Rolf Lokker, 56, still loves swimming as much as he did as a child.
Third from Right: Rolf Lokker age 9 or 10 at the Wollongong Continental Pool. Photo featured in The Illawarra Mercury Great Days 1972-1973.
ROLF Lokker learned to swim in Wollongong Continental Pool when he was one.
Fifty-six years on and he’s still swimming here every day.
If you live in Wollongong you should know how to swim, he says.
“I have a 14-year-old daughter and I don’t have to worry about her. She could come down here and swim a kilometre or two if she had to, so when she goes to the beach with her friends I don’t have to worry [about her safety in the water].”
When Rolf was knee high to a grasshopper he remembers swim lessons with an old bloke named Alf Cherrington, who is now long dead.
However, as a nipper his favourite coach was the late Joe Smith.
“Everyone around here will know Joe as a legend,” says Rolf.
The building and construction of more pools in the Wollongong area has freed up space for the lap swimmers at the Conti.
“When I was 10, I remember hardly being able to move in the pool,” he says.
At the time there was no Corrimal or Unanderra Pools to thin the numbers looking to take a dip.
Coming on six decades of cold ocean water Conti swimming, Rolf looks no closer to slowing down nor abdicating to the heated waters of Corrimal and Beaton Park, which many choose to swim in during the colder winter months.
“They are horrible. Filthy,” he says.
The chlorine waters and dome-covering are the antithesis of the au naturale ocean water, open air Conti.
The former competitive swimmer and surf club member swims all year round, seldom counting the number of lengths – though today it was 22.
He agrees that the Conti is a magic place to get the heart going; a haven he is grateful to live and work only two blocks away from.
“I go home from work, get changed and head down. Then I can go back to work.”
The real estate agent says Wollongong is an easy sell because “it’s a lifestyle”, and the Conti is the icing on the cake.
“I get most of my leads down here,” he laughs.
Yoga teacher, skydiver, martial artist and journalist. Yoga keeps her centred and reinforces her core belief that the greatest gift to each of us is ourselves. When Dawn isn’t teaching yoga, she works as a skydive camerawoman, grapples with her mates at Gracie Barra Shellharbour, and does media and promotions for stuff she loves.
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