Lake Canobolas was a popular weekend destination, judging by the number of vehicles in the carpark on Sunday, but I doubt it occurred to most people enjoying a walk in the winter sunshine to take a dip in the lake itself.

“What better way to celebrate being in nature and one of nature's phenomena, the winter solstice, that getting out and going for a swim,” said Nathan Cutter, who along with friend Harley Smith (and whoever else they convince to join them), has been marking Winter Solstice with a swim in the lake for the past four years.

“Orange has got a lot of great natural assets to enjoy and what we are doing, I suppose, is celebrating that and being aware of the natural cycle, that this is the shortest day of the year.”

“I thought we decided to do something stupid,” interjected Harley, who is also known to celebrate other less recognised holidays like No Pants Day, Two Different Coloured Shoes Day, Star Wars Day, Talk Like a Pirate Day, and International Ninja Day.

Winter Solstice swims are conducted all over Australia (even by Australians in Antarctica!) but one of the most well known is annual nude swim at the Dark Mofo Festival in Tasmania. “They nude up and we were not really into that,” said Harley, “but it is just generally doing something a little bit silly, something that tests your nerve and celebrates and embraces life.”

At 10.2 degrees Celsius the water temperature at noon on Sunday was actually warmer than the air temperature at the time although it appeared to be little consolation to the swimmers judging by the noises they made entering the water.

It still hasn’t deterred Nathan and Harley from planning for next year’s Winter Solstice swim and they are more than happy for others to join them.

“It is hard to convince people to go into cold water in the middle of winter but I'm sure more people would come if they were aware of it. We don't really publicise it, but maybe we should.” said Nathan

“You can't get much better than this! Today is a cracking day and what a beautiful setting we've got here!”