Remote Pools Project

Throwback to Unity College’s visit to Utju pool last year!

In Utju, when students graduate primary school, they can choose to apply to boarding school at Unity, as there’s no senior school in community.

It’s a big decision, as it means living nearly 20 hours (a 2,000km drive) away from home.

We’re really impressed with the genuine cross-cultural relationship Unity have established, because despite the big drive, Utju students have been attending Unity for more than 10 years now, with the biggest intake yet in 2026!

Part of this partnership includes a yearly, week-long visit to community for Unity students, which last year included a fair bit of time cooling-off at the pool 🐳

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Our pool in Utju is run in partnership with community, MacDonnell Regional Council and .



📸 1, 2, 3 thanks to Unity College

Throwback to Minyerri School’s visit to Ngukurr pool back in Term 4!

Minyerri is a ‘neighbouring’ remote community to Ngukurr, home to around 600 people. It was the school’s first time visiting Ngukurr pool since we’ve been operating it.

To come for swimming lessons, Minyerri students made the 5-hour round trip three days in a row! Believe it or not, Ngukurr is their closest swimming pool – it would’ve taken them an extra hour to go to Katherine. Big thanks to Katherine Coaches for driving the students 🚌

We loved having Minyerri and hope to see you again later this year!

~

Our pool in Ngukurr is run in partnership with community, Roper Gulf Regional Council and The Ian Potter Foundation. Our Term 4 swim lessons were run in partnership with Just Swimming.

📸 Thanks to Minyerri school

After two years, it’s bittersweet to finish our contract in Wadeye.

Our biggest thanks to community, for sharing your beautiful pool with us.

We really appreciate the OLSH Thamarrurr Catholic College staff for providing extra hands on deck when needed.

We’re grateful to West Daly Regional Council for giving us the opportunity to manage our most-remote pool yet. Wishing you the very best in managing the pool yourselves in this next chapter 💛

📸 By Roy Anderson, of the Wadeye school’s swimming carnival, and by Peppimenarti School, during their swim program last year.

“I needed something new and different in life and this has given me a much-needed break from the ordinary.”

– Georgina, volunteer swim teacher, 2025

Volunteering as a swim teacher with Remote Pools is about so much more than the swim teaching.

We’re now recruiting volunteers for our next season, for placements from October 2026 to March 2027.

Come take a break from the ordinary.

Applications close 11pm Sun 21 June.

To find out more, visit bit.ly/rpp-volunteer-apply

We finished up our fifth season at Utju pool back in March.

We’re really proud to have such an engaged local team, with Charmaine, Jessica, Veronica, Sharon, Joshua and Belinda all returning to work from past seasons.

Together with this season’s full-time staff, Matt and Michelle, our lifeguards supervised 4,816 entries over six months, which for a community of only 200 (give or take), is a highly used pool!

This year we increased our facility safety assessment score to 82, making Utju (at 25+ years old) a bronze-rated pool.

We continued to run our tried-and-true programs:
- Swim and Survive lessons for Areyonga School with volunteer Jackie, alongside regular free play
- Adult sessions, particularly popular with school and clinic staff
- Special splash parties throughout the school holidays, thanks to support from indigenous.gov.au

We’re better when we’re working together, so this season we were proud to host:
- Unity College during their annual visit to community
- Bruce Hopkins and the Float To Survive team for a water safety day
- Our friends at Red Dust, Reclink Australia and NT Health for community BBQs

It was a challenging end to the season, with severe flooding across Central Australia cutting Utju off for a fortnight – limiting community, staff and volunteer access, including our whole Term 1 swim program. But, part of the beauty of Utju is the sense of it being an oasis in remote and rugged country. It’s worth the bumpy roads and surprise rains 💛

Big thanks to community, MacDonnell Regional Council and and Budgy Smuggler for your support this season.

Volunteer with us!

To celebrate , we’re now accepting applications from experienced swim teachers who’d like to volunteer with us in Term 4 or Term 1.

Our volunteers experience 4 weeks of life in a remote Aboriginal community, with all travel and accommodation expenses paid.

We only open our volunteer recruitment once a year, and with just 14 placements available, please apply ASAP.

To find out more, visit https://bit.ly/rpp-volunteer-apply

At the end of March, we wrapped up our FIFTH season at the Ltyentye Apurte pool!

A big thank you to our multi-season Eastern Arrernte staff, Patricia (front and centre on our staff ‘album cover’), Terry and Malcolm. Their ongoing commitment and cultural authority at the pool make it a safer and happier place 💛

Safety was a key focus for the season, so we were super proud to increase our annual aquatic facility safety assessment score to 90! This score now makes Ltyentye Apurte a ‘silver-endorsed’ public pool, a huge effort for a 50-year-old facility in a remote location. Big thanks to this season’s full-time staff, Andrea and Claire, for their work on this.

Other highlights over the six months included…
- Recording 5,512 entries!
- Teaching swimming to Ltyentye Apurte Catholic School students with volunteers Robbie and Elly
- The school swimming carnival
- Throwing LOTS of splash parties thanks to funding from indigenous.gov.au
- Bruce Hopkins and the Float To Survive team’s first trip to community!
- Adult sessions at the pool (for some calm 🧘🏾‍♀️) and testing a few women’s-only nights
- A parliamentary visit by Jinson Anto Charls MLA, Marie-Clare Boothby MLA, Laurie Zio MLA and Clinton Howe MLA

Big thanks to community, MacDonnell Regional Council, and Budgy Smuggler for working with us through another season.

Two weeks ago we finished our third season in the Tanami Desert, at the beautiful Lajamanu waterpark.

The waterpark is our most youth-centred facility – it’s a place for kids to cool off, have some food, run around and then plonk down at the arts-table.

Over seven months, we recorded 7,531 visits!

For adults, the waterpark is a sought-after event space in community and this season we kept the park open and supervised for:
▪️ Yandamah Indigenous Corporation to host movie nights and a big jumping castle
▪️ Central Desert Regional Council to host their regular youth program and BBQs
▪️ Red Dog Builders NT to host a BBQ for Carlton footy legend, Matthew Cottrell
▪️ Northern Warlpiri Mozzie’s Football Club to host their meetings
▪️ Big Rivers Tackling Indigenous Smoking to host a health promotion event
▪️ Kalkaringi School, who brought their preschool and Transition students for an end of year celebration

Big thanks to our three local Warlpiri staff: Patricia, returning for her third year (📸 second to the right of Mattew Cottrell), Alarna, returning for her second year (📸 Land Rights News) and Ronson (📸 cooking up a roo tail for the kids over the Term 1 holidays).

And big thanks too to our full-time staff, Dan and Connie, for a great season, and for remaining so committed through challenges with accommodation and road access!

We can’t wait to be back later in the year, for YEAR-ROUND operations moving forward 🥳

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Our waterpark in Lajamanu is run in partnership with community, the Lajamanu GMAAAC committee and Central Land Council.