Ode to things I love: Swimming in rivers and mountain pools

 What I love about it

• Invigorating. You feel so alive!
• Swimming after getting hot from hiking is an instant way to recharge.
• Leaping in from a high place provides a wonderful adrenaline high.
• Swimming down to touch the bottom.
• How it can be warm on the surface and cold below.
• Massaging the shoulders and back under a the strong jet of a water fall.
• A great way to bond with fellow hikers.

Favourite swims

Australia

• Hawkesbury River (from a house boat)
• Barrington Tops
• Mangrove Mountain
• Colo River
• Shoalhaven Gorge
• Mermaids Pool and Tahmoor Canyon
• Centennial Glen (Blue Mountains)
• Empress Falls (Wentworth, Blue Mountains)
• Lake Eckersley (Royal National Park)
• Xmas at Paradise (Blue Mountains)
• Canyoning

South Africa

• Beaverlac
• Tweede Tol camp site at Bains Kloof
• Palmiet River
• Ceres farm
• Tsitsikama Hiking Trail
• Fish River canyon
• Silvermine
• Storms River waterfall
• Otter Trail river crossing
• Table Mountain reservoir with Russell
• Tugella Falls (Drakensberg)
• Wit Els

Brazil

• Iguazu Falls

High leaps into water

• Suicide Gorge (South Africa)
• Mermaid Falls (Australia)
• Parati leap (Brazil)
• The Hawkesbury (Australia)