Open water swimming hits film fest
A film about an open water swimming challenge dreamed up by Queenstown-based swimmers will be featured in the NZ Mountain Film Festival this year.
The Lake Attack challenge is the brainchild of keen open-water swimmers Marijn Wouters and Paul Jaquin from the Southern Lakes Swimming Club.
The challenge invited people from across the country to join in an attempt to swim every named lake on the South Island.
Each year, the Queenstown-based social club competes with the Wānaka Lake Swimmers Club in a series of fun challenges to get more swimmers into the lakes and explore a different side of the sport.
"We've had lots of fun challenges over the years, like Swim Scrabble, where swimmers gained points, based on Scrabble letter scores, for swimming named bays and lakes," Jaquin says.
"But this year, we decided to do something different and open the challenge to everyone."
Wouters created a website detailing the swim safety rules and an interactive map where swimmers could record their swims. The challenge officially opened on Christmas Day 2022 and soon sparked a series of adventurous swimming missions across the South Island.
"Open water swimming has grown in popularity since Covid, but it’s easy to get into the habit of swimming in the same place and for things to get repetitive," Jaquin says. "We wanted to invite experienced open water swimmers to stretch their horizons and to explore what the South Island’s lakes had to offer."
Marijn Wouters and Paul Jaquin
New Zealand swimming record holder Liana Smith embarked on an epic three-day solo tramping mission over multiple mountain passes to swim in Lake Unknown.
Nelson swimmer Joanne Brewin notched up 35 swims in different lakes in just four months, saying: "It is super fun and rewarding, taking us to some seriously beautiful places that we probably wouldn’t have found if it wasn’t for this Lake attack challenge."
Swimmers braved icy conditions and dodged swarms of eels. Some went to extreme lengths to reach the lakes – tramping for days, kayaking and paddle boarding, and even chartering a float plane to reach a remote lake in Fiordland.
The Lake Attack challenge has also highlighted water quality issues, with swimmers writing in to say which lakes they felt had poor water quality and which were deemed unswimmable due to pollution.
To summarise the five-month-long challenge, Wouters has directed and shot a ten-minute film, following some of the Queenstown-based swimmers involved as they tramped, ran and flew to unique lakes in the region.
The film, ‘Out of the Pool and Into the Wild’, has been selected for the NZ Mountain Film & Book Festival and will premiere on Sunday, 25 June in Wānaka.
"The film sums up the spirit of the challenge and the many swimmers who took part. It really shows how people came together to explore this unique side to the South Island’s great outdoors and to take a sport they love to new horizons," Jaquin says.
Southern Lakes Swimming Club is a social open-water swimming club founded in 2016 by swim enthusiasts in Queenstown, New Zealand.
Visit www.lakeattack.co.nz to find out more.
Fast Facts
Total number of lakes on the map: 356
Number of unique swims: 269
Number of lakes swum so far: 93
Most swims: Joanne Brewin with 35 swims
Longest swim: Sue Beale with 23.6km
