When the 10 km radius limit was imposed we could no longer travel down to Malabar as it was beyond our travel limit. Ugh. This new phase of our COVID lockdown had started badly. Redleaf or more correctly Murray Rose Pool is a harbourside pool run by Woollahra Municipal Council on Seven Shillings Beach. It looked ideal for us with change rooms, showers and a decent cafe for a post-swim coffee.

I was unable to find parking anywhere nearby, so I was not going to make our agreed start time. I did find parking eventually, somewhere in South Melbourne from memory, and then began the long trek with my wetsuit and towel to the pool. I may as well have left the car at home and walked from there. In the end I was only a few hours late, but I still raced to get into my wetsuit and then ran down to the beach to feel the water temperature and join my freezing comrades.

It seems to be a little-known fact, but the waters in Murray Rose Pool are piped in directly from the Antarctic. This pool is the coldest pool on our planet. Upon entering the water my brain was immediately frozen and I had no idea what I was doing for the next 45 minutes. My Garmin watch told me the water temperature was 15-16 degrees Celsius, but that is rubbish. It was nowhere near that warm.

Unfortunately there are no photos of this swimming location as my fingers were too frozen to be trusted near a camera or even my phone. It took me approximately three weeks to warm up and feel somewhat human again. My brain may never recover. Needles to say, we did not return.