Postcard from Braemar: wild swimming gets the five-star treatment

“Hello there,” said one of the hikers, half-hidden behind a tree on a grassy slope above us. He and his companion were looking down with some trepidation, perhaps concerned we might leap out of the water naked. It must have been a curious sight: three swimmers immersed in the Coca-Cola-coloured river, with a large circus-style bell tent erected on the bank next to a wooden hut emitting a steady plume of white smoke. The sky was glowering — hardly the sort of day that would make you want to go for a spontaneous dip. 

But this was anything but spontaneous: my husband and I were on a guided wild swimming trip, organised by the five-star Fife Arms hotel, in the Highland village of Braemar, just a 10-minute drive away. The hotel’s portable sauna trailer had been dropped off at a carefully selected spot in a clearing next to the gushing River Dee that morning; the bell tent had also been set up in advance, ready to welcome us with myriad treats. In preparation for our adventure, forest green Dryrobes had also appeared on our beds that day too. 

We were not naked, but we did leap out of the water very swiftly. A few minutes in the River Dee’s frigid water was plenty to merit a bankside dash into the wood-fired sauna. Here we sat with Annie Armstrong, our guide, and chatted in a typically manic post-cold-water-exposure fashion. 

Wild swimming has become so popular, particularly among middle-class, and largely middle-aged circles, that any mention can provoke instant eye-rolls. (“It was just called swimming until recently,” Annie, who grew up dipping in these waters, reminded us.) How, I wonder, will the eye-rollers react to the notion of “luxury wild swimming”, which, at £250 per person for two hours, this package being offered by the Fife Arms surely is. It is certainly an oxymoronic concept but one that, as a year-round outdoor swimmer, I was happy to test out. 

‘It was just called swimming until recently,’ Annie, who grew up dipping in these waters, reminded us

After a good thaw in the sauna box we made a dash into the bell tent. Here, sitting on sheepskins and an array of the Fife’s own-tartan blankets, we huddled around a small wood-burning stove as Annie brewed up a hot apple and whisky toddy. She then unwrapped a smorgasbord of local delights from thinly sliced homemade venison salami, to local Scottish cheeses — Clava Brie and Isle of Mull Cheddar — as well as plenty of oatcakes and grapes. It was mid-afternoon and we had not missed lunch — but it is amazing what momentary submersion in icy water can do for the appetite. Out came another platter of homemade crumbly shortbread and brownies, washed down this time with a neat nip of the Fife’s blended Scotch.

The hotel says it was prompted to offer the package by the number of requests from guests wanting to try their hand at wild swimming — often for the first time, an alarming thought for all concerned. So it teamed up with Annie, who had set up a nature-based experience company, Wild Braemar, to offer guests a variety of swimming experiences in local river pools and even nearby waterfalls. 

As a child, swimming in Scotland would entail a plunge — usually as a dare — into the North Sea at Carnoustie beach, or perhaps on a particularly hot day, a knee-high wade in a river followed by several hours shivering in the back of my father’s Vauxhall. Sitting shrouded in soft tartan in Annie’s cosseting bell tent, warmed from within, I realised it did not have to be so. Just as I felt a nap coming on, Annie roused us: one last dip and sauna before heading back. Out we headed.  

An art and taxidermy-filled former coaching inn, the Fife Arms is owned by Iwan and Manuela Wirth, co-founders of the Zurich-based gallery Hauser & Wirth. Since opening at the end of 2018, it has welcomed a steady stream of wealthy international art fans and well-heeled Scots to Braemar. For this village of just 400 inhabitants on the edge of Cairngorms National Park, it has been quite the boon.

Braemar is of course also known for the annual spectacle that is the Braemar Gathering (formerly known as the Highland Games). In summers past, my parents and my brother and I would drive up to the Games from Dundee. Passing the Spittal of Glenshee on the ridiculously scenic A93, we would look to see — even in August — if there was still a dusting of snow on the hills (not impossible). From Glenshee the narrow road hugs the glassy Clunie river to Braemar and then turns to trace the River Dee to Balmoral, the royal summer residence. 

The late Queen famously did not like to miss the Gathering. As children, my brother and I would perch on hay bales, only vaguely aware of the presence of HRH, and munch our way through soggy tomato baps as we watched kilted muscular men engage in formidable rounds of tug of war and other displays of raw masculinity such as tossing the caber. Luxury wild swimming admittedly seems a little lily-livered in comparison to such Herculean feats. 

Later, ensconced in the Fife’s Elsa Schiaparelli-themed cocktail bar, I feel extraordinarily relaxed. Quite chilly for this time of year, I say to the bartender, as we come to our senses over a “Shocking Pink”, a restorative mix of Fife Arms gin, cherry, sage, hibiscus and ginger. “Braemar often has the dubious honour of being the coldest spot in the UK,” he says with a smile. “It can snow here in June.” 

Back in London during a heatwave, a dip in my local lido, at 21 degrees, certainly does not warrant a sauna and afternoon whisky. I think longingly of the bracing Scottish summer, where you’re lucky if water temperatures break out of single digits. The thrill of wild swimming is, after all, in the chill of it.

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