A pool is a beautiful addition to any home and can add a significant amount of value to your property. However, keeping your pool warm and inviting all year round can be a costly endeavour both financially and for the environment. With innovative products, you can significantly reduce your energy consumption while still enjoying a luxurious backyard oasis.
The best outdoor pools are both functional and aesthetically pleasing, a combination that can be challenging to achieve. This month, we speak to two pool specialists from a family-owned company to find out how they created their own beautiful indoor and outdoor swimming pools.
Across Sydney’s rocky coastline, tucked away in sandstone headlands, are ocean pools. They’re man-made public seawater pools positioned on a surf beach so that waves can wash over their sides. And they’re a rare thing, with only one other city in the world (Cape Town) known to have them. But what is it about these sdy pools that attracts swimmers and surfers, and keeps them coming back?
Every day, before the sun rises and before the surfers take to the waves, swimmers clutching towels crowd into the tamed ocean pools. It’s a ritual that has lasted almost 200 years, since convicts carved and dynamited the first pools at Newcastle and Sydney’s own ocean pools started to pop up.
“Our love affair with the sand and rock pools is a testament to the magic they offer,” says Marie-Louise McDermott, an academic who has written on the subject. They’re a juncture of everyday pleasures and unexpected miracles, like the woman at Bondi who gave birth to her baby in the icy water. And the swimmers, young and old, who gather to frolic in their salty embrace.
The Bondi Icebergs pool is the most famous, but there are plenty of others to discover, such as the sheltered Bronte Pool, which sits just south of the beach and offers a safe, protected swim. And further south, the tidal pool at Bronte is a swimming club favourite, as are Mahon and Burning Palms pools in Maroubra.
A kilometre’s walk south of Bondi is the picturesque Bronte Lagoon, which picks up swells and has a wide grassy park behind it for picnickers. There’s also the ocean-fed lap pool at Bronte Beach, a popular spot for fitness and training in winter.
The tidal pools on Sydney’s north shore are just as stunning, including the iconic Coogee and Bronte pools and Murray Rose in Double Bay. There’s even a sdy pool on the western end of Sydney Harbour at Milson’s Point, where you can enjoy a harbourside tidal enclosure while being protected by the rocks and a protective pontoon.
But these iconic pools are under threat, with some undergoing costly upgrades to meet increased demand or to accommodate the needs of those with disabilities. And with council infighting, pork-barrelling and heritage concerns threatening their future, many people are wondering why this is happening. The answer appears to lie in the old adage, “You get what you pay for.”