31 January 2018
The last team to start, we set a blistering pace across the hillside,
only to lose a team member who disappeared in a bog. We then discovered
what every rock climber already knows, it’s always possible to make your
surroundings match the description. Running down and up the wrong
forest looking for a birch tree wasted precious hours. Heading for the
other forest we finally found our first treasure. The next involved a
sequence of bearings which we followed spot-on although I have to say
the gate was very well hidden in the dark and neck-high gorse. More
treasure! The next clue took us to a grid reference and said the
treasure is on a mound. But there was no mound (the grid ref was
wrong!). So we picked a mound (Black Hill) and headed up it. Good
choice, our final clue! But not before literally climbing up vertical
waist-high snow-covered heather. A well deserved treat at the top then
we ran all the way to the final point on Dunsinane Hill to meet Dom and
Amy. Standing on top watching the headlights of all the other teams was
magical.
- Report by Andrew
Darkness rendezvous, teams, torches phones map, directions, snow, bog,
wall crossings, single trees, lone gates, pacing, bearings, gorse, climb
the mound, plastic tubs, stream crossings, summit celebrations,
chocolate dinner, late finish, FUN.
- View from Paul
First out of the blocks we set a brisk
pace, following the track in the forest to a junction and then took the
left instructed, after a while we started to doubt ourselves as we came
across a loch and 2 other teams clues; resisting the urge to scoff their
chocolates we carried on the trak until we found a gate as expected,
except it wasn’t “the” gate. we decided that as nothing fitted we’d
track down dom or amy and query the clue, however Amy had started to
track us down as we hadn’t reappeared at the start point quickly as out
first clue was about 500m for the start on the right hand fork of the
first junction, of course there were sweets with out next clue and that
solves everything. 🙂
Next we set off over the road and into the
hills taking us into the pass between Dunsinane and Black hills before
hopping to the left the wall Jim appeared telling us of another error in
that clue, as he and Natalia had it as their First, ignoring Jim we
hopped over the wall before eventually seeing the forest we expected to
find over to our right, after a bit of a bog trot we were back on the
path beside the wall and walking down the outside edge of the forest as
instructed, on re-reading I realized this error as it told us to meet
the other leg of the forest where we eventually found the stile and the
next sweers and clue.
Onto more technical clues rather than
descriptive and we sat on the stile and worked out the route from a set
of bearings and distances, a lone tree appeared with a biscuit tin in it
and more sweets 🙂
Now we had a grid reference, my first
attempt at getting it on the map was off, either because the print out
was off scale or because I accidentally read the 1:50k scale on my
compass, or possibly both, who knows. I repeated it on my paper map and
found the point just off the summit of Black hill, some lights were
ascending straight ahead so with a bearing set on my compass and on
daniella’s gps we set off on a yomp straight up the hill, as we started
climbing the hill for real it proved a bit steeper than anticipated but
we ziggzagged and heather hopped up to the top, where the bearing
pointed straight down the cliffs… Must be somewhere on this ridge
path, I took a stab that the best bet was a slight error on reporting
the summit of the hill and there under a rock was our final pack of
sweets…. except it was oat cakes!!!
Tired and just past the
bail out time we decided not to bother with Dunsinane as we were told to
go up (had it been a clue maybe we would have!) and went back to the
car to scoff the sweets that had miraculously survived in my possession.
A
cracking challenge and I’m looking forward to the next installment!
well done to Dom and Amy for arranging and producing extra clue sets in a
hurry as entries were more than anticipated.
- Team 6 – Niall and Daniela
