Andrea Blumberg

29. Here be treasure (Apr '08)

Last week I went to York. Old York. Actually, more like Olde Yorke, as it is a city almost too quaint to be believed. Picture narrow cobblestone streets, with fudge shops and art galleries on the street level, and half-timbered upper stories leaning out over the walkway. In some places the upper stories have been gossiping to each other for so many centuries that their heads are nearly touching. And other houses have been resting in one place long enough to have developed a mattress-like sag in the centre (If you squint, you can see that the date under the window on the bottom left of this picture is 1434. One of those new-fangled housing developments, really, since the city was founded in 71 AD).

 

Stir into the geographical mix of the city: one huge gothic cathedral, several charming stone bridges crossing a gently flowing river, maze-like streets, and loads of historic and idiosyncratic details, crammed into an area that's compact and walkable, and you have all the ingredients necessary for a first class treasure hunt!

Enter Wild Goose Treasure Hunts from stage left, splash-landing onto the river with a loud honk, and myself from stage right, rattling into town on a cross country train (well, stage south and north, respectively, as they came up from London, I came down from Edinburgh, and we met smack in the middle of the country). They were running one of their larger hunts -- 250 people, making 41 teams, on a two-hour mission to hit the town, solve the clues, and crack the Cryptex (see picture below). My job was to help organise (a bit like herding wild geese, since it was part of a week-long corporate bonding event for a company that manufactures electrical components [read: lots of young, rowdy men]).

The teams were all dispatched smoothly, and we the organisers ambled around, overseeing, as they scoured the town; looking at plaques, comparing the details of the various gargoyles on the cathedral, and scribbling down numbers and letters gleaned from those objects or from questions about the objects. Eventually, they would use those clues to come up with a "password" of six letters and numbers, which they would enter into the Cryptex, an object a bit like a cross between a bike lock and a fortune cookie (each team had their own device, but all the passwords were the same). If it opened they'd know they'd gotten everything right; then they'd race back to HQ, the winners being the first team to arrive with their Cryptex in pieces (no ancient, priceless papyrus inside, just a slip of paper saying "congratulations").

Unfortunately I didn't get to stay until the end, as I had to catch a train home, but I got to see how most of it was run. And the head of Wild Goose was impressed enough by my participation that he's going to train me to run the hunts in Scotland and the north of England. They've just created the Edinburgh hunt, and already they have a group signed up for the beginning of May, so this might become a steady part-time job. And a lot of fun.

I had another treasure adventure the week before, for which I travelled roughly the same distance, in exactly the opposite direction, but it took me six times longer to cover those same 200 miles! I went to the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, to visit friends. I briefly considered taking a plane, but part of the joy of living in Scotland is travelling through the beautiful countryside, so I decided to make the overland journey, via train, bus, ferry and car. It was a bit harrowing at times, but well worth it for the stunning scenery, the interesting fellow passengers, and the ability to let my thoughts unravel over the miles, alighting on the passing trees and rocks and being left behind, like bits of wool off a wild sheep.

It started with a train ride north, from Edinburgh to Inverness, where a succession of characters entered and left the train car, appropriately matched to the scenery through which we passed.

Act I: a pair of young men stumbling home at 9am on a Saturday morning, still intoxicated from their Friday night win in the casino in Edinburgh. The older one would be played by Brad Pitt in the movie version (if he could do a Scottish accent) and he chatted and joked to everyone within charm's way, while the younger one studiously practiced his dormouse impression from Alice in Wonderland. They wobbled off at Kirkcaldy, one of the small towns that serves as a sort of suburb to the city.

Act II: the pallid faces and chic duds of the lads were replaced by the rosy cheeks and Gore-Tex clad torsos of a group of hill-walkers heading for Aviemore, a tourist hub for hiking the Cairngorm mountains. As the suburban housing estates gave way to farms and then to empty moorland, they gossiped about absent colleagues, taunted each other good naturedly about the upcoming trek, and generally filled the car with boisterous, sweaty cheer.

Act III: the landscape becomes sparse and stony, with dramatic, snow-capped mountains, and sinuous, boulder-strewn streams. Only a handful of people remain as we ascend and cross through the 1500ft high Drumochter Pass, where we become the central figure in a souvenir globe of whirling snow and sleet. It was wild and windy, but I felt safe from harm or frostbite in my cosy train car (little did I know what the weather held in store for me).

The train ride ended calmly enough, and as we descended from the pass the raging blizzard was reduced to a gentle drizzle, so that the second stage of the journey -- the bus ride through the Highlands from Inverness to the port town of Ullapool -- was peaceful and beautiful. But the storm that brought the snow at higher elevations also whipped the sea into watery peaks, so that the third stage -- the ferry crossing from Ullapool, on the mainland, to Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis -- was a series of steep ascents and free-falling descents, often with a crashing spray of spume at the bottom, and a lurching jolt through the entire body of the boat. I left my lunch at the bottom of gully #384, and most of my fellow passengers also disembarked with lighter stomachs and greener faces than they'd had when they got on.

Luckily, the final leg of the journey was just a half-hour car-ride across the island from the port of Stornoway in the east to the village of Tolsta Chaolais in the west, and it was in the cheerful company of my friend Laura. She fed me (lightly) when we got home, and buoyed my spirits (gently), and I was completely recovered by morning. The weather recovered as well, becoming sunny and still (if not warm) and I had a wonderful week, full of walks by the shore, playing of harps, sweating in the sauna, launching a message in a bottle with the goal of getting it to Australia (we're not holding our breaths), building a stegasaurus out of rocks found on the rocky beach and laid out on the grassy turf above, and of course plenty of good food and good company.

And, not forgetting the treasure in this adventure, there was the puzzle/poem I wrote for Laura's husband Justin, for his birthday. I hid a present somewhere in their house, and the poem contained clues to find it. They did very well, working together, and managed to solve it quickly, even handicapped by the wit-sozzling effects of the sparkling red wine we had with dinner (there's something I've never seen before: when red wine makes bubbles it looks like cherry cola! Tastes much more posh, though ;)

The trip back south was comparatively unremarkable, and the wonderful week on the island left me refreshed and ready to move in to my flat in Edinburgh.

Nex time: Life in the Big City.....

Love,
Andrea

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