8th August 2026
Forget Mars. If you really want to understand what it means to be stranded far from essential services, try living in Caithness and being told your appointment is in Inverness.
Welcome to The Martian: Caithness Edition.
You have not been abandoned on another planet.
You have merely been told that your hospital appointment, specialist consultation, examination, meeting or other essential service is in Inverness.
The similarities, however, are remarkable.
Both situations require careful planning.
Both involve considerable distances.
Both require you to take supplies.
And in both cases, getting home can be more complicated than getting there.
Mission Control has spoken
Your mission begins with a simple message:
"Your appointment is in Inverness at 10.30am."
To someone living in Inverness, this might be regarded as mildly inconvenient.
To someone in Caithness, it is the beginning of a logistical operation.
First, determine the time of the first available bus or train.
Then work backwards.
Allow for possible delays.
Allow for roadworks.
Allow for weather.
Allow for the possibility that the service you are using doesn't actually get you there in time.
Then consider the return journey.
And suddenly a 10.30am appointment has become a full-day expedition.
Pack provisions
In The Martian, Mark Watney has to carefully manage his food supplies.
The Caithness traveller has a simpler problem.
Have you packed sandwiches?
Because there is a strong possibility that you will be away from home for considerably longer than expected.
Breakfast.
Travel.
Appointment.
Waiting.
More waiting.
Possibly another appointment.
Travel home.
By the time you get back to Caithness, the humble packed lunch has become an essential piece of survival equipment.
And unlike NASA, nobody is sending you a resupply mission.
The sealed transport capsule
There is another similarity.
The Martian has to live inside carefully controlled environments because Mars isn't particularly welcoming.
The Caithness traveller has a slightly different problem.
They need a warm, dry, comfortable transport capsule capable of travelling a considerable distance through the Highlands.
This might be called a car.
Or a bus.
Or a train.
And this is where the mission becomes interesting.
If you are travelling in winter, the capsule needs:
heating;
food;
water;
warm clothing;
a working toilet somewhere along the route;
reliable communications;
and preferably a driver who knows where they are going.
You might even want a blanket.
NASA probably has similar requirements.
There is one major difference
Mark Watney knows he is stranded.
The Caithness resident sometimes discovers it gradually.
First you discover that the service you need isn't available locally.
Then you discover that it is available in Inverness.
Then you discover the appointment is at an inconvenient time.
Then you discover the public transport options.
Then you discover that getting there is possible.
Getting home is the difficult bit.
This is the point at which the Caithness resident begins looking suspiciously like an astronaut.
Distance isn't measured in miles
This is something people outside the far north can easily underestimate.
The distance between Caithness and Inverness isn't simply the number of miles on a map.
It is measured in:
time.
money.
weather.
transport availability.
fatigue.
lost working time.
fuel.
food.
And sometimes accommodation.
For someone who is elderly, disabled, unwell or dependent on public transport, the journey can become considerably more difficult.
A service that is technically "available" in Inverness isn't necessarily easily accessible to somebody living in Wick, Thurso or a more remote rural community.
The Inverness solution
There is nothing wrong with Inverness.
Indeed, Caithness needs a strong regional centre.
The problem is what happens when more and more services are concentrated there.
Every individual decision can make sense.
A specialist service needs enough patients to justify providing it.
A particular facility may be too expensive to operate in a smaller population centre.
A shortage of specialist staff may mean centralisation is unavoidable.
From the perspective of an administrator looking at a spreadsheet, the solution can appear perfectly reasonable.
From the perspective of the patient looking at the map, it can look rather different.
"Your service is available"
can mean
"Your service is available — if you can get to Inverness."
The Martian's greatest advantage
There is one thing Mark Watney has that Caithness residents sometimes lack.
He has Mission Control.
When something goes wrong, he can communicate with a team of experts whose entire purpose is helping him solve the problem.
The Caithness traveller has to solve quite a lot of the problem themselves.
How do I get there?
When do I leave?
Where do I park?
Can I use public transport?
Where can I eat?
What happens if the appointment overruns?
How do I get home?
What if the train is cancelled?
What if the weather changes?
What if I need to stay overnight?
These aren't theoretical questions.
They are part of the journey.
And then there is the cost
A service being technically available doesn't mean that accessing it is cost-free.
There is fuel.
Parking.
Public transport fares.
Food.
Potential accommodation.
And, for somebody working, potentially a day's lost earnings.
For an individual visit that may be manageable.
For somebody requiring repeated appointments, it can become a significant burden.
And that is where the argument about rural equality becomes more complicated.
Caithness isn't asking for a hospital on Mars
Caithness residents aren't demanding that every specialist service imaginable should be available on their doorstep.
Nobody expects Wick to have every facility available in Glasgow, Edinburgh or Aberdeen.
But there is a legitimate question about how many services can be removed or centralised before distance itself becomes a barrier to accessing them.
That is the point many people in Caithness have been trying to make for years.
The return journey
Eventually, the appointment is over.
Mission accomplished.
You have survived the journey south.
Now comes the final challenge.
Getting back to Caithness.
If the appointment has run late, the carefully planned transport timetable may no longer work.
The traveller begins checking departures.
Then checking again.
Then checking the weather.
Then wondering whether there is enough food left in the bag.
At this point, even Mark Watney might be thinking:
"Perhaps I should have stayed on Mars."
A serious point beneath the joke
The humour works because the underlying issue is real.
For people living in remote communities, access to services cannot be measured simply by whether the service exists somewhere in the region.
It should also consider how difficult it is to reach that service.
A specialist appointment in Inverness is not equivalent, in practical terms, to the same appointment being available locally.
The difference is the journey.
And for some people, that journey is a minor inconvenience.
For others, it can be a major obstacle.
Welcome home, astronaut
Eventually you arrive back in Caithness.
The mission is complete.
The supplies have been consumed.
The transport capsule has returned safely.
You have travelled approximately 100 miles each way for an appointment that may have lasted half an hour.
You are tired.
You are hungry.
And you have another appointment in Inverness next month.
Welcome to the Caithness space programme.
NASA has Mars.
Caithness has Inverness.
And perhaps the biggest difference is this:
NASA is trying to find ways of bringing people back from Mars.
Caithness residents are still asking whether some essential services could be brought a little closer to home.