I’ve found a fairy, a horse and a coin and I’m now in the process of unlocking a pirate’s treasure chest with a key I’ve tracked down inside a book.
It took a lot of detective work to get this far, and I fear I’d have struggled somewhat if I hadn’t had a team mate to help me.
I’m playing an “escape game”, one of the many challenges on offer at aMAZEing places – a newly launched maze venture near Stonehaven.
With plans to bring the mobile maze to Broughty Ferry in the next few months, founder Gavin McGill says he has big ideas for the business, with special themed events taking place through summer.
“It takes the traditional challenge of finding your way through a maze and adds colourful and fun knowledge trails for kids as they go round,” he says.
“It also incorporates escape games inside the maze, where participants solve a series of clues and puzzles within a set time to find the key to escape.”
The maze is mobile and can be reconfigured so people face new tests every time they visit.
A major draw for children is finding the maze’s very own Minotaur, and drawing their version of the Greek mythological creature.
There are monthly murder mysteries, with characters stationed in and around the maze, and participants tasked with working out who is the killer.
Today, Gavin sets photographer Kim Cessford and I one of his “escape games”, which, he estimates, should take around 40 minutes.
Handing me a radio (in case we need help) and a sheet of clues, it seems we’re on a mission to gain access to the “spy room”.
To do this, we need five numbers, which, as we’ll find out, will form the combination to open the room’s padlock.
The first question is easy: which number planet are we from the sun? “The third, so that must be three,” pipes up Kim.
There’s a “welcoming man” at the start of the maze who has the number one next to a “help” sign, and we also need to work out “The Famous X” by Enid Blyton. Again, that’s simple – it’s five.
The other clues are slightly more difficult: “The horse must be getting dizzy; is this his number?” This turns out to be a colourful banner with a merry-go-round horse, with the number eight on its saddle.
The final clue – “at the end of the fairy maze, a present” – leads us to a banner with a purple fairy emblazoned on it, and the number six.
Punching in our five numbers to the padlocked spy room, we’re presented with a storage chest. Inside is a leather jacket, spy hat, locked box and another set of clues.
This is where it gets cryptic!
Between us, we manage to work out we need a key to open the box. To do this, we need some kind of code for a safe…which happens to be outwith the escape room.
On finding a coin within one of the jacket pockets, Kim cleverly deduces there’s Morse code imprinted on it, and once we’ve worked out the sequence for SOS (with a bit of help from Gavin via walkie talkie), we type it into the safe and open it.
Taking out a book with a key inside it, we use an ultraviolet torch hidden inside the jacket to illuminate the name “Sophie” within the pages.
We then use the letters of Sophie to twist open the combination lock of a cylindrical lockbox and take out a sheet of paper congratulating us!
Getting out of the maze proves more difficult that anticipated and we’re grateful when a young boy points us in the right direction.
Back at the start, Gavin tells us we finished the game in 43 minutes.
So what inspired Gavin, 48, to set up the fun venture?
Basically, he worked in the oil and gas industry for 30 years, took voluntary redundancy in May, and turned his passion for puzzles into a new career designing mazes.
“I’ve always loved puzzles, labyrinths and mazes and built the biggest formal hedge maze in Tenby in Wales in the 1990s,” he tells me.
“The idea of creating aMAZEing places was brewing for months and my main mission was to find a piece of flat land where I could let my imagination run wild.
“Stonehaven is a great base, but Broughty Ferry is on the cards, too.”
In the long term, Gavin aims to have more than 50 mazes operating across the country.
info
aMAZEing Places is designed to attract and entertain visitors of all ages and abilities. It’s currently operating beside Kirktown Garden Centre, Kirktown of Fetteresso, Stonehaven, but will move to Broughty Ferry in the next few months. Watch this space: www.amazeingplaces.co.uk
