Lifeline Canberra has a licence for tomorrow’s Winter Solstice Nude Charity Swim, to avoid the maximum penalty for indecent exposure – one-year imprisonment and a $3,200 fine.

So with legalities out of the way, at precisely 7.12am (crack of dawn) tomorrow, a couple of hundred brave souls will plunge into frigid waters to support Lifeline Canberra, which takes more than 40,000 calls a year (they only receive funding to answer 7,340 of those calls).

The all-important weather forecast makes for grim reading – a water temperature of three degrees Celsius (as of this morning).

Canberra’s Winter Solstice Nude Charity Swim (est. 2017) is a feat of human endurance, as even the year-round ACT Nudist Club (est. 1976) has a solar-heated swimming pool and wood-fired sauna. (On cold days the club has a sunroom and a slow-combustion heater to warm the recreation room).

The icy shores at Yarralumla Beach tomorrow will be an astronomer’s delight, with many full moons on display (one entrepreneurial skinny dipper once sold his bottom cheeks for advertising).

Candles will line the icy beach (not offering much warmth but plenty of ambience) and bonfires and coffee carts will be available to thaw out shivering swimmers. 

This is the eighth year the event has been held and it’s set to smash last year’s fund-raising tally of $35,000. Current donations have already reached $32,000 and according to Lifeline Canberra, corporate donations tend to double after the event. So far, 191 fearless people have registered for the winter solstice dip, however a late influx is expected today.

Traditionally, the purpose of the winter solstice dip is to wash away negativity and feel a sense of renewal for the upcoming solar year. Either that or hypothermia. 

Just ask 58-year-old public servant, Richard Ware, who has braved the swim six times.

“It’s more mental than physical,” the cross-country skier said. “One year I made the mistake of swimming out to the pontoons and getting out, which was the silliest thing to do because then I had to get back into the water to swim to shore.

“I find it gives me that boost in the middle of winter because Canberra winters are long and cold, you spend most of you time huddling indoors. This is just throwing off the shackles and saying I will not be bound by the dictates of the weather”.

Richard has raised almost $300 for the winter solstice swim this year, a much-needed boost for Lifeline Canberra.

On a single day last month, Lifeline received 4,200 calls nationally. The upward trend began during Covid lockdown and hasn’t stopped. On the first day of Covid lockdown, calls to Lifeline rose 40 per cent nationally, hitting 3,500 calls a day.

Register or donate here: wintersolsticeswim.com  Applications close 4pm today.