I’ve just returned home after four days at Lake Taupō in Five Mile Bay, with a lakefront row of houses just off the main highway and about 10 minutes’ drive from the township. Our Airbnb was small, warm, and literally a stone’s throw from the lake (or about 50 child-sized steps from the back door into the water, according to my 8yo).
Of course, it was not a coincidence that we were staying so close to a large body of water. This time a year ago we were at Lake Tarawera and my kids know that Mum Needs Her Swims (we also do fun things for them during trips away, I hasten to add, because neither of them are open water bunnies, though one came in for a swim on a hot day and the other enjoyed a kayak).
Lake swims are always a welcome change of scene from windy Wellington. The fresh water and the absence of Jaws-like threats are just two of the pluses. (There is a taniwha called Horomatangi, according to Māori tradition, but it lives in a cave on the north-western side of the lake.)
We had all the weather during our stay and I swam in sunrises, sunsets, morning frosts, bright afternoon sun, heavy rain, and a brief immersion during boisterous westerlies, which churned the water into surf and sent it crashing onto the shore.
The heavy-rain swim was definitely a highlight. The sizzling sound as the droplets hit the ground as I crossed the lawn to the water’s edge, and then as they hit the lake surface, making small holes in the silence, as the poet Hone Tuwhare put it.
Whenever I rainswim it’s like my mental jukebox switches on and I hear: “I’m swimming in the rain, yes swimming in the rain …” I feel a sort of childlike glee. At home I seldom do it because of stormwater drains overflowing, so I must try and get to the water at the start of a downpour.
A puddle of ducks (is that the collective noun? it should be) congregated daily nearby, and herons dipped and glided overhead. I saw no trout as I was only in the shallows. Apart from the occasional boat speeding by, it felt as if I had the whole lake to myself.
I was surprised by the lake temperature (17 deg C, I was reliably informed), which is about the temperature of the sea in Wellington at the tail end of a good summer. I didn’t require any of the neoprene accessories I’d packed ‘just in case’; getting in was easy peasy and I happily swam front crawl without a hint of brain freeze.
So far, so very pleasant. I thought about doing a longer (deeper) swim, but decided against it in unfamiliar waters and without a swim buddy. So my only ‘lesson’ came on the final morning, when I woke to a 5 degree C southerly chill and morning frost sprinkled across the lawn. It was just before 7am and the sun was about to appear, so there was plenty of light and I could see my breath forming smoke clouds.
The water temp was fine and I’d worn jandals on the way there, but I hadn’t reckoned for a) the painful walk in cold, wet, bare feet out of the lake and across the shingles to get back to the aforementioned jandals and also b) (worse) the necessity of rinsing my cold, wet, bare feet under the tap outside the house (a requirement). While those two activities were both completed in under a minute, the soles of my feet were burning by that point and my toes were going numb. It really hurt, but of course pain is better than no feeling (frostbite)!
The solution would’ve been to wear neoprene socks, which I had packed, but didn’t think I’d need them that morning. I was wrong.
(My feet are fine now.)
We’re back home now and I swam at the usual spot on Saturday with my swim group. It was good to have company again and be back in turquoise salt water, with the Orongorongo mountains across the harbour and a shag keeping an eye on us from a nearby rock. It’s important to have time away to renew appreciation for what I have on my own doorstep.
Rainswim - what a great verb. I love them too! And man I need neoprene socks. Just returned from the Snowy Mountains and the lake hurt my toes!