Pool: Australia - Sydney Blacktown
Grade: C
The Good: Good staff, good space, good pool
The Ugly: For racing the indoor pool is shallow
Reflections: The New South Wales swimming championships used to be held here before the heady days of International Aquatic Centers. Blacktown is an indoor 50m pool, an outdoor 50m pool and a play pool. The championships were held in the indoor pool which is quite shallow but witnessed swimming far above its appearance. Toni Jeffs won several NSW Championships there, so did Nichola Chellingworth when she still swam for New Zealand. Actually it was in the outdoor pool at Blacktown that Toni taught Nichola to swim butterfly. Now Nichola would be the national open short course record holder at 50m fly and 50m free if she still swam for us. The pool is a good one for some recreational lap swimming. It’s a fair way out of Sydney, about 20 minutes past Homebush, but its never crowded and as in all Australian pools the staff understand the ways of the keen lap nut.

Pool: Australia - Sydney Olympic Pool
Grade: A+
The Good: Good but it's not North Sydney is it?
The Ugly: Nothing we could see
Reflections: It has been called the world's best pool so many times even its beginning to believe it. It is a very good pool. It is huge. There is a 25m diving pool a 50m competition pool, a 50m recreation pool and a large water area of slides, rivers, showers and the like. It has dozens of meeting rooms, a gymnasium, a food court and an aquatics shop. The entrance hall has a fantastic set of bronze plaques celebrating Australia's swimming legends. The real trick of the place though is that although it is huge it does not seem like it. In fact it seems quite compact and personal which we like in a place that big. It is a super place to go for a swim. Enough great deeds have been done there that it is beginning to have its own sense of history. We were in the changing rooms the day Klim broke the world record. As he came into the room his phone rang. He answered it and the person on the other end obviously said," How are you?" Klim said, "I'm fine, I've just broken the world record." Hard to beat that line.

Pool: Australia - North Sydney Pool
http://www.northsydney.nsw.gov.au/places_for_people/olympic_pool/
Grade: A+
The Good: Everything
The Ugly: Nothing
Reflections: This is the world's best pool. I hear you say," What about the Sydney Olympic Pool?" I hear you whine that North Sydney is open air, that it is old and has salt water. None of that matters. This pool is class. From the moment you walk in the doors and down the long corridor to reception you know this is more than a swimming pool. This is history. Along the walls are faded photographs of Frazer, Rose, Conrads, Crap, Devitt and O'Brian. At reception an understated plaque lists the "World Records Broken At This Pool." When you step on to the deck, if you listen, you can still hear the crowd roar as each world record is set. In the stands, if you look, you can still see a young Talbot and Carlile coaching the world's best athletes. It is only fitting this place should be beside the Sydney Harbour Bridge. A place this significant to Australian swimming needs to be close to the Bridge and the Opera House.

It would not be proper to tell you about the water or whether there are kick boards or not. There are too many things here more important than that. Every trip to Sydney should include a visit to the North Sydney Swimming Pool. This pool trains the swimming soul.

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