Escape Rooms, Cold Water Plunges and Springtime
16-23 March 2025
Hello!
Now that I’m back from some trips, I’ve had time to do a voiceover again! Those dulcet tones have returned baby!!!
This week, I’ll tell you about my trip on a very rural transport network, why I think the natural world is therapeutic, and my successes with solving magical puzzles.
All in all … yes.
Happy reading!
Now That I Think About It
The seasons help soothe my anxiety. I went through a phase of being really frightened about time and running out of time and making wrong choices. Then one day, I realised that the trees aren’t scared about the process of losing their leaves and that there is a wisdom in the way the world reacts to the shift in sunlight levels. I noticed that there is a lot of meaning to be gained from the seasons. A rhythm. Each one comes with both good and bad. Each one comes with a lesson. Isn’t that also the same for certain chapters of our lives too?
I can understand why the early philoposhers looked to nature to give them answers, because once I decided to look around me, I noticed all sorts of things. Next time you’re outside, watch the birds eating the pods off a tree, like what blue tits do to a willow branch. Their relationship with the tree is everything. The relationship we have to our environment is fundamental, but we’ve lost the messages somewhere along the way. Connecting back into this is what people mean by grounding, and it’s crucial to good mental health. It literally brings us back down to earth and out of the possiblities of the mind.
In the spirit of following the queues of your body and of nature, here’s a story I wrote a while back about staying inside during a storm. Sometimes the message of the season is to not do very much at all (winter) and if we fight too hard against that, I believe it’s damanging for us and the earth as a whole.
Now it is spring, can you feel it’s time to move again?
North Coast 500 - Inverness to Kinlochbervie
If the north west coast of Scotland was just a wee bit warmer, it would be the most popular tourist destination in Europe. We have the best beaches, the best people, the best scenery, the best food (okay that last one is a stretch) and best of all we have the stunning North Coast 500 route.
For a while now, I have been traveling to the north to explore and I have always gone by car. This takes around five hours from Aberdeen or six from Edinburgh, not including toilet or snack breaks. It’s a long way, but the scenery is phenomenal and it never gets old no matter how many times I see it. I’d heard there was a little bus service that would take you quite far north, and maybe it was my love for adventure programmes, but I thought it might be fun to see how far I could get using the very rural transport services.
My destination was Kinlochbervie, which can only be accessed by bus or car. My choices were to take a bus to Durness*, which passes through Kinlochbervie, from Inverness bus station or get the Wick train from Inverness and get off at one of the tiny stations that happen to also be along the bus route. I didn’t fancy doing the entire route by bus (although in hindsight this might have made more sense), so I gave the Wick train a go.
There is only one bus a day from Inverness to Durness so if you decide to get the train there is a bit of calculation required in order not to miss the bus and become stranded in the middle of nowhere. I aimed to get off at Ardgay station (pronounced Ard-guy: the train conductor had to correct me while I cringed in embarassement) because the train gets in around half an hour before the bus comes through. I then travel the last one and a half hours of winding roads up to Kinlochbervie by bus.
When I got off at Ardgay (guy) it was a very sunny but bitterly cold. It was a good journey, a tiny two carriage train with nice staff. Something about it reminded me of taking trains as a kid in the Welsh valleys. Maybe it was the remote-ness of it all. Everything seemed simpler, a nicer quality of service than the ususal trains I take when going to big cities.
Luckily for my frozen limbs the bus came exactly on time and was much fancier than I expected. It had charging points on the walls, contactless payments, and plush leather seats. The driver was super friendly and seemed to know everyone, pointing out her neighbours as we sped along the single track road. There was only two other passengers on the bus with me and it cost me £9.95. Banger.
All in all going by train and bus does make the journey more convoluted than by car, but if you fancy experiencing some of the beautiful views around some of the most rural train services in the country, I couldn’t recommend it more.
(Don’t worry this is not going to become a train themed newsletter.)
*Durness is a super cute seaside town with a craft village (you have to visit Cocoa Mountain), caves, sandy beaches, and a nice local shop. Down the coast a bit you can do a zipline across the beach. Very fun.
Consumption Corner
No spoilers, promise!!
Romeo and Juliet (1996, Baz Luhrmann) ☆☆☆☆☆
One of my favourite movies of all time. Flawless. I wish we had more Shakespeare remakes where the dialogue is exactly like the play. It makes the poetry jump off the screen. In fact, are there any other movies that do this at all?? Google did not tell me.
The Assassin’s Blade (2014, Sarah J Mass) ☆☆☆☆
Someone told me to read this book fourth in the Throne of Glass series for maximum impact and emotional damange and BOY WERE THEY RIGHT.
Department of Magic Escape Room, Edinburgh ☆☆☆☆
Accidentally booked the hardest escape room this place had available but we finished it with 16 seconds (!!!) to spare. We brewed potions, opened secret compartments, spoke ancient enchantments, and most of all defeated the dark lord! No biggie. If you’re a Harry Potter fan this is a must do. My ten year old neice absolutely smashed it.
Weekly Stats
Times my eyes hurt from reading or writing: 7
“Oh spring is coming!” : 5
Reeces peanut butter eggs : 2
Rage quits: 1 (Valorant)
Perfumes sampled: 4 (ew)
Clothing items to charity shop: 3
Next week on the rickleverse
I’m not going to tell you! It’s a surprise!! (truth: I don’t know yet)
See you then!
Love,
Rachael
