ROD Moore hasn’t yet reached the bottom in his marathon underwater walks.
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Three months after walking under Lake Macquarie from Marks Point to Belmont, Mr Moore is wading in again. Only this time, he will walk a section of one of the world’s most famous waterways, Sydney Harbour.
“The lake has been good to us, but ... I’ve got to go to the big smoke,” Mr Moore said.
“And the harbour is iconic.”
Mr Moore plans to walk underwater from the western side of Rose Bay to Rushcutters Bay on January 31.
It's not going to be a walk in the park
- Underwater adventurer Rod Moore
The journey will be roughly five kilometres. But Mr Moore said he couldn’t be sure how far he would have to walk, or how long it would take, until he was under the surface, negotiating whatever was down there, as he walked up to 100 metres from the shore in five to 10 metres of water.
“From the technical side and ease, it’s not going to be as easy as the last one,” Mr Moore said. “It’s not going to be a walk in the park.
“I’d love to walk across the harbour, but it goes down to 30, 40 metres, and that’s too much.”
Trailling him from the surface will be a support crew in a small boat. Just as they did during the lake walk, the crew members will feed air through a line to Mr Moore.
The underwater walker and his team are planning to communicate by using a small whiteboard, passed up and down on a rope. Mr Moore said he hoped the team would tell him when to stay out of the way of any traffic above.
It may be a different waterway, but one issue remains foremost in Mr Moore’s mind: sharks.
Once again, he will be wearing a homemade steel-mesh shark shield on his back, as well as an arm guard fashioned from a metal pipe. He is concerned that “a couple of bull sharks [may] come and pay me a visit”.
“I know there’s a healthy population down there,” he said.
The harbour stroll will take him past some of Australia’s most exclusive real estate on Point Piper and Darling Point. The Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull lives on Point Piper, and Mr Moore says he will briefly surface outside the PM’s home: “I want to say hello”.
When he did his lake walk in October, Rod Moore was recreating his own history. He did the same three-kilometre underwater journey from Marks Point 30 years earlier, as a 25-year-old.
With the latest lake walk, Mr Moore was fund-raising for a Balinese orphanage, and he said about $8000 was donated. The harbour adventure is about raising awareness for Kiwanis International service clubs, who contributed to his lake walk.
“He’s a very adventurous person to do it,” said Newcastle Kiwanis member and former governor of the organisation’s Australia District, Ken Archer.
“We’re very grateful that he’s doing this, because everything that puts our profile out there helps us.”
