It's going to be a long, long swim in board shorts.

The conditions were perfect for the running of the fourth annual Lake Glenbawn Classic by Scone Swimming Club on Australia Day. A total of 131 swimmers took to the picture-perfect waters of Lake Glenbawn in 1 km, 3 km or 5km events. While our coastal cousins strived in the brisk waters of Newcastle Harbour the country stalwarts enjoyed a beautiful balmy lake swim in the Upper Hunter Valley. Some swimmers wanted the “best of both worlds” travelling from the Palm Beach swim the day before to present themselves bright and early for a swim in fresh water the following morning.

About 50 per cent of swimmers were local, but others travelled from Sydney, Newcastle and other parts of NSW to compete. The youngest swimmer was 8 years old, the oldest 70. Some swimmers were seasoned open water veterans. For others it was their first try at swimming in open water - a real challenge to start 2009.

Overall winner of both the 1 km and 5 km swims in a very impressive display of endurance and stamina was 17yo Haydn Sawtell from Sydney. The winner of the 3km event was John Nicholls 48y from Alstonville.

For full results and photo gallery please visit the website.

A new event this year was the Masters’ Challenge. A team of 10 “coastal” swimmers from Lake Macquarie (ages adding up to at least 500 years) challenged a team of “country” (mainly Scone) swimmers to swim in two open water events (firstly the 1 km Lake Glenbawn Classic and then the Lake swim at Lake Macquarie on 1st March).  The winner will be the team with the lowest combined time for the two events. After the running of the first leg on Australia Day the teams are neck and neck. The coastal team had a combined time of 213 min 41.14 sec. The country team’s total was 208 min 48.50 sec. The return leg at Lake Macquarie will be keenly contested in March. 

We would love to see even more entries next year. Consider swapping the challenge of rough water for that of swimming in fresh water!

Note: This report was sent to us by Debbie Racklyeft, of Scone Swimming Club. We tried to email Debbie back on several occasions to let her know that we'd received the pics and the report, but all our emails bounced back with the message that her email inbox was "over quota". This always happens to us when we attempt to email Debbie, as we have on many occasions. So, if you're reading this Debbie, we have tried repeatedly to get you, but never with success, it seems. But we do appreciate your contributions, and please keep them coming: os.c

Getting ready.

Water safety.

And they were never seen again ...

... Yes, they were!

	Fried eggs for all!
	Haydn Sawtell won both the 1km and the 5km swims.
	Judging: Just change the 2 to a 1, would you, dear ...

Starter.

"Anyway, I said to Madge, 'Madge,' I said, 'I want a colour that's really something special. A colour that's out there ... on the cutting edge, the frontier of cosmetics in Scone ... So, what do you think? ,,,"

"Yeah ... er... nice ..."

Chilled mangoes for all!