Pool: Auckland - Formosa Golf Club Pool
www.formosa.co.nz/golf.html
Grade: B
The Good: A view to die for. The best-equipped changing rooms in NZ - showers with hot water - that sort of thing.
The Ugly: Short, 15m, no lane ropes, no wall marks to turn on. It is more of a pool to dip in after golf than for swimming laps.
Reflections: The end wall is all window looking straight over the Waitemata Harbour to Waihiki Island, Gives you the impression you could swim right over to the island. Then you get stopped after 15m. Make sure you forget your towel and ask at reception for one of theirs. They are those huge fluffy ones and are warmed before you get them. We did not have to pay, so ask before you go. It appears expensive.

Pool: Auckland - Parakai Aquatic Park
www.helensville.co.nz/aquaticpark.htm
Grade: C
The Good: Two big pools at 34C and 40C. Good and really long water slide. Great picnic grounds and barbecue facilities. $10 for an adult and $7 for children isn't too bad when you look at Waiwera's prices. $28 for 2+2 is a good family deal too.
The Ugly: Appeared a little run down. Make sure your children have those mats on the slide or their teachers will be asking what type of discipline they receive at home.
Reflections: Parakai is a place for the serious "do-nothing" all day rather than the fanatical lap swimmer. It isn't really for proper swimming at all, although we managed a rather sweaty 800m in their coolest pool. It's more of a "fun" park to play for the day, get sunburnt and fight with your children in the car on the way home. That or play "I Spy". The day we were there a bus of oldies were "taking the waters" in search of an arthritis cure. To avoid the label of "arthritis- healing", we overdid the play and took three days to recover.

Pool: Auckland - Lloyd Elsmore Pool
www.manukau.govt.nz/cnews/cnews_a.htm
Grade: E
The Good: It's free, although you should be paid to swim there. It has three lap lanes and the rest is a play pool. The staff are friendly.
The Ugly: It's always crowded. The pool's really shallow and too warm. The staff don't do anything.
Reflection: We have given up going to this pool. It's impossible to have a proper swim. No effort is made to police the fast, medium, slow signs and no one appears to know whether the pool rules require left or right hand circles. The signs have little meaning. Very ancient grannies share lap lanes with aspiring Popovs and are joined frequently by the nations next generation of sevens footballers spilling over from the play area. The water is as rough as the North Atlantic, not that it matters. Even if the water was flat calm no one could swim properly in that mayhem.
PS. The pool is having $3 or $4 million spent on it about now which should make a difference. Come to think of it - it has to be better.

Pool: Auckland - Newmarket Olympic Pool
www.olympicpools.co.nz/
Grade: A+
The Good: Everything really, wide lanes, 50m, friendly staff, spa, steam room, gym, massage, good café, good coffee, really nice lane partners, great swim shop, well appointed changing rooms.
The Ugly: Parking building next door costs the world and a swim for an out-of-towner is quite pricey - but for what you get, who cares.
Reflections: This is New Zealand's best pool. It is the converted old outdoor Newmarket Commonwealth Games pool. The way they have done it has kept a lovely sense of history and modern seldom found in a young country like New Zealand. Newmarket is like a favorite old jersey, it's comfortable and clean but not sterile, it's well run but not slick. We've always left Newmarket feeling good. It might be my imagination but the swim school seems to be very gradually taking up more space. Too much more would be a shame.

Pool: Auckland - Massey Park Aquatic Center
0-9-298 8526
Grade: B
The Good: The complex includes a 50m outdoor pool, 25m indoor pool and a series of play pools. The staff is friendly and helpful. The pools are modern and well looked after. They usually have three indoor lanes roped off and the lanes are seldom crowded.
The Ugly: The wave machine, the hydroslide, and the fountains - all the fun things
Reflections: For the dedicated lap swimmer it's a frustrating pool. In providing so much for everyone they have made the lap swimmers experience forbidding. The wall at one end is a cliff that's difficult to get out of and the other end has a shallow beach that has the inexperienced in danger of requiring dental work after each swim. They have a very efficient wave machine in the large play pool area. Unfortunately it is linked to the lap pool. The most difficult part of completing a 5000m work out is avoiding being seasick. And don't try swimming fly or breast up hill. It's no laughing matter.

Pool: Auckland - The Tepid Baths
0-9-379 4745
Grade: A
The Good: Two pools, one learner and one lap pool. Lots of lanes, lots of kick boards, a good gym, good café and good coffee.
The Ugly: Parking, park on the street and it's a ticket every time.
Reflections: It's a while since we've visited "The Teps" but they used to be run by the same guy (John Fay) who set up the Newmarket Pool and they are good for all the same reasons. They are not all that flash. In fact your QE2s and your Waitakeres and Kilbirnies would leave them for dead as far as flash is concerned. The point is, where would you prefer to swim? "The Teps" has what money can't buy - character

Pool: Auckland - Waiwera Thermal Resort
www.waiwera.co.nz
Grade: C
The Good: 26 pools ranging from 28C to 43C and eight water slides
The Ugly: It's expensive, adult $17, student $14, child $10, 2+2 $45. The day we went the staff were a bit off-hand. It rained all day, which didn't help.
Reflection: Like Parakai, Waiwera is not a place to go and swim laps. It's a fun in the water place. There are more slides, it's flasher and has more facilities and it is better maintained. Whether it's worth close to twice what Parakai charge is doubtful. They probably get away with it because they are in North Auckland and Parakai is "out-west".

Pool: Auckland - The Millennium Institute of Sport and Health
www.institutesporthealth.org.nz Tele.0-9-477 2000
Grade: A
The Good: Very new, very clean and gives the impression of being well run. Water is a good temperature. Lane ropes are the best. I couldn't see any pool supplied kick boards but there might be.
The Ugly: Nothing really. It is probably just a bit flash, but then it's on the North Shore, what would you expect.
Reflection: Like Kilbirnie, in Wellington the pool is 25m wide and 50m long. A lot of swimming is done across the pool. It means there is usually plenty of space. The water depth is good and you get the feeling the whole place is into training and physical fitness. That might be a problem. It may become too suffocatingly academic. Remember what swimwatch said about New Zealand's track records. We're still waiting for someone trained here to break one of the good ones or set a Commonwealth or World record in the pool. They have all the gear. We are waiting to see the results. For the really dedicated the whole complex has a running track, weights room, accommodation, spas and much more. If you go too mad there is a medical center with the current All Black doctor available to effect repairs. It has a great café. The crushed ice fruit juice is nice.

Pool: Auckland - Waitakere City Aquatic Center
www.waitakere.govt.nz/CnlSer/rl/aquatic/facilities.asp
Grade: B-
The Good: The staff are great. It is a 50m pool usually divided into two 25m pools. Water is a good temperature. Lanes are wide and lane ropes good. Pool depth in the lap pool is two meters.
The Ugly: It was built quickly and cheaply for the 1990 Commonwealth Games and is looking very tired and tatty.
Reflections: Waitakere Council are spending millions on adding recreation pools, new changing rooms and other features. The pool needed it. It was grubby and unkempt and although it had a bit of history about it nothing could cover-up the need for a smarten up Time will tell whether the Waitakere Council are as good at spending new money and preserving history as John Faye was at Newmarket. We don't think so. To preserve history you first must understand it and then respect it.

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