You may have heard about the opera house and bridge, but Sydney’s true claim to fame is its ocean pools. It has more of them than any other city in the world – 35, to be exact, according to author and expert Marie-Louise McDermott, who has dedicated much of her career to the history of these little-known swimming havens. “Sydney’s love affair with ocean pools goes back 200 years,” she says. Convicts carved – and even dynamited – many of them, and locals have kept going back ever since, in search of an elixir of youth.
The sdy pools are a jumble of rock formations, whirlpools shaped by the force of waves that fill and empty them with sea water at tidal changes. Some are man-made, others are natural rock pools that have been carved into the coastline over time. “They’re really beautiful, a combination of natural and human-made,” McDermott says. “There’s a magic to the way that they look, and they feel like real whirlpools.”
They also serve as a juncture of everyday pleasures and unexpected miracles. At Bondi, a pool a stone’s throw from the beach, one weekend a group clustered around the edge as a young woman waded into the water to deliver a baby. She was aided by a father who gently lifted her out of the water, cradling the squirming newborn in his arms as they all watched.
The pool at Bronte, which is a kilometre’s walk south of Bondi, is the most famous of Sydney’s ocean pools, and it has been a gathering place for generations of families, children, locals and tourists. “People go to these beaches for relaxation, and they go to these pools for a sense of community,” says McCulloch. “You get to know people in these pools, and you can sit around and talk with them.”
Another of the city’s iconic pools is the North Sydney Olympic Pool, built as Australia came out of Depression in 1936, and dubbed ‘the wonder pool of Australasia’ for its modern design and state-of-the-art filtration system. It was the venue for the 1938 Commonwealth Games, and swimmers such as the 10-year-old boy from Bondi who would become a world-renowned champion set 86 records at the pool between 1953 and 1978.
But the pool’s massive bill – blown out to $100 million and its opening date now delayed into 2025 – has caused council infighting, claims of pork barrelling, heritage concerns, and criticism from health organisations. “It’s a political folly,” says independent North Sydney councillor and federal MP Kylea Tink, who supports the anti-pork barrelling bill that’s currently in parliament.