’s particular circumstances. That’s the thing about wild swimming in Sydney — there is something for everyone.”
It’s indeed hard to know where to begin to choose a selection — the book is packed with so many stunning places — but Best Weekend finally opted for waterholes with fairly easy, non-strenuous access. Times and distances are one-way only. See the book for full directions.
NORTH
Manly Dam
Walk-in: Two minutes, 70m, easy
Enter via Manly Warringah
War Memorial Park, King St, Manly Vale
The dam is the heart of a vast council-managed area of bushland. The bush creates a wonderful feeling of peacefulness and apart from the distant rumble of traffic, you could think you’re not in the city at all. The large swimming area benefits from a grassy flat with barbecues and picnic tables, making it a great place to spend an afternoon. Water access is easy, with gradually tapering sand, so it’s just as good for paddlers as it is for distance swimmers.
Narrabeen Lagoon
Walk-in: One minute, 20m, easy
Enter via Birdwood Pde carpark on south side of bridge, Ocean St, Narrabeen
This is the only lagoon in the area still considered clean enough to swim in. Frolicking kids love the shallow water, which covers the expansive sand bars. The water just below the bridge, however, is usually deep enough to jump into (look out for the middle pylon on the lagoon side).
SOUTH
South West Arm Pool
Walk-in: 40 minutes, 1.7km, moderate
Enter via Winifred Falls Fire
Trail, off Warumbal Rd, Royal National Park
From the deep water of Port Hacking, a thin finger of shallow water wiggles through the bush of Royal National Park, and even at high tide, only kayakers can charter its upper reaches. Golden fresh water cascades over a pock-marked sandstone bed to mingle with the green saltwater in the very deep 60m pool.
Deer Pool
Walk-in: 80 minutes, 3.8km, easy
Enter via Marley Track, Bundeena Rd, Royal National Park
While not a destination in itself, tiny Deer Pool serves as a perfect and welcome stop-off to and from Little Marley Beach in the Royal National Park. There’s a sandstone platform on which to relax, as well as a small, sandy beach. The waterfall can run dry in drought but the pool remains just deep enough for a cooling dip.
Kingfisher Pool
Walk-in: 40 minutes, 1.6km, easy-moderate
Enter via Bullwarring Track on Warabin St, Waterfall
This is the most visited waterhole in the usually quiet Heathcote National Park. It nestles at the bottom of corrugated banks of sandstone, with reeds at one end and a waterfall at the other. It has one of only three campsites in the park which, as a rarity, has a toilet.
Goburra Pool
Walk-in: 20 minutes, 545m, moderate
Enter from western end of Oliver St, Heathcote
In a little over 500m, you’re transported from the suburbs of Sydney to this idyllic pool, enveloped by the mature bush of Heathcote National Park. With both shady and sun-drenched ledges to camp out on, it’s a lovely place to spend the day.
Wollondilly River Nature Reserve (Southern Highlands)
Walk-in: 80 minutes, 4.6km, easy
Enter via Wombeyan Caves Rd, 15.5km east of Wombeyan Caves. The walk starts from a gate on the caves side of the Wollondilly River Bridge at Goodmans Ford.
Warm water alert: do not swim here in summer if you prefer cold water. The river here is so slow moving that it soaks up all the warmth of the sun and on a summer’s afternoon, it’s easy to luxuriate in its bath-like waters. At dusk, the walk to the reserve is one of the best places around Sydney to see kangaroos.
EAST
Ivor Rowe Rock Pool
Walk-in: One minute, 50m,
easy-moderate
Enter via steps off south end of Bunya Pde, South Coogee
For such a small pool, there’s a real diversity of aquatic life here. Small shelled creatures hunker down in shallow dips in the rock floor. Black and luscious sea slugs feel their way along, moving by oozing into a tight fat blob of ink, before stretching out and onward. Crabs warily eye you off, posturing with nippers blazing.
WEST
Minerva Pool
Walk-in: 30 minutes, 1.5km, easy-moderate
Enter from carpark at end of Victoria Rd, Wedderburn
In the relatively little visited Dharawal National Park, this pool is a near-perfect 40m oval, enclosed by a horseshoe-shaped rock platform, with a huge monolithic boulder standing like a sentinel opposite. The water is clean and deep and good for jumping into. A waterfall gushes assuredly, even in times of drought, because of hanging swamps upstream in the park.
Glenbrook Gorge
60 minutes, 1.7km, moderate
Enter from Glenbrook NPWS Visitor Centre carpark at south end of Bruce St, Glenbrook
In the equation of reward for effort, this is an absolute winner. In every direction, the craggy forms of orange and charcoal cliffs rise up towards the sky, hemming you in. You get to swim among this sensational scenery, and yet the walk in is as easy as mountain walks get. It’s surprisingly little visited, too.
River Lett at Hyde Park Reserve
Walk-in: Five minutes, 350m, easy
Walk from carpark on Hyde Park Lane (unsigned, unsealed), off Mid Hartley Rd, Hartley
For the swimmer, this is a lovely spot, little known other than by locals, and it’s just a five-minute walk from the carpark. With most of Sydney being sandstone, the pink-and-grey granite here comes as quite a shock. Despite being popular, there are masses of warm slabs to lie on, and nooks and crannies to hide away in.
● Wild Swimming: Sydney Australia, Sally Tertini and Steve Pollard, Wild Things Publishing, $32.99
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