Taking the plunge

NEW ATTRACTION WHERE HOT SAUNAS, COLD BATHS AND CAMARADERIE COMBINE FOR AN EXPERIENCE THAT'S GOOD FOR BODY AND SOUL

- By LYNETTE PINCHESS [e-mail] @LynettePinchess

I LOVE a good hot bath. It's my favourite way to unwind at the end of a busy day. Failing that, a steaming hot shower. Cold water? No thank you.

Thinking back to Wim “The Iceman” Hof a few years ago, it gave me palpitations when his programme Freeze The Fear saw a number of celebrities immersing themselves in icy water.

So I don’t know why I agreed to visit a new attraction that combines a sauna with a plunge in cold water.

I've no worries over the sauna part. I've sat and sweated my socks off in a wooden cabin many times, although I've never understood why the Finnish ruin the ritual of a nice hot sauna by rolling in the snow afterwards. Each to their own.

Running through the essentials to take to Saunahood, the website lists a towel, swimming costume, flip flops and water bottle. The latter is to stay hydrated but it did cross my mind to take a hot water bottle to warm up afterwards.

I feel as rigid as a block of ice when I pull up at the site at Holme Pierrepont Country Park’s campsite, off Adbolton Lane, West Bridgford, for my first session of “contrast therapy” as it's known. The new venture opened six weeks ago.

Tucked away in a leafy green part of the park are two plunge steel baths in front of the sauna. “Don’t dip your hand in,” says founder Ellen Tobin as I go to test the water. “It'll put you off later.”

Ellen explains that contrast therapy simply means alternating between hot and cold environments, switching between the sauna that’s around 70-80°C and the plunge pools which are set at 10°C. That sets my mind at ease at little - at least it's not sub zero.