Cook Phillip Park Pool
33.872146 S 151.212805 E
After breakfast at the hotel, we headed out on foot to find the Cook and Phillip Pool where Catherine was scheduled to take a swim clinic at 10:30.
She has been following the YouTube videos of Australian swimmer Brenton Ford at Effortless Swimming for a few years. It turned out that they were offering a freestyle clinic on the 24th here in Sydney so she signed up for it a few months ago.
We found the pool easily and were very early so we were able to have a quick look at St. Mary’s cathedral near the pool and the Anzac monument in Hyde Park. The monument was exceptional & very moving.
Cath went to get ready for the clinic.
I wasn’t allowed to take any photos or videos of the clinic so I made my way over to the National Maritime Museum to see some boats & other cool maritime stuff.
First on the agenda were tours of the submarine & the destroyer on display.
Submarine HMAS Onslow was built in Glasgow, Scotland in 1968 & was in service from 1969 to 1999. One of the tour guides on board told me that the Canadian Navy also had 4 of the same model submarine.
I have never been onboard a sub before so this was a real experience for me. It was interesting to go through it but there’s no way I would want to be in something like this while it was submerged!
The sub generally had a crew of 70 on board. It must have felt very crowded when the full crew was there & submerged!
Our first point of entry was through the hatch into the torpedo room!
Crew workstations were very small with gauges & valves everywhere.
The heads were even smaller!
Twin diesel generators for charging the sub’s batteries.
After exiting the sub I took a tour of the destroyer. It seemed very spacious compared to the sub!
The destroyer HMAS Vampire was launched in 1917 & was originally named HMS Wallace! I knew there was something special about this ship!
It was commissioned into the Australian Navy in 1959 & decommissioned in 1986.
Cath and I rendezvoused back at the hotel around 3:00. She was tired but happy after her 3-1/2 hour clinic.
There were three other adults and two young girls at the workshop, led by an Aussie world champion swimmer turned swim coach named Mitch Patterson. He led the group in some dry land exercises, then videoed each swimmer and analyzed each person’s freestyle stroke.
The group then did some drills in the water focusing on the advice from Mitch who then videoed and analyzed each person’s swimming again. She found it very interesting and helpful!
We treated ourselves to a nice dinner at a restaurant by Darling Harbour and capped off the day with a Pavlova for dessert. No kangaroos were harmed in the creation of this dessert!
The Kiwis and the Aussies both claim to have invented this meringue based dessert named after Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova. It doesn’t matter to me who thought it up – I’m just glad they did!
Cheers!