Pool: Palmerston North - Lido Pool
Grade: C
The Good: On a nice, warm, sunny day it OK - if you can’t find a lake or river to swim in.
The Ugly: It’s boring
Reflections: This is one of those big sprawling swimming places like Onekawa in Napier. Outdoors it has a 50m pool, a diving pool, a learner’s pool and heaps of space for a picnic. Its nice on the two days a year it’s not blowing a gale in Palmerston North. Indoors there is a 25m pool. It is one of those places that there is nothing wrong with. The problem is there is nothing too much right with it either. You get the impression Council built a pool and said,” We’ve done our bit now you come and go for a swim,” At least that’s better than Napier where the Camp Commandant clicks his heels and says,” You vill swim.” We’d prefer to go to Trevor Nicholl’s pool and try and get him to give us a day’s pass. That way we might pick up some coaching tips as well as having a more interesting swim.

Pool: Pahiatua - Pahiatua High School Pool
Grade: C+
The Good: Very good pool in a town this size
The Ugly: Nothing we could see
Reflections: We recall the day Nichola Chellingworth broke a New Zealand Age Group Record in this pool. Unfortunately a week later she broke the record again in the more heady atmosphere of the Hong Kong World Cup. It would have been good for the NZ record book to seriously proclaim Pahiatua School Pool as the site of one of its records. At the time there was great consternation over whether the pool had ever been surveyed. The Women’s 200m breast record set in Waipukurau was fun for much the same reason. In a town the size of Pahiatua and at a school it is a very good pool. We are not sure what the public hours are but if you’re in Pahiatua for some undoubtedly agricultural reason call in and swim a few laps. It wont be crowded and if our experience is anything to go on the natives are friendly.

Pool: Palmerston North - West End Aquatics Pool
0-6-359-1860
Grade: B
The Good: It's been built and set up just for people like us.
The Ugly: If you were being real picky you might argue the pool could be slightly deeper and the starting blocks steeper. Against that though there have been some fast times swum in the pool.
Reflections: The pool is a private facility built by Manawatu swimming coach Trevor Nicholls. The only public swimming is at lunch time. All the rest is allocated to programme swimming. It's the ideal place for us training "geeks". Everyone is training or leaening to swim. There are no non-training "geeks" allowed. The pool is set up just for us. It has the best of lane ropes, correct temperature water, ample kick boards that haven't been chewed by some undernourished urchin, pull buoys, hand paddles and one of New Zealand's most respected and successful coaches. If you are visiting Palmerston North ring Trevor Nicholls and beg for a one day membership. If he hesitates tell him your GP said it was critical you have an hour of suoervised swimming every day. He's a nice guy. He'll probably fall for that.

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