iI am currently in the Western Queensland town of Blackall running Bronze Medallion, First Aid and Pool Lifeguard training programs. There are people here from all across outback Queensland - including many towns that I have never heard of before. But they all have swimming pools (these days - not in the past), so they need trained staff to run them and to supervise their patrons.

The pool here is very good indeed. It gets it water from the Great Artesian Basin, which means that it comes out of the ground at 55 degrees C. They have to cool it down before it gets into the pool!

It has been quite an education for this city boy who has never been west of the Great Divide in Queensland before. Out here, there are many difficulties including poor mobile phone and internet coverage and a lack of facilities that we in the cities take for granted. Some of my students have driven for many hours on dusty roads to get here. But they are committed and desperate to receive their training. I will appreciate my post swim (in the sea!) coffee shop breaks much more when I get back.

Now that our Montenegro swimming tour is over, our European swimming touring season has come to an end. Both Montenegro and the week before's to Lake Constance were just fabulous. Now I am taking a bit of R&R elsewhere in Europe until I head off to Oz next week. Here is a shot of our contingent in Montenegro.

Today we swam in Montenegro's Blue Cave AND we swam in a WW2 German submarine pen. Woohoo!!!