The Best Backyard Pools in Sydney
With its far-reaching coastline and magical harbour, Sydney is blessed with a multitude of public swimming pools. But if you want to enjoy a celebratory-style pool day, cranking Thirsty Merc to maximum volume and getting silly with friends, it’s best to have your own pool.
That’s why, for the last seven summers, Sydney-based designer Michael Easton has been scouring the suburbs for the city’s most picturesque backyard pools. He has visited more than 68 of them so far and documented each in his Instagram feed, and he’s been taking note of their features, from the quirky to the awe-inspiring. “There’s something intrinsically comforting about water,” he said. “We’re surrounded by it in utero and it’s our primary source of nourishment. I find that it’s also a place where we can decompress and relax.”
Whether built on or next to cliffs, reefs or in rocky outcrops along Sydney’s shoreline, these pools are all unique, some of them more than 100 years old. They sit solitary, like at Bronte Baths in the city’s east, or spectacularly hinge off the end of a peninsula, as at Narrabeen. Some, like the intertidal Mahon Pool, are framed by a magnificent timber platform. Others, such as the Coogee Baths – named after champion swimmer Henry Alexander Wylie and built into the cliffs in 1907 – offer dramatic 180-degree views to Wedding Cake Island and beyond.
As with all things coastal, however, these pools are also vulnerable to wild weather and, in recent times, they’ve been hit by funding issues. The Covid pandemic, the 2024 cyclone and the ongoing work to remove toxic waste from the site have all eaten into construction time and budgets. The opening date has been pushed back to 2025 and a massive $100m bill has now been tallied up.
The saga of the North Sydney pool has prompted claims of pork barrelling and left residents bemused at its fate. But Mayor Zoe Baker says she doesn’t see it as a political folly and hopes to recoup some of the costs by charging fashion shows, production companies and private parties, far outside the normal remit of a local pool. Federal independent MP Kylea Tink agrees.
Sydney and New South Wales boast the country’s most ocean pools, a response to a wild coastline exposed to the full force of the surf. Some, like the tidal pool at Bronte, are heritage-listed and have been restored on numerous occasions. Others have been rebuilt after disasters or are brand new. The most notable, however, is the new North Sydney pool, which combines both historic and modern elements. But a lack of transparency, a huge budget and accusations of pork-barrelling have made the project a political shambles and the opening date uncertain.