Why Sydney's unique ocean pools are the envy of other Australian cities

Updated

Dotted all along the Sydney coastline, from Palm Beach in the north to Cronulla in the south, are about 35 ocean pools — but not a single one has been carved out since the 1960s.

Who built these pools shaped by the natural rockface of the city's beaches, and why aren't they still being built?

That's the question Curious Sydney has been asked to investigate by Krissy Varga, a swimming teacher and long-distance swimmer originally from Hungary.

"I started wondering — because I have been all around Australia as a tourist — why other cities haven't got this many ocean pools," she said.

Sydney and New South Wales can boast the largest number of ocean pools in Australia, mainly in response to its wild coastline, exposed to the full force of the surf.

Over time, almost 100 pools have been created to serve the state's population.

ABC News has dug into the history of these pools — some more than 100 years old — to find out what makes Sydney and the state unique.

Who built Sydney's ocean pools?

Ocean pools came into fashion as part of the trend towards swimming as a competitive sport.

The NSW Amateur Swimming Association was formed in 1891 by men's swimming clubs, then in 1906 women followed with their own association.

Recreational and competitive swimmers needed a place to do laps, safe from strong waves and the risk of shark attacks.

Author and academic Marie-Louise McDermott has written extensively on the history of Sydney's ocean pools featured on a website called All Into Ocean Pools.

She says Sydney was very focused on recreation around the harbour up until the late 19th century.

"Of course back then very few people are good at swimming, [because] very few non-Indigenous people have any surf skills, so they want nice safe places where they can enjoy the waves and the water," she said.

So from the late 1800s, local councils, private individuals and in some cases residents formed organisations to construct ocean pools.

In Sydney's east, Waverley Council began to build the iconic Bronte Baths and Bondi Baths in 1897, while champion long-distance swimmer Henry Alexander Wylie built Wylie's Baths in Coogee in 1907.

At many ocean baths men and women had to swim at different times and in 'appropriate attire' under council regulations.

"Gentlemen could bathe between daylight from 10:00am to 4:00pm each day. Ladies could also bathe at the same time daily, except Sundays and public holidays which were reserved exclusively for men," the regulations stipulated.

A famous regular at Bronte Baths was Olympian Evelyn Whillier, who represented Australia in swimming at the 1936 Berlin Olympics and won a gold medal at the 1938 Empire Games.

The 'magic' of ocean pools

It is not hard to see why the ocean pools, with their enticing scenic views, remain among Sydney's major tourist attractions, featuring in "must-do" or "best outdoor pools" lists online.

But there is a lot more to the experience than meets the eye.

Ms McDermott says part of the attraction is that each pool is unique, with shapes made to fit into the landscape where they formed.

"The ocean pools are never going to be standardised — each one is going to be a more special place of its own — and people are looking for that," she said.

"Swimming in a standard controlled indoor pool space is a different experience, a different set of pleasures to swimming in an ocean pool at any time of the day, or at night under lights, enjoying that live water is a different feeling."

"It's a pool you can happily share with other life forms, there are people that become quite fond of octopus at their local ocean pool."

Swimmers like Bronte Baths regular Kylie Burke enjoy their exercise right beside the ocean with waves sometimes washing over the pool edge.

"So you can do your laps and you can get your rhythm going, but you're also so close to the ocean and when it's high tide the ocean will come into the pool and stir you up, and it's just a very special experience," Ms Burke said.

Our Curious Sydney questioner, Krissy Varga, tried ocean swimming when she arrived in Sydney but did not enjoy it because of rough surf.

"I get more enjoyment out of swimming in the rock pools — like the one down in Cronulla, because it's a reasonable depth for swimming and it's safe and secure," she said.

"You do get a bit of wave action but it's not as unpredictable as swimming in the ocean. So I think Sydney is in a very rare position in terms of having these ocean pools because I reckon they are the safest places to swim."

Surf lifesaving clubs and post-war employment schemes

The next wave of construction was partly driven by surf lifesaving clubs, who were very supportive of ocean pools for safety reasons.

On the northern beaches, members of the Dee Why surf club carved a pool about 20-foot square by hand out of the rock shelf at the southern end of the beach in 1912, and a version of that same pool is still there.

Creating the pools took a lot of time, effort and money which councils couldn't afford, so community improvement associations began fundraising to build in suburbs such as Maroubra and Curl Curl.

During the 1930s Depression era, money became available to councils through unemployment relief schemes.

The unemployed were given jobs to create many more pools in Sydney, including Mahon Pool at Maroubra, and on the northern beaches at Whale Beach, North Curl Curl and Queenscliff.

"So the pools were helping people earn an income during the Depression years," Ms McDermott said.

"That wonderful pool at North Narrabeen is one of the unemployment relief pools. That was a very special time and councils couldn't have afforded it otherwise."

Why are no more being built?

No new ocean pools have been built since the late 1960s, Ms McDermott says, with the trend instead towards building inground swimming pools and aquatic centres.

At that time there was no shortage of fresh water to fill pools, and many people saw them as more hygienic, easier to clean at predictable times unaffected by tides, and generally safer.

It may have also been a changing attitude to the coastal environment and roadblocks caused by a stricter development application process and public liability.

"At that time, people were focusing more on preserving and conserving the rocky shore. The ocean pool wasn't any longer automatically seen as a sign of progress or an enhancement to the rocky shore," Ms McDermott said.

But there may be a resurgence in ocean pool development outside of Sydney, with residents at Ballina and Port Macquarie on the NSW north coast calling for ocean pools to be built.

Ballina has received funding to research how a pool would improve safety for swimmers and encourage people back to the beach after a number of shark attacks there in recent years.

There is no doubt Sydney's ocean pools are here to stay and they remain the envy of other states across the nation.

"I hear people in Western Australia say why don't we have pools like the ones they have in Sydney, those lovely ocean pools? Ms McDermott said.

"When I started researching ocean pools, people would say 'weren't they always there?' Because they look like they should have been, and people can't imagine the coast without them."

Who asked the question? Krisztina [Krissy] Varga lives at Wolli Creek in Sydney and has swum in most of the city's ocean pools. She has travelled extensively around Australia but hasn't seen ocean pools in other cities which led her to wonder why there are so many in Sydney. "Some of them have a plaque that tells you a little bit about the history of how the rock pool was built and established but most of them haven't," she said. As a swimming teacher she recommends the ocean pools to her students as a safer option to the ocean. Krissy was not alone in her question: Meegan Zen asked: What's with all the ocean and harbourside pools along the Sydney coast and shoreline? When were they built? Why were they built?

Many thanks to Marie-Louise McDermott, Northern Beaches, Waverley and Randwick Council libraries for their help with this story.

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Topics: history, oceans-and-reefs, community-and-society, sydney-2000

First posted