Annette Lees, author of a social history of swimming in New Zealand, says her favourite swim is always the one at her feet. Sandra Simpson finds out more.
August 29, Tamaterau Bay: Strong wind blowing straight across Whāngārei Harbour. I walk for a long while before I find a sheltered pool behind an old pōhutukawa and lower myself into the high tide. Salty. Cold. This doesn't feel too clever.
At the time she wrote this diary entry, Annette Lees had whooping cough but was maintaining her "quest" to swim outside every day for a year by using hot pools and even dunking herself into a cold rainwater bath with the window open.
"I felt far more despair over the breaking of the habit than about being sick," she says. "It was very interesting to do something every day. It breaks you into a whole new world."
Lees, a freshwater conservationist, grew up in the Eastern Bay of Plenty and swam "all over" while growing up.