Wild Ember Bothy, Kenmore — A Woodland Sauna Experience at Loch Tay

We arrived at Wild Ember Bothy in Kenmore and parked at the Scottish Crannog Centre. Beside the loch, a Roman re-enactment group had set up camp. Full costumes, tents, the lot.

Not what we were expecting on the way to a sauna.

Arriving at Wild Ember Bothy

We weren’t entirely sure where to go once we’d parked, so when we spotted a couple walking through the car park who looked as though they’d just come from the sauna, we asked them for directions. They pointed us towards a wee woodland path that led down into a clearing beside the loch.

It was only a minute’s walk, but finding the sauna tucked away among the trees was a lovely surprise.

The owner was there to welcome us, along with his Bernese Mountain Dog, who was more than happy to be clapped for a good few minutes before we headed in.

The setup was simple but really well thought out. A wood-fired sauna faced the loch, with a changing yurt beside it that had tree-stump seats and a clothes rack. A second yurt was used for yoga and other events, while outside, tree stumps were arranged in a circle for sitting and chatting.

The sauna and cold water

The sauna had a large window facing straight out to the loch.

Outside, there was a metal plunge bath filled with loch water, which I ended up using three times during the session.

We also went into the loch itself. The shoreline was pebbly and uneven, so sandals are a good idea, and you’d need to wade out quite a bit to reach deeper water. We were told the depth varies depending on the time of year.

The group and the conversation

There were five people in total during our session. It was just my fiancé and me, a young couple in their early twenties, and the yoga instructor who’d just finished a session in the yurt before we arrived.

Everyone was local apart from us, and the conversation started in the sauna before continuing afterwards over herbal tea, sitting on the tree stumps outside.

The yoga instructor told us about the yoga and safari retreats she runs in Africa, while the young man from the couple explained that he worked at nearby Taymouth Castle, helping out with jobs around the estate.

They talked about how lucky they felt to have a sauna like this on their doorstep and mentioned a session they’d been to during the winter, sitting in the sauna while snow fell outside. Sitting in a hot sauna while snow fell outside sounded pretty appealing. The cold plunge afterwards, maybe less so.

They also told us about The Hills of Aberfeldy by Ed Sheeran, which was written after he spent time in the area with his friend and collaborator Foy Vance.

One story that really made us laugh involved a regular who lives on the other side of the loch and occasionally arrives at the sauna by jet ski. For somewhere so quiet and tucked away, it’s quite an entrance.

The owner joined us too and said one of the things he enjoyed most about the job was that, as he put it, “Nobody turns up to a sauna looking for a fight.”

The next group never arrived, so we stayed a little longer, and nobody seemed to be in any rush to leave.

After the session

After we eventually said our goodbyes, we drove along to Taymouth Marina for lunch, still talking about the sauna session.

By the end of it, we were both saying the same thing, what a nice place Kenmore must be to live. The people were lovely, and we could have sat and listened to their stories all morning.