Pool: Waiouru - Waiouru Army Pool
Grade: A-
The Good: All the gear
The Ugly: A bit oldish and a funny length but that doesn’t matter.
Reflections: The pool belongs to the Army. It does have public hours so if you want a break on a long journey, why else would you be in Waiouru, try their pool. Actually it’s not all that bad. It’s oldish and 36.6 yards long - the same as Freyberg. It’s deep , well looked after, has all the lane ropes and backstroke flags. The extra bits are fantastic. There is a gym off to one side with all the gear you could ever want, they have a medical testing centre, a huge field out the back and a cafe that serves really good food – not quite as good as Newmarket’s posh nosh but half the price. Because no one except the army knows it’s there the pool is seldom crowded and the natives seem pleased to see a foreign face. We’ve always thought it would be a great place to have a training camp. All that Army assault course stuff’, weights, running, a bit of Army “Yes sir, no sir” would do the Millennium Institute lot a power of good. The Westies would love it, easier than being at home.

Pool: Tokoroa - Tokoroa Pool
Grade: C+
The Good: It is a good community pool
The Ugly:
Reflections: Tokoroa Pool is another one of those Onekawa, Dannevirke and Wairoa designed pools. In Tokoroa it is the right design and size of pool for the right design and size of town. It has a six lane main pool and a learner’s pool. It has good lane ropes and backstroke flags. The water quality is good and you can always get a lane to yourself. We’ve never seen more than half a dozen people in the main pool. In a town that produced runners like John Davies and Dick Quax, with a facility like this, surely Tokoroa could get some better swimmers. We used to stop there on the way to Championship meets in Auckland or Hamilton. We don’t stop any more after a dragon of a pool attendant ripped into one of the swimmers for no apparent reason. She gave the impression she did not like the fact we were from out of town and could swim fast. There’s none so strange as folk.

Pool: Taupo - AC Baths
http://www.laketauponz.com/
Grade:
The Good:
The Ugly:
Reflections: Work is underway on a $7.5 million re-development of Taupo's AC Baths The development includes an indoor/outdoor leisure pool, a 25m covered deep water competition pool, an indoor learn to swim pool, two indoor hydro slides, nine private pools, separate steam and dry sauna and a poolside café. The indoor competition pool has seating for 500 people. An outdoor 25m training pool is the only existing facility that will remain.
Construction began in February 2002 and is due for completion in March 2003.

You can now post/view comments on this topic here