1 February 2025
As part of our adventure of living in London, my wife and I are determined to see as much of this part of the world as possible. This naturally includes getting to countries across Europe, but also to see different parts of the United Kingdom. While I don't think most people think of going to the "English Riviera" in January, we managed to hit Torquay on a brilliantly sunny and dry weekend. We basically spent much of our waking hours walking around the city, the coastlines, up and down the many, many hills through Torquay proper, Torre, Torbay, Babbacombe and likely some other places. And we ate some surprsing meals - surprising both for the quality and the low, low costs**.
And, of course, I found the only pool in the city, the Plainmoor Community Pool, to swim at during their 8am to 9am lap swimming hour on Saturday morning:
With only four lanes and a good crowd showing up, I was a bit skeptical about how great a workout I would get in ...
... but it turned out to be a fine swim. There were maybe 12-15 people in the pool, but the two women I shared the outside "Fast" lane with were quite good and the three of us, I think, managed to weave our ways around each other and get our own things done. By about 8:50am, the pool had largely emptied out, so I had a lane to myself for the last 10 minutes to push some hard 25s.
As you can see from the pictures, this is a basic pool in a basic concrete block building, but the Swim Torquay group has done an excellent job of maintaining this 40 year old facility, both inside the pool and locker rooms. The depth was 1M at the shallow end and 2M at the deep end and they had a pace clock visible to all lanes. Now, I'd love to see the lane ropes modernized, but for a 2,500-meter "vacation" swim to wake up on a Saturday morning when the surrounding sea is too cold for OW swimming, I'll take it.
** We've got to get out of London more.
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