Hannah loves visiting Dunedin and staying with Granny and Granddad. The main highlight for her is visiting Moana Pool.
Moana Pool was built in the 1960s and far surpasses any of the facilities in London or Hong Kong. The original 1960s design included an Olympic 50m pool, a diving pool and learners pool, where I was taught to swim by the famous coach Duncan Laing (link).
Moana Pool was then extended several times adding 2 hydro-slides, an new diving pool / 25m lap pool. And then a large play-pool area with features like a wave machine, circular fast-current course, and a spa pool where adults can soak while they watch their children.
I took the opportunity to have a swimming lesson. Since my last lesson in Moana pool in c. 2011, I've been trying to improve my front crawl by following the advice from the Australian website 'Swim Smooth', and now normally cover 3km in an hour. I was quite pleased when the coach said almost every aspect (stoke, balance, timing) is very sound. He made just one correction (to my entry) which immediately improved my power. Apparently after this the technical changes would be quite esoteric. So my next goals are to perfect my tumble turn, and to learn a decent beast-stoke.
For Hannah, the highlight of Moana Pool is the hydro-slide. There are 2 - 'fast' and 'slightly-less-fast' which are are both long and twisty.
Hannah likes to go down the slides with me (actually on top of me).
Or have races. This requires some technique to lying down and lean into the bends to reduce friction. But I sometimes let Hannah win.
And well done to Granddad for taking these photos at the pool for us without getting arrested.
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