New South Wales’s coastline is peppered with purpose-built rockpools where locals head for a sheltered sea swim. While some, like Sydney's Bondi Icebergs pool and Wylie’s Baths in Coogee, incur a fee, Newcastle's heritage-listed Bogey Hole is free to use.

A breathtakingly beautiful spot for a dip, it’s the oldest ocean swimming pool in Australia, having been painstakingly carved out of a natural rockpool by convicts in 1819 for the Commandant of Newcastle and soldiers to bathe in.

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