Our nearest ocean beach is a four and half hour drive away on the other side of the Australian Alps.
It's a long drive and too far to go just for a swim in the ocean, but we do have a beach at Lake Sambell.
Lake Sambell is an artificial lake, well really a large pond, on top of the old 1850s gold diggings. Despite being an artificial lake it's ecologically good, supporting a population of fish, ducks and moorhens, and has a flow of water through it which means it doesn't go stagnant.
All of which means, providing you don't mind sharing with the resident waterfowl, you can swim in it. Moreover we have about 10 metres of gritty sandy beach in a bay, with a little car park and picnic area.
So, since yesterday was stupidly hot in the afternoon and today was forecast to be much the same, we were up at 0630, yes on a Sunday, and jumped in my battered old Subaru and drove down to the beach.
It was almost deserted, only a couple of other cars in the car park, and some people who had ridden their bikes down to the beach as part of their morning bike ride.
Strangely no one seemed to be swimming except for one guy who'd been in for an early morning swim.
Apart from some people in a canoe, we had the lake to ourselves - the water was cool, not cold, clear except for the odd bit of weed and duck feather floating on the top.
We didn't swim seriously, but did enough to get the blood flowing and our bodies moving, and felt a hell of a lot better for it...
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