SWIMMING DISTANCES ON THE LAKE

Taupo Times, Volume V, Issue 209, 3 February 1956, Page 6

SWIMMING DISTANCES ON THE LAKE

In conversation with the Taupo Times, Mr L. H. Cheal, surveyor, of Taupo, who plotted the course in preparation for Miss Margaret Sweeney's j attempt to break the 32 miles record fresh-water distance swim, set up last year on Lake Ontario by Miss Bell, a 15-year-old Canadian girl, stated that the computed distance from the Taupo beach, at the foot of Tongariro Street, to the Trig Station on Motuoapa Peninsula, was 19-| miles. The course plotted for Miss Sweeney was from the Taupo Beach, close past the eastern side of Motutaiko Island, to a mark anchored south of Motuoapa Peninsula, the position of this mark having been fixed by Mr Cheai, and thence back to Taupo direct, passing to the west to Motatau > . Island. The distance covered by this course was 40 miles.

The point in Stump Bay fr >m which Miss Sweeney swam to Taupo last year was one whence the western ends of Motuoapa Peninsula and Motutaiko Island were in line, and the actual distance from there to the Taupo beach at Tongariro Street, said Mr Cheal, was 22* miles. The rnost accurate official map available for the whole area of the Lake, said Mr Cheal, was the Taupo County lithograph, an official publication of the Lands and Survey Department.