On Saturday I attended a local Matariki Solstice Swim. It’s not a well-publicised event (deliberately, I think, to keep numbers small and local). It’s held on a tiny coastal beach near the harbour entrance.
Last year was my first time at this event (it’s been running for a few decades, apparently) and it was where some of my weekend swim group first met. We swapped phone numbers and the group is now a year old. Happy anniversary, Wild Swimming Group!
This year the weather was cloudy and mild, which I actually found slightly disappointing. A winter swim needs wintery weather. About 20 people were there, some just spectators. The beach is not a particularly swim-friendly spot; it’s southeast-facing, down a stony incline, and full of rocks. But it’s great fun nevertheless. Everyone gets excited to be part of a rare community event these days.
To ‘officially’ start the event, there was a countdown and a cannon boomed (yes, a cannon) which startled us, especially the dogs, and we stumbled over the stones to the water (it was low tide, so this took a while). My suburban lady feet were not used to this level of punishment and I must remember to wear sandals next year.
Here’s a photo of the beach. See the two little white specks across the harbour, on the left? The one on the hill was New Zealand’s first lighthouse (Pencarrow) and the home from 1855–65 of our only female keeper, Mary Jane Bennett, a widow with six children. Her incredible story can be found in chapter 4 of my book Guiding Lights (here endeth the book promo).
The water was easy to get into, about 14°C. There was lots of chatting, people being introduced to other people, talking about this swim and other swims, while seaweed slid in and out between the rocks as the tide swirled around us.
Once we’d struggled back into our clothes, we tramped across the road to the hall and inside on a long table were steaming crockpots of hot soup and some mulled wine, brownies and fudge, with a koha (donation) box at the door. The soups were vegetable barley, tomato, and a smoked kahawai chowder containing plenty of freshly-caught kahawai, butter and cream. Yum!
A local artist called Anne Taylor sometimes comes to our weekend swims and afterwards does some sketching. She came to the swim event and later shared a few of her finished pictures with us. They’re so great, they really capture all the little moments and details. Here’s one of me (shared with permission) on the left, with my blue swim robe and red Ugg boots, clutching my post-swim thermos.
Yesterday (June 21) was Solstice, the shortest day in the southern hemisphere. This confuses my children: how can a day be shorter? Aren’t they all 24 hours? More accurately it is the darkest day, but that sounds pretty ominous! For cold water swimmers, it’s a special day because we have swum our way into winter and the testing swims really get going.
I wanted to mark the solstice with a little swim. Two others joined me at midday and I felt a bit nervous because it was drizzly, with a strong biting southerly, an air temp of about 4°C (with the wind chill, the ‘feels like’ temperature) and a water temp of 11.5°C. The grey surf rolling in got us wet in no time as we staggered in. The other two swam out to the buoy, which isn’t far but I thought I’d better quit while I was ahead for this first cold-cold swim. That frigid wind made getting changed tricky, and clearly my thinking was a bit fuzzy because I started getting dressed over my wet togs which I don’t normally do, but things soon came right and shortly after I was wrapped in layers and sipping hot raspberry tea. (I’m a committed coffee drinker but save that pleasure for home.)
An elderly man, all rugged up and walking his dog along the beach, smiled as he passed me and said: “You’re brave” and I puffed up with pride, haha.
Such a good feeling! And as always, driving home afterwards with a big grin on my face, my breathing calmer and deeper, my body feeling fresh and alive.