5 Places We Really Want To Swim

We check in with the experts.

There are some people who make their dreams their day job, who do all you ever wished you could do. Caroline Clements and Dillion Seitchik-Reardon are two of those people.

Together, they love to swim and are almost always in search of water, hunting out the best rock pools, beach breaks, council pools and little-known water holes. They spend as much time as possible in or near the water and, recently, they threw in their jobs to do this full-time, for a whole year.

“Friends would often ask us where we were going on weekend away and summer holidays, so we started to document it,” Clements tells us. She’s a writer, editor and creative producer, and he’s a photographer, writer and videographer.

“But, it was only when our far-fetched pitch was accepted by our publisher that it coalesced into a book. We had always talked about driving a big lap around the country, and suddenly had the perfect excuse to do so. So we quit our jobs and hit the road.”

Together, they’ve made the read again (and again) book Places We Swim (Hardie Grant).

We caught up with Clements to find a little more about what made them take the dive (and for her favourite places to swim)...

Where do you feel your obsession with water comes from?
We are not hardcore swimmers, we just like getting in the water, like most Australians.

... windy days picking sand from our lunch, too proud to seek shelter; dragging boogie boards back and forth across a hot beach; the feeling of salt water drying on our skin, scratching us under our clothes. There are the memories of weeknights spent doing laps at training and weekends of Marco Polo. We swam until we were pulled from the water with purple lips and pruny fingers.

As people of the world’s driest inhabited continent it is no surprise that water should have such an elevated role in our society. Indeed, it’s a fixation that has defined us since the very beginning. Aboriginal cultures have a complex spiritual and customary living relationship with water in all its forms, be it through creation stories or knowledge about sharing and conservation. Some of the oldest known artworks depict waterholes and associated activities, a tradition that continues today. Though the medium is always changing, our fascination with water remains a critical part of our artistic expression and social identity.

Your top five (right now) swimming spots … it’s OK, you’re allowed to play favourites.
It’s very hard to choose favourites because the best part of Australia is how diverse it can be, and we’ve really tried to capture that in the book. We love swimming in the ocean for its movement and ferocity, but also love jumping into the icy embrace of a cool freshwater lake or river, or a hot spring on a cold morning. Top fives is actually a small section in the book, we cover the top five best beaches, best places for a nudie swim, best places for relaxing with a cold beer and best waterfalls. But in terms of our tops 5s in the whole book at the moment (in no particular order):