When the alarm pierced my skull at 2:45 am last Saturday morning, I was wondering what I had been thinking when, a couple of months earlier, I’d agreed to participate in the first ever relay swim of the length of my home lake Lake Wanaka. The 46 km swim was to be conquered by eight of us locals as a fund-raising effort to provide an affordable counsellor for children in the area. The community support was huge and the coverage in the local media was equally comprehensive, so I couldn’t really pull out by the time the day swung into view.. Not that I’d have wanted to. The opportunity to swim with these great people, and to get that connected with this wonderful lake of ours was totally unmissable.

And so it went. Getting into the glacial (literally) waters in the total darkness was an experience of a lifetime - diving into pitch black water on a moonless night and catching a glimpse of the southern stars with every breath, strobe lights attached to my goggles and the little flicker of the red pilot light to sight for direction was unforgettable.

Then the dawn came. We were each doing 20 minute sets of swimming at our fastest speed, and as the quiet between us started to melt, the camaraderie grew. The silent lake and the dawning light and the sudden heat when the sun struck us took us all to a very heightened place.

Tiredness hit around the 19km mark and going was slow.. then as the afternoon progressed the wind ‘pulled a 180’ and increased in strength and soon after we basically surfed home on the big rolling swell.

We were tired as we all swam the last leg into the town waterfront and a little overwhelmed by the crowd on the beach - there to welcome us back to dry land.

More than $6,000.00 had been raised and now my relationship with the lake is much closer. Check out the photos of the team