Nestled deep in the Devon countryside, the Dart10k started out as an ambitious idea to share the joy of outdoor swimming. Now it’s an iconic event that helped shape a movement and continues to inspire swimmers around the world.
On a dark, stormy night in October 2005, Kate Rew and Kari Furre lay awake in their B&B in the Lake District, discussing how to encourage more people to swim outdoors. The pair had just returned from a night swim in Buttermere, which would go on to spark not only a close friendship but also an iconic event.
‘At the time,’ Kate says, ‘swimming outdoors felt like a secret – rivers, lakes and lidos were all around us, but most people saw them as off-limits: cold or unsafe. The joy I felt swimming in these places was something I wanted to share. Setting up an event was a way of inviting people in, helping them cross the threshold.’
‘Whenever we swam, people used to shout from the shore: “Are you doing this for charity?” Back then, river and lake swimming were so unusual that a charity challenge seemed like the only explanation for us bobbing past them. And I thought – you know what? – that’s exactly what I should do: dare people to swim for a good cause.’
The resulting event, Breastrokes, was a one-mile swim in Windermere and the Serpentine. Starting in 2007, the event ran for the next two years, attracting media interest and raising thousands for breast cancer research. ‘It’s hard to imagine,’ Kate says, ‘but people used to do all their training in pools and then come to the event for their first experience of swimming in an actual lake. For many people at that time, just the act of getting into a river or lake felt daring enough, like a step into the unknown.’
Kate soon wanted to expand, inspired by the introduction of marathon swimming at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. ‘I wanted to start a mass 10k swim,’ she explains. ‘That hadn’t been done before. There were local swims, there were club swims, but there were no public 10k swims – events for anyone, from anywhere.’
I wanted to start a mass 10k swim. That hadn’t been done before. There were local swims, there were club swims, but there were no public 10k swims – events for anyone, from anywhere.
Kate returned to the Lake District, Ullswater this time – the perfect length for a 10k. But a month before the swim, Kate’s water safety team pulled out – this was a new swim concept, after all – and soon after that, her charity partner got cold feet and followed.
‘At this point, I had 300 swimmers and nowhere to swim. I had to make it work – but where? I called Kari, who said, in that wonderful Kari way: “Oh, well, you know, the other day I went for a swim down the Dart. It was really rather wonderful. Have you thought about that?” And so, forget the Lake District, I got in the car and set off for Devon.’
Over the next couple of weeks, Kate somehow found a new water safety team and secured permission from both the Harbour Master and various event sites to hold a public swim, the first of its kind. Kate can see my surprise. ‘It does sound crazy, doesn’t it? Sometimes you look back and ask: How did I do that?’
For anyone unfamiliar with the Dart10k, swimmers start at Totnes, a quirky Devon town in the southwest of England, before swimming down the many long twisting meanders into a wide stretch of river with rolling hills and oak forest on both sides. The swim often becomes the focus of long weekends spent in Devon, with cliff walks, pubs, secret coves and river pools to explore.
‘It’s escapism and adventure,’ says Kate. ‘There’s a deep satisfaction that comes from doing something hard, but it’s also a route that connects you with the landscape. For the duration of that swim, you’re immersed in trees, weather, swimmers and sky. Even the water changes, becoming more brackish as you approach the coast.’
Word soon got out. There were 400 swimmers the next year and 800 after that. Swimmers started to come from all over Europe, Canada, America, even Australia. ‘We started to sell out faster than Glastonbury,’ says Kate. ‘We used to increase our server capacity each year but it was never enough. At 7am on ticket release day, there was always a battle of the broadband to get your hands on a ticket.’
But these early years were an important time for the new outdoor swimming movement in the UK. The Dart10k became a meeting place for swimmers. ‘When movements start out, it’s possible for everyone to know everyone,’ Kari says. ‘People would say: have you met this person? Have you met that person? Relationships began to form as people lugged things around at 5am. Everyone had a role: directing traffic, driving cross-country for pasties, masterminding hot chocolate for 800.’
