Treasure Hunt 2020

Every year I create a treasure hunt for Christmas Day (you can read 2019’s here). This was 2020’s.

Constraints

We had three guests for Christmas, and with Mrs and Miss H, that meant I had five hunters to cater for. We decided that the treasure (Toblerone bars) would be in a single location.

My plan was for each hunter to have their own set of clues that would come together to reveal the treasure’s location.

So the overall structure looked like this:

1. I gave the hunters all the clues. The clues were grouped into sets.
2. The hunters worked out which set was theirs.
3. They then solved the clues—resulting in an anagram.
4. Solving that first anagram took the hunters to a location where they would find a letter.
5. Those letters were a final anagram leading to the treasure.

Sets of clues

I grouped each players’ clues by dog breed: spaniel, poodle, terrier, husky, and dachshund. Each player had 6-8 separate clues (36 clues in total).

These are the clues for “spaniel.”

Other sets were smaller—depending on the experience of the hunter. (This was Megan’s so I gave her more clues than most because she will tear through them quickly.)

Whose clue is it anyway?

I used what3words in 2019, and it was too good not to use again. This time I found street and place names with the names of those playing—so, for example, fuses.reassure.fats points to Megan Drive somewhere in North Carolina, while kicks.reach.dwell points to Stevensville and appealing.jots.panther points to Down Hatherley Lane. (I could do this all day.)

(Looking back, it didn’t matter who each set belonged to. The important thing is that each set leads to an anagram.)

To solve each clue

First answer the question. So Christmas Day 3pm BBC1 [3] means that the hunter must find what is on BBC1 at 3 pm on Christmas Day. It’s The Queen, and [3] means take the third letter—e.

Similarly, Number of unopened poppies in lounge [2] refers to a painting in our lounge. There are two unopened poppies, making the letter w.

Then take those letters and rearrange them to make a word. (In Megan’s case, wellies.) This told you where another clue was.

(Or it could have lead to the treasure, if I was doing individual treasures.)

The final clue

The final clue was one of five letters: A B D E R. (So Megan found the letter D where we keep our wellington boots.)

Rearranging this anagram revealed BREAD, and the treasure was hidden in our bread bin.

Once solved, we were done, and everyone gorged on chocolate.