Tucked below Elkington Park on the Balmain foreshore, these are among the oldest surviving harbour swimming baths in Australia, opened in the 1880s and ringed by a timber boardwalk and changing sheds that look much as they did a century ago. The pool is the harbour itself, netted off against its inhabitants, with the water rising and falling on the tide.
The baths are named for Dawn Fraser, the Balmain-raised swimmer who won gold at three successive Olympics and learned to swim near here. Open through the warmer months, they are a wonderfully unpolished, local alternative to the ocean beaches — a swim with a view of the working harbour.