VOGUE VOICE

From natural springs and country dams to public pools and white-sand beaches, the places we swim have not only influenced but also shaped the cultural identity of Australia. By Caroline Clements and Dillon Seitchik-Reardon.

For many of us, it is impossible to separate our childhoods from the water. A thousand sensory memories flood back with every slop of sunscreen: windy days picking sand from our lunch, too proud to seek shelter; dragging boogie boards back and forth across a hot beach; the feeling of salt water drying on our skin, scratching us under our clothes. There are the memories of weeknights spent doing laps at training and weekends of Marco Polo. We swam until we were pulled from the water with purple lips and pruny fingers.

As people of the world’s driest inhabited continent, it is no surprise that water should have such an elevated role in our society. Indeed, it’s a fixation that has defined us since the very beginning. Aboriginal cultures have a complex spiritual and customary living relationship with water in all its forms, be it through creation stories or knowledge about sharing and conservation. Some of the oldest known artworks depict waterholes and associated activities, a tradition that continues today. Although the medium is always changing, our fascination with water remains a critical part of our artistic expression and social identity.

In the 70s and 80s, social documentary photographer Rennie Ellis took a series of photographs titled Life’s a Beach. These images show topless girls smoking and sunbaking, groups drinking tinnies of Fosters on Bondi Beach, surf life savers dashing across the sand: it’s all short shorts and boss tans. It felt like the epitome of Australian lifestyle at the time and has endured as part of the global perception of Australian culture.

But our experiences with the water are many and varied. For a kid living in central Australia, a summer holiday to the beach is the ultimate dream. The beach may as well be Disneyland or Paris, just another mythical place seen only on TV. For a kid living on the Gold Coast, there’s nothing more normal than a day at the beach, yet the image of a red rock canyon seems like a different planet. No matter the location, swimming captivates us. It provides a potent cocktail of excitement, relaxation and, at times, sheer terror. It is this uniquely Australian feeling about swimming that is strongly felt wherever you go, adapted to the landscape. Swimming and the pool represent a place to socialise and exercise.

For a long time our local pool was Melbourne’s iconic Fitzroy Pool, a beloved civic space with a colourful history. By 7am on a warm summery day, this public pool is hitting peak hour. Regulars set the pace with strokes up and down the red and blue lane ropes. At the sidelines, lifeguards set up signage as squad finishes and new lanes open up for fast, medium and slow swimmers. The first sunbakers prepare their towels. A group of older swimmers chat in the spa. It’s a familiar scene, a comfortable one. The community here is alive and well, and it revolves around the water. There’s a similar scene happening at hundreds of pools around the country at the exact same time today; at Merewether Ocean Baths in Newcastle, at Nightcliff Pool in Darwin, at Norwood Swimming Centre in Adelaide and at our new local, Bondi Icebergs in Sydney. Each place tells a story of the community and its people.

In New South Wales, our iconic man-made ocean pools were carved into rock shelves at coastal beaches so people could swim safely. In remote Western Australia the No School No Pool program was successfully implemented to encourage school attendance and had flow-on benefits in preventing common skin infections. Elaborate net systems have been developed and deployed to protect swimmers across Australia, from Port Lincoln to Cairns, making it possible swim in some of our least hospitable waterways.

On a recent trip into the Outback we found a different kind of Australian relationship to water. We met people whose lives are far removed from the ocean, but who would drive for hours and days to get to a swimming hole. Red slot canyons are filled with impossibly cold water and deep gorges make for the perfect rock jump. Locals have their secret spots and are reticent to describe the particular conditions that each location requires. We met passionate river people and grey nomads soothing their arthritis in thermal springs. Swim instructors, park rangers, truck drivers and publicans all had their own stories and memories of swimming in inland rivers, gorges and pools, far from the rips and tides of our own experiences. Swimming doesn’t discriminate. It cuts through age, class, gender, religion and ethnicity as one of the few universal spaces. After all, what is more equalising than being outdoors in near nakedness among strangers? In this way, swimming is a natural access point to understanding the Australian experience. On a hot day, any swimming hole in the country will provide a cross section of all people. Whether it’s the beach, an ocean pool, a lake, river, gorge, dam, waterfall, hot spring or billabong, these bodies of water and the surrounding landscapes reveal our better selves. The places we swim are truly an ode to the Australian psyche, each with their own deep legacy.

Places We Swim by Caroline Clements and Dillon Seitchik-Reardon (Hardie Grant Travel, $39.99) is out now. For more, follow Clements and Seitchik-Reardon @placesweswim.

What is more equalising than being outdoors in near nakedness among strangers?