Author Ashley Hay on her childhood swimming in the shadow of the escarpment on the NSW south coast
• Interactive: the magic of New South Wales’ ocean pools
• Liquid assets: a treasure trove of ocean pools seen from the air – video
The earliest memory I have of the ocean pool is of a lovely older man called Mr Luck, a local former surf lifesaving champion who used to teach people to swim. I had lessons with him before I was old enough to be at school. I remember very clearly the sensation of the bottom of my foot pushing off from the knobbly, rocky side of the pool and how different it felt compared with the tiles in the Olympic pool at nearby Thirroul. It was as though I could feel this place more because of its roughness.
The two pools had such distinct personalities. The northern one was the older of the two by more than 10 years. When the southern one was added in the late 1930s, it was built right next to the northern one and a concrete walkway connected the two. They were called double or twin ocean pools but they were definitely not identical. The southern pool was a very different body of water to the northern one and I always loved watching who gravitated to one and who gravitated to the other.
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