Merewether's Steve Weller records one thousand days straight of swimming around the world | photos

Weller, who is vice-president of the Mackerels swim club that meets every Sunday, at Merewether’s ocean baths, also admits the swimming quest that spanned for more than three years “wasn’t planned” until he was nearly in reach of the milestone.

“It actually started one day because I had a long meeting set for the day at work, and I didn’t want to miss out on a swim because of it,” Weller explained. “Even though it was winter I headed to the beach around 6am and just had a swim.”

“It ended up that I made the entire week swimming each day, and I began to stretch it out little by little, from a week to a month to a season, and eventually it became a 1000 day target for me to reach.”

While many of Weller’s daily swims took place at the ocean baths, or in the waves at Bar Beach, the water-lover also managed to have a dip in places like Singapore’s stop-over airport, Milan and even the glacial Lake Como in Lombardy.

“It was probably the most interesting swim I did in the three years,” Weller said. “I remember I had a chest infection, and we had a flight back [to Australia] later that day, but I headed to Lake Como and I couldn’t find a swimming spot straight away. Italy isn’t really known for its ease of swimming to be honest.”

Despite some of the more interesting challenges – including the gruelling early swim at Lake Como – Weller recorded his 1000th swim at the weekly Sunday meeting of the Mackerels, with his “swimming family” cheering him on for the massive milestone.

“It’s funny, really, because I was just doing it for the love of swimming and I didn’t even really tell anyone that I was doing it until the race was nearly run,” Weller said. “Or swam, I should say.”

“I also loved all the support I got from my wife, and from the club at the Merewether Baths [the Mackerels]. Everyone at the club is amazing, and it’s a real family that meets every Sunday morning.”

Despite most of the one thousand days of swimming being simply due to “a love of the water”, Weller admits he probably won’t aim for another three more years straight any time soon.

“I don’t think it’ll be as religious,” he laughed. “I head to China soon and that might be a little harder. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop swimming any less, it might just not be one thousand days in a row.”