We are back in our own beds for this part of the trip and that makes everything a bit easier. We get up early to head to Collaroy and Dee Why – our 20th and 21st pools of the trip. Collaroy Beach Pool has excellent access and should be an example to all councils as to how it can be done. It’s not as though access to the pool is easy, but the council has spent a reasonable amount to have flat access from the pool from the car park, sloping access from the road above it as well as ramp access into the pool itself. It certainly gets a lot of points from me for this. It also has the most unusual shape – you would be best to look at the aerial shot to appreciate this, as it is a meeting between a rectangle and a triangle, where the triangle wins. There is a special treat for lane swimmers with the lanes clearly marked on the pool floor.
We travel down to Dee Why which has a lot of pluses in terms of access, facilities, a lap pool, and a kids’ pool. But the real beauty is in its location and its history. There is actually a 3rd pool that is connected as to the north of the lap pool. It’s an older, smaller pool that juts out into the rock. It’s not very big and the sea is slowly reclaiming it, but it gives you a solid link to history. If you keep exploring the rock platform to the north, you will find remnants of other pools, their walls also slowly sinking back into the sea. These old pools are hybrid creatures – half pool, half sea – and it gives you a view of what would happen without all the work it takes to maintain a pool. In the end, the sea would take us all.
I like these old pools. They remind me of Narnia’s deep magic, the magic that exists before the dawn of time. Many rock pools rise out of older pools which were themselves built on natural pools. And all around on the rockface, there are smaller pools always emerging. Pools upon pools.
