I asked my friend if she wanted to come for a swim in the Yarra / Birrarung, near the city, when dawn broke last week.
“It’s safe, take the test!” I said. He paused, and for a second I thought he would join me in this recklessness. Then he replied, “It’s like saying that drinking your own pee is safe.”
For years, the Birrarung has been used as a landfill. Its reputation is that it is full of dirt, carries E coli and acts like a sinuous ashtray, dragging cigarette butts and industrial chemicals into the bay.
It’s not the kind of image that makes you want to jump.
But a group of hardy swimmers have done so since confinement.
Almost every day, the Yarra Yabbies are in Deep Rock, 4 km upstream of the CBD.
The complete group is more than 100 people. In summer, when the river reaches 27ºC, it fills up with Yabbies circling, floating on their backs, relaxing in the river.
But during the depths of winter, when it is 4.6ºC on the shore and 6ºC on the river, only true believers gather.
Some are for fitness, others for laughter – there are many – and for a few, it’s about getting in touch with nature before dawn.
“We all have busy lives, and that’s strangely where we can be right now,” says Marie Louise Zeevaarder. “Because when your feet touch that water, you’re nowhere but here.”
When I decided to take the plunge, I decided I wouldn’t search Google E coli before it was time to go.
When I met the Yabbies on the bench at 7 in the morning, my first question was obvious: was it safe? Was I about to meet my creator, Yarra style?
Deep rock to the Yarra / Birrarung. Photo: Jackson Gallagher / The Guardian Fran Cusworth prepares for his morning swim. It’s very black when the Yabbies meet in Deep Rock. Photography: Jackson Gallagher / The Guardian
“It’s always the first question, isn’t it?” says Donna Wheatley.
“I think the river has a reputation from the 80s for industrial waste, corpses, shopping carts. The work of the River Keepers has really changed that, ”he said.
If you swim north of Dights Falls, above where the Merri Creek flows into the Birrarung, it is usually safe. Swimmers are advised to check with the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) updates, which are made weekly in the summer. The Yabbies also do their own tests.
“Sometimes it’s better than the bay,” Wheatley says.
When I met the Yabbies on the bench at 7 in the morning, my first question was obvious: was it safe?
Donella Connors has been there every day for the past year. She puts her head down and has caught nothing but good vibes from her baths. I thought I should be lucky and took a mental note to swim by his side.
Knowing he was new, the Yabbies were very careful to make sure he came out alive. There are a few rules: if it has rained a lot 48 hours before, water is forbidden; if it’s your first bath you can swear.
The uniform for experienced winter swimmers is a pair of togs, but I grabbed some neoprene boots and gloves (for about $ 50) and didn’t regret it.
Thermometer used to measure water temperature; the morning air temperature is also recorded and recorded. Photography: Jackson Gallagher / The Guardian
The entrance is everything. I was in a hurry to get in and finish it, but Meg Elkins showed me that I stayed up to my thigh for a minute, painful but important. Once the shock subsides, you’re ready.
And we did. Eight women swimming down the Yarra in the morning light — the sound of my own voice: “My God,” “My God,” “My God” jumping off the rock 400,000 years ago. It seemed like I was there to pray too.
I come from a long line of proud swimmers – the night before my godfather told me to stay there as long as the group did, so I earned his respect.
But wild cold swimming has to do with the quality, not the quantity, of your shock.
Swim as much as you can, and as the Yabbies repeated to me, “listen to your body.” It comes out when you fall completely asleep. I didn’t last as long as the pros, but I came out excited, almost full of euphoria.
“Your body collapses, then you start to feel a tickle around you,” Elkins says. “It’s like a vibration going through your whole body; you can feel the blood coming in. “
Marie Louis Zavarda, reacting to the icy, cold water of the Birrarung River. Photography: Jackson Gallagher / The Guardian
The color brown is not pollution but clay particles. Zeevaarder says there was a day in the summer that was so clear that everyone could see their feet.
If you have good heart health, the benefits of swimming in cold water are huge: it floods your brain with endorphins, boosts your immune system and reduces stress.
Wheatley suffers from PTSD: He’s been Yabby for a year and says he’s never felt better.
“When I first joined, I was very struggling, like in a very intense and suicidal therapy,” he says.
“When I compare this time of year to last year … how is my treatment … the river, the cold, nature and the community have really helped me with my journey with PTSD.”
After the bath everyone has their own process to warm up. Fran Cusworth is the most comprehensive: a bottle of hot water, a cup of tea and a tub of warm water to put your feet in.
Others wear Oodies, ugg boots and long poufs that look like sleeping bags.
I brought a towel. I regretted it.
Daniella Connors warms up on the bench after swimming. Photography: The Guardian
The Yabbies were initiated by two fellow inmates who, perhaps a little bored, decided to enter. The group grew – there is a WhatsApp full of members – but without other social networks, they recruit people by meeting with them by the banks and asking for them. that they join, inviting them to enter.
“I was running here,” says Holly Jones. “And I saw the group swimming. And they were very kind and said, “Come and join us.” And I said, no, no. “
Then, on the day of his birthday, celebrating 10 years without cancer and the completion of his doctorate, he decided to take the plunge.
“It was really nice,” Jones says.
“The river always changes. It’s always different. I’m always celebrating the water. “
Beneath the joy of swimming, however, there is a much stronger current: the Yabbies try to reclaim the river, see it as a living being, and learn to love it again.
Amanda Donahoe, Meg Alkins and Fran Cuswoth share a hot drink after the bath. Photo: Jackson Gallagher / The Guardian Where Merri Creek meets the Yarra is too polluted for swimming. Photography: Jackson Gallagher / The Guardian
Loretta Bellato, a year-round Yabby but strictly summer swimmer, is from the Urban Transition Center at Swinburne University and has big plans to make the river fully swim by 2030.
“We used it as a sewer and landfill,” he says. “We need to move towards a beneficial relationship with the river and recognize it as a living being.
“When people start swimming in the river they start to realize that there is a much stronger connection with nature and they have to start defending it.”
New developments are a continuing threat to the health of the river and towards the Yarra Valley it is too polluted for swimming, as chemicals are depleted from the surrounding farms.
Bellato wants to see the whole river, all the way to the CBD, swimming and, with a coordinated effort, he knows it’s possible.
“My wish is that when people start swimming, it really inspires them to start thinking about how they can live more sustainably and start taking action, not just sit back and wait for the government to improve our city.”