The beautiful beaches of Newcastle in New South Wales are famous. But locals know where the real magic is: the ocean baths, of which our town is blessed with two. These large, open-air saltwater pools, nestled in the natural rock platforms of the coastline, have welcomed swimmers, walkers, sunbathers, photographers and birdwatchers at all hours of the day, for more than a century – including generations of my family.
There’s Merewether baths – the largest ocean baths in the southern hemisphere – where my grandpa taught my dad and his siblings to swim. But my heart belongs to the Newcastle ocean baths over in the East End. The grand art deco facade, enough to make you catch your breath as you come round the bend of Shortland Esplanade, looks like a portal to another world – and passing through its heritage-listed threshold, you discover just that.
Look to your left and you see the long sandy stretch of Stockton beach. Look even further on a clear day, and you can see all the way up to Nelson Bay. To your right lie Newcastle’s majestic cliffs and beaches all the way down to Norah Head.
Gaze out the front and you’ll find magnificent rock shelves, home to chubby seals and resting seabirds (flocks of cute little ruddy turnstones travel 7,000km from Siberia each year to nest in these shelves), carved through with channels teeming with wobbegongs and blue gropers.
Then just beyond, there’s the Pacific Ocean. On any given day, you can spot a pod of dolphins surfing with the grommets at the Cowrie Hole reef break nearby. Once, during winter, I spotted a group of more than two dozen whales making their way up the coast. Paul “Rocky” Mellon, the baths’ legendary senior lifeguard, told me on a quiet day you can hear them singing.
So many locals have their own special relationship with the Newcastle ocean baths. When fellow Novocastrian theatre maker Janie Gibson and I set up shop there this summer, Trent Dalton-style, with a sign that read “Writer collecting baths stories. Come say hi!”, we were overwhelmed by the response. We’d been commissioned to create a play celebrating the baths, but as we talked to people, we quickly discovered we had enough material for a Ring Cycle.
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We heard stories of love and of loss; stories about work; stories of growing up, leaving Newy, coming back; stories of playing pranks; scattering ashes. We talked to swimmers, lifeguards, support workers, pharmacists, mermaids, retirees, young people, and in one instance, the parents of a teen punk rocker who jumped off the back of the aquamarine bleachers into the neighbouring channel (a time-honoured and incredibly dangerous rite of passage for local teens) but misjudged the tides – breaking his leg and ending up in hospital.
A kind of everyday magic surfaced as a common theme. There was the story of a bride whose husband lost his wedding ring in the baths as they were getting their photos taken – only for it to be returned at the wedding reception that night by some board-short-clad teenage boys who happened to have snorkel masks handy. There were the teenagers who went skinny dipping at the baths after a night out (another time-honoured tradition) and saw a moonbow arcing over the ocean (and yes, that’s what you think it is – a rainbow at night!). There were stories of a first kiss lit by sparkling phosphorescent algae; Macedonian teenagers racing to retrieve a basil-bundled cross from the bottom of the pool as part of annual Epiphany festivities; mermaids free-diving in the ocean out the back of the baths, swimming through schools of silver fish that were illuminated like stars by rays of sunlight …
What emerged from our summer of story gathering was a passionate collective attachment to our local saltwater pool. It’s free, it’s safe, and people from all walks of life enjoy it; it is one of the city’s great equalisers. I realised that visiting my favourite local baths makes me part of a community much greater than just my friends or family. It’s a happy community: when we’re at the baths, we are taking care of ourselves and our environment. We relax, we read, we bask in the sun and saltwater.
To me, Newcastle ocean baths is one of a kind – but the feeling of community and everyday magic is not. If you’ve visited your local ocean pool, wherever it is in Australia, you’ve probably experienced it too. And if you haven’t visited your local baths, go and try it! It’s a place of connection, relaxation and health for everybody. And if you listen closely, I bet you’ll hear some great stories.