A couple of weeks ago we joined a local triathlon club for a swim at Mission Bay, on the other side of Auckland. The swim was at 7am on the Saturday so it was an early start but it was definitely worth it. We had a great time swimming through the sunrise. The water was really calm and very warm (no need for wetsuits). We swam for about 2.5km (although my watch only said 2) and it passed really quickly. We went for breakfast with the triathlon club afterwards and will definitely be going back again.
One of the swimmers in the tri club mentioned that there is a series of swimming race starting from the next beach along (Kohi Summer Swim Series), on Thursday nights throughout the summer, with distances from 500m to 2km. We decided get straight into it and went along on the following Thursday, along with Gemma’s friend from home Catriona, who was spending her last few days in New Zealand before returning to the UK.
It was way bigger than we expected, with hundreds of people taking part, and there was a really good atmosphere around the event. We all did the 2km race and were in the minority without wetsuits. It was good fun, although very choppy (the course was 1km out and back), and definitely showed a lack of fitness on my part. We all enjoyed it and we’ll be going back to the final two races in the series over the coming weeks (there are 18 in total).
Needless to say, we are both very impressed with open water swimming opportunities here.
