We drove back through Ullapool after dropping Annes daughter at work, and began the drive to Loch Maree, there are times when I question the sanity of driving for hours for a short dip. But its more than the swim, it’s the drive it’s the friendship, its providing a space dedicated to a shared social experience and its important. Its important to bring value to what makes you happy and I am more than willing to travel the length and breadth of the country to experience dipping in different bodies of water. However, I did feel a little guilty that I had dragged my non swimmy friend along and she was having to do the driving!! But we needed a catch up and it gave us the time and space to blether away without much of a care.
The drive is stunning and on a blue-sky day views for miles seep into your eyes, its just a magnificent area and no amount of photographs can really show how that feels. Loch Maree is just past Gairloch when travelling from the Ullapool side. It feels a long way from anywhere but it is so worth it. As we drove through the mountains the loch came into view, it’s the fourth largest freshwater loch in Scotland at over thirteen miles long and at its widest point two and half miles across. It is home to a number of wooded islands. Fun fact: one of the islands in Loch Maree has an island which contains a loch, that loch contains an island itself!!
Isle Maree is believed to hold the remains of a chapel that is thought to be the 8th century hermitage of the Saint Mael Ruba who founded a monastery in Applecross in 672. The loch is thought to be named after him.
The road is lined with thick trees once you pass Gairloch, and so in the summer it is not easy to see the loch from the road. You can however see the mountain Siloch in the distance, it absolutely commands your attention. We missed the car park that the loch can be accessed from at Slattadale, we should have turned back and tried it, but instead we found an access spot just off the road. There is an old parking area that is now blocked off with stones and we walked through the thick trees and I found a path down quite a steep bank to the Loch. It was very rocky around the edge and so I did need my swim shoes,….but as I was on my own swimming, and it was so protected by trees this one became one of my skinny dip lochs. The water was sharp, in reality the temperature was the same as Loch Assynt but it felt fresh, it felt sharp but it was such a relaxing place to be. Despite the huge expanse of water, I did not feel overwhelmed or intimidated, I was just in my happy place.
In folklore and the writing of Thomas Pennant in 1772 he recorded that being submerged in the waters of Loch Maree was a cure for lunacy. Now maybe they did not use words that we like to hear today, but being submerged in cold water in nature is definitely good for my mental health! So I think he was on to something.
It was a swim that lasted around fifteen minutes but it has impressed itself upon me and will stay with me much longer than that. There is so much to read about Loch Maree, its all very fascinating, to think of all those throughout history that have bathed and swum in its waters, its almost as if the ghosts of the past were swimming along with me. They freshened me, supported me and I came out feeling so good.
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