NEW SWIMMING POOL AT A.C. BATHS

Taupo Times, Volume IV, Issue 204, 23 December 1955, Page 5

NEW SWIMMING POOL AT A.C. BATHS

The new tepid swimming pool at the A.C. Baths, which was brought into use recently, bids fair to become a major attraction. Mr Jacoby, Baths caretaker, reports that it is popular with both young folk and older visitors and that it is already evident that it will be most helpful in relieving pressure on the eight warm baths. provided in the new A.C. Bath Building which was first opened for use on December 17, 1954. While the latter building and baths were financed by a loan of £5000, the swimming pool has been built by the Borough Council, in its capacity as the Taupo Domain Board, out of revenue. The cost has been advanced to the Domain Board account from the Councirs General Account, and will be repaid thereto from the revenues taken at the Baths.

The new pool, of concrete construction, is an open-air one, sixtysix feet long, twentytwo feet wide and four feet in depth. The construction was supervised throughout by Mr C. J. Vedder. Working with him was Mr J. Park, and additional assistance was given from time to time by members of the CounciFs outside staff. Included in the project are plans for permanent dressing rooms with suitable amenities, but these will not be built until after the holiday period. Meantime two temporary dressingrooms have been provided to enable full use to be made of the pool during the forthcoming holidays. The pool will be lit by overhead flood lamps, to be installed before Christmas. Filled with water from the A.C. Spring, the average temperature of the pool is 95 degrees F. With a capacity of 36,183 gallons the pool takes six hours to fill, and an emptying valve enables it to be drained in 40 minutes. There is a continuous flow of water through the pool, and in addition the water is completely changed every night between closirig time and the following morning. A somewhat disconcerting experience befell the first visitor who swam in the pool, a man who was tempted by its attractive appearance to enter it on the occasion of its trial filling. He discovered that he had lost his artificial eye in the bath. Soon after

his departure, however, Mr Jacoby's son, having received a dispensation from the rule that no diving rnay be done in the pool, found the missing eye on the bottom of the bath and it was duly restored to its owner. The popularity of the A.C. Baths which will be increased by the attraction of the new pool, is shown by the fact that during the first year of the new building's use, ending December 16 last, tickets were sold for 80,365 baths, not including some 65 residents' family tickets.