This week, we managed to visit a quirky new attraction in the city centre run by the same people who manage Edinburgh’s various escape rooms - axe throwing.
Located on Morrison Street, it used to be the well known cafe and community hub Noughts and Coffees until the pandemic forced them to close. Now, under the new brand “Game Of Throwing”, they have changed completely and now offer a quirky, competitive day out- and we decided to give it a try.
As soon as you walk in, you can see that the new business is starkly different from what came before. With lots of new wooden panelling and three axe throwing lanes.
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At the far end of the corridor when you walk in is the service desk where you can book yourself into the event and buy yourself a cold drink. You can still see the shadow of the former business in places, with Noughts and Coffee logos still peeking out from behind panelling in places.
The three lanes all have a wooden backboard, a floor of rubber chips and a machine programmed with a number of different games. The chips stop the axe from bouncing around when you miss and there are varied enough games to provide a lot of novelty and keep the pace going.
The games are, obviously, best tried with a group of friends when good natured banter can help ameliorate the fact that you are, probably, going to be quite bad at this. Each group is given a couple of hours of free throwing, the first fifteen minutes of which is taken up with an introductory tutorial from one of the staff.
The first thing I noticed when I had a go was that this was a real, heavy axe. An actual hatchet with some heft behind it and it left me feeling a little timid. I was worried that I would hurt someone else or myself with a botched throw.
However, you can be safe in the knowledge that you are going to be really, truly bad when you start.
It’s surprisingly tricky getting the spin right so the blade lands on the target and to throw it hard enough that it sticks in. It’s inevitable that your first few throws end up in the hatchet clattering onto the floor and leaving you feeling like a bit of an idiot.
Yet it only takes one good throw to get it right and when you do, you can’t help but start landing axes properly. It’s hard to describe the specific way in which it feels satisfying. The heavy “thunk” of the axe hitting the wood, the fact that you can see yourself getting a little better every time and the resistance when you pull the axe back out the target lights up some kind of ancient, caveman part of your brain. It’s very good.
After an hour or so, you’ve gone from barely able to make a shot to actually playing the games properly, trying to beat one another and shooting for a bullseye for bragging rights. It’s enough fun that you don’t notice that your arms are beginning to burn from chucking an axe around for the past hour.
Game of Throwing in Edinburgh is open on weekdays from 12pm- 10pm, Saturday from 10am-10pm and Sunday from 10am-8pm.
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