With its far-reaching coastline and magical harbour, Sydney has no shortage of public pools. But if you’re after the perfect place to turn Thirsty Merc up to full volume and get silly with your nearest and dearest, a private pool is the way to go. Fortunately, there’s an app called Swimply that connects pool owners willing to rent out their swanky abodes for the day with swimmers keen to splash around at the touch of a button. The app’s 130 Sydney pools range from a 15-person infinity pool overlooking the water’s edge to a shady pool on a Sardinian-inspired terrace in Newport and even a bush-shrouded saltwater pool hidden away in a garden at Maroubra. If you’re a competitive swimmer, you can also filter by height and swimming length.

There are about 100 ocean pools that line New South Wales’ wild coastline, a legacy of Newcastle’s Commandant Morisset who got convicts to dig his own personal swimming hole back in 1819. Today they are a key feature of Australia’s beach culture, offering serene, tide-free swimming at low tide and, when the seas are choppy, the perfect spot to watch surfers from a safe distance. In Coogee, for example, the beautiful tidal pool created by Henry Wylie is the stuff of dreams, and with sweeping views over Wedding Cake Island to match, it’s a great spot for an Instagram post or a relaxing dip.

In addition to ocean pools, Sydney is home to a number of spectacular rock and clifftop pools. These picturesque bathing spots – usually at the southern end of beaches – are built into rocky platforms or carved out of cliffs to protect swimmers when the sea is too rough for normal beach swimming and offer spectacular sea views. They can be found at Narrabeen, Bronte, Coogee and Wylie’s Baths, among other places.

Some are skewed rectangles, others are asymmetrical triangles and some, like the one at Narrabeen, are dramatically hinged off the point of a peninsula. They often have concrete decking and stairs, but sometimes – as at Wylie’s Baths – are a minimalist abstraction that takes their form from the skewed shape of the cliff that encloses them.

But some of these pristine and picturesque swim spots are now under threat as a result of the dwindling popularity of outdoor swimming in the wake of the pandemic and a raft of council budget cuts. A review of the Covid-19-hit Gunyama Park pool in Zetland, which cost $106 million to build and millions per annum to run, has prompted Liberal City of Sydney councillor Lyndon Gannon to call for a series of free netted harbourside pools at Beare Park in Elizabeth Bay, Elizabeth Bay, Pirrama Park at Barangaroo and either Rozelle Bay or Blackwattle Bay in Pyrmont.

He says that if they were constructed at the same scale as an ocean pool, they would be cheaper to build and operate. But he admits that a council rate rise to pay for them is not ideal. The idea has been met with outrage by some residents, who have taken to social media to call for the mayor and two allied councillors to resign and for financial moderators to be brought in.