‘Soon we had a group of regional reps using Facebook to set up social swims in their area,’ Kate says. ‘This was the seed that, in time, would pollinate the hundreds of swim groups up and down the UK.’
Among the local swimmers who came to the Dart10k, Kate met Lynne Roper who helped start the Survive section of The OSS website to share knowledge about swimming outdoors. ‘Everything we now know about how to be an outdoor swimmer was only just starting to emerge,’ says Kate. ‘Cold shock, afterdrop, acclimatisation, swimming in chop: these were all new concepts back then.’
Kate also met Jonathon Joyce, who helped develop a wild swim map which would prove extremely popular in the years to come, sharing thousands of swim spots with millions of people all over the world. Another early attendee, Sophie Pierce, went on to write a local swim guide (and then many more), while Pauline Barker – the Devon & Cornwall Regional Rep – would go on to become a founding figure in the UK’s new ice-swimming movement.
‘The Dart10k emerged from our core values: adventure, challenge and joy,’ says Kate. ‘We created a space for the outdoor swimming community to evolve. But we didn’t foresee just how far these ripples would spread.’
When did the Dart10k become a two-day fixture? ‘We were reluctant to turn it into a weekend event for ages,’ Kate says. ‘I wanted everyone to arrive, swim and celebrate at the same time – everyone to feel part of the same emotional arc. But there were just so many people missing out that we decided to try a two-day event, with 1,600 swimmers in total.’
‘I’m so glad we did that,’ Kate says, with a big smile on her face. ‘People just turned it into a weekend trip. They’d swim one day and then either volunteer or go off and explore Devon the next.’ The new two-day format also meant that, for the first time, Kate could actually swim the Dart10k for herself. ‘I could never swim it during the event before then. I always had to be available in case something happened.’
What do you remember from that first swim? ‘There was a moment,’ Kate recalls, ‘when I was coming around Sharpham Bend, surrounded by confident, capable swimmers. I just felt this incredible rush. Our confidence, abilities and knowledge in the water had come so far in such a short space of time. It was amazing to think: None of this was here before. We had built it; they had come!’
The ethos of the Dart10k celebrates community and shared experience over competition or commercialism. ‘We always billed it as a journey – not a race,’ says Kate. ‘We fostered a considerate attitude to your fellow swimmers, the opposite to what goes on at most triathlons!’
The Dart10k is more than a nice day out. ‘The day is actually quite a small part of it,’ Kate explains. ‘10k is a marathon distance, and just like running a marathon, swimming one takes months – if not years – of practice. To do a swim like that, you’ve probably had to reorganise your whole life. By the time you reach the start line, you’ll have discovered new habits, new friends, new places to swim. It’s not like you just turn up, swim, then go home. If you’ve never done it before, the Dart10k will change your life.’
Kate knows just how much this change can mean to people. ‘Running it wasn’t always rosy! We started out as 300 swimmers and became a weekend event for 1,600. The bigger it got, the more complex the logistics became. Dealing with huge numbers of people, in the pouring rain, there were always going to be tricky moments. But people would run up to me, take my hands and tell me how this event had changed their lives. To which I’d reply: it’s changed mine too! Strangers would send postcards and heartfelt letters. Swimmers even used to tell me about friends who’d been buried with their Dart10k swim caps.’
If you’ve never done it before, the Dart10k will change your life.
In the years following that fortuitous night swim in the Lake District, Kate set up the Dart10k, the Bantham Swoosh – an exhilarating 6km swoosh along the Avon Estuary in Devon – and the Hurly Burly – a wet, wild and fast-paced 10km down the Afon Mawddach in Wales.
This trio of events had long been at the heart of The Outdoor Swimming Society’s mission to inspire swimmers with adventure, challenge and joy. ‘But in 2022, after 14 years of hard work to nurture these events,’ Kate says, ‘I wanted to go back to writing and decided the time had come to pass these swims onto the dedicated team at Level Water who could not only uphold the ethos of the swims but also ensure the events continue to attract new swimmers and do the most amount of good, helping build a future in which everyone can enjoy the freedom of swimming.’