Australian Financial Review

Move over pubs, socialising has moved to the steam room

Rob Dempster-Smith, meanwhile, has started Sydney-based Cedar & Salt, a portable traditional Finnish sauna available for one-hour bookings in places like Q Station, in Manly, Sydney, and Byron Bay’s Sun Ranch. Its next scheduled stop is the Wild for Wilderness music festival in Glenworth Valley on the Central Coast.

Dempster-Smith agrees that luxury bathhouses are becoming social hubs, but says the experience doesn’t have to be expensive. “We want to make sauna culture accessible to everyone. We generally choose beachside locations so you can heat up for 10 to 20 minutes, rest or swim in the ice-cold surf or river, then back it up with another one or two rounds. We opt for natural settings – by oceans, rivers, lakes or in the bush.”

Drawing inspiration from the sauna cabins that dot the coastline of Finland and other Nordic countries, Cedar & Salt is crafted from New Zealand materials. A second will be operational in coming months.

“The cultural and social aspects of sauna are ingrained into northern European culture,” says Dempster-Smith, attributing the growing interest in Australia to popular podcasters such as Joe Rogan, Andrew Huberman and Susanna Soberg, who wax lyrical about the health benefits of regular, deliberate hot and cold exposure.

Despite the bathhouse building boom, Dempster-Smith says accessibility is holding sauna and bathing culture back in Australia. “In Finland, there are over three million saunas for a population of over 5.5 million. In Sydney’s northern beaches, there’s one sauna for every 44,000 persons, with the majority in gyms that require a contractual membership to access.”

He remains hopeful the new wave of sauna-bathing in Australia will grow. “It’s nice to find new ways to socialise that don’t involve going to a pub.”

Written By: Eugenie Kelly

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