The Treasurer's Treasure Hunt- 'Bears, Bites, and Balloons'

November 26th

The Treasurer’s Treasure Hunt- a Hillwalking Club tradition that roots back to who knows when and this year our Treasurer, Alex, has the hunt to take place in Winchester. Meeting up at Southampton Central, it became quite evident when boarding the train that there were a lot of Christmas shoppers, rugby fans, and others planning to enjoy their day somewhere else. Hannah and I managed to claim seats that were next to each other which was quite a feat since from the looks down the aisle those two were the only ones. Shortly afterwards a group of women in their late 20s early thirties boarded the train dressed for a night out, keep in mind this was at 11am. They came into our car with quite an entrance; one of them said quite loudly, “Are we ready ladies?” or something to that extent. Hannah and I exchanged quick looks trying to suppress our laughter. Alex and a few others boarded too, but there was barely any room. The announcer came on the speakers stating that people can move to first class for 5 pounds, I am not sure that even guaranteed a seat possibly just to stand. Another announcement came on in regards to the refreshment trolley which would remain where it was instead of having the impossible task of getting through the aisles which were crowded beyond belief.  

Soon we came to the Southampton Airport station, where more people from Hillwalking came to join us. There were not enough people getting off the train compared to the amount that were boarding the train. The loud vibrantly dressed ‘ladies’ were now passing out glasses and opening bottles of champagne. One woman even had a hair band with devil horns. They were also passing cards which I got a glimpse of a picture of a woman’s face with ‘Happy 30^th Birthday’- ah so that is what all their eccentrics were about.

Luck would have it that our train ride to Winchester would be a short one and as we were getting ready to get off, the automatic aisle doors accidentally closed on Josh’s head as he was trying to get through- ouch! Outside of the platform, more hillwalkers were there waiting for the treasure hunt to begin.   

Splitting a group of 21 people into teams; Hannah and I ended up in a team with Josh, Rachael, Suzanne, and Alex H. The papers consisting of the treasure hunt tasks were passed out and Josh read out the intro which had a pirate theme (treasurer’s treasure hunt tradition). With that we were off! 

Our tasks consisted of taking pictures of pubs and museums within Winchester, climbing a tree on St. Catherine’s Hill, getting a sweet from a shop (without buying one), a picture of a strange drink name, and dressing up one of our members as King Alfred. Additionally there where quizzes about the history of Winchester and names of destinations we had to go to but first would need to unscramble the letters.

Walking through the festive streets of Winchester, we came across some Morris Dancers which is a very ‘English’ type of dance. People were dressed up in vibrant costumes, there was even a person dressed as Santa or a Christmas tree with presents at their feet. The Christmas season had definitely commenced. On the other side of the Morris Dancers, there was a steel drum group that was really good, playing not only Christmas songs, but I think Ricky Martin as well!

Winchester

We found some pubs where we had someone from the group stand in front of for a picture. Soon we stumbled on a Tourist Info center where we looked through the pamphlets to find answers to some of the quiz portion of the hunt. The tourist info center was probably the best stop we made for answering the quiz questions; not only did we find knowledgeable people there, but we also had access to free internet at their computers. I was able to find the answer the question for what the Romans had called Winchester and why. (If you are curious the answer is: Venta Belgarum, or Capital of Belgares, who were a local Celtic tribe that lived in the area before the Romans invaded it (http://www.localhistories.org/winchester.html).) 

 After answering most of the questions, we were off to St. Catherine’s Hill. On a previous walk in Winchester this year, Cheddar had climbed a tree there. Figuring for our tree climbing picture we should try to find the same tree if possible since it looked like a good climbing tree. In our group, Rachael had never climbed a tree before; so it was quite the treat when we had the whole group up in a tree for our picture. It was so much fun!!! Last time I had climbed a tree was probably in the quad at UW when the cherry blossoms were out; it has been too long!

The wind was quite incredible on St. Catherine’s Hill, so for our lunch break, we took refuge under another tree. After twenty minutes or so, one of the rival teams came out of the woods. When hearing that we had a picture with everyone in a tree, they decided to copy us and chosen to climb the tree that we were sitting under! Matt I think is part monkey because he was able to get up so easily it made our earlier attempts of trying to get up a tree look kind of pathetic. Despite my team pleading me not to help, I decided to be kind and take a picture with all of them in it. Matt was too high in the tree to be in the picture at first, and when he was climbing down at one point a giant branch had snapped and came crashing down to the ground only 3-5 feet away from me!!! Thank goodness no one was hurt. I snapped a picture with all of them and then my group took off with the deadly branch in hand since it would make a good sword for our King Alfred picture. Matt claimed it was their group’s stick, but I feel that since I helped his team by taking the picture and the fact that it was kind of close to hitting me, it was rightfully ours. 

Matt in the tree

Heading down the trail to get off of the hill, Alex H., Suzanne, and Hannah were ahead of the group. Almost back to the street the girls were passing a man and his ginormous dog that was the size of a small bear. I was about 30 feet (~10 m) behind them when I saw the dog lunge after Alex, a blur of white that towered over the poor girl. There were screams and next thing we knew the owner was trying to hold back the snarling dog with all his might. The dog almost overpowered the owner’s strength, but thankfully did not. The giant mop of a dog had bit Alex on the back!!!! Rachel, Josh, and I quickly caught up with the girls and we walked away from the owner who was throwing his body over his beast swearing at the dog like none other. Alex was in tears from the attack- who wouldn’t be when just been bitten by an animal that is bigger than you. We warned another team who was passing by to go up the hill to avoid the dog at all costs.

Inspecting the bite, the dog had definitely left a good size bruise and even had broken skin a little, though that might be from the friction with the fabric she was wearing. Before the incident, Alex was telling the owner if he could hold back his dog since Suzanne was afraid of dogs. The owner didn’t move back though. Theories of why the dog attacked Alex we came up with the fact that since she was around people who were afraid the dog might have picked up on that, or the dog attacked her because she was carrying a bag with a balloon on it. Whatever it was that triggered the dog, we will never know, hopefully next time the owner will be wiser in having the dog on a muzzle or something. 

For all sakes and purposes of the event though, our group is claiming that Alex was attacked by a bear. We joked around with her saying, ‘if you think this (bite mark) is bad, you should have seen the bear!’ Heading on a trail by the river, we came across another dog, but this one was the size of a small terrier. Fortunately the dog was sweet so Alex was able to once again have faith that there are nice dogs in this world.

By the road, I spotted some vines that we could use as our costume for the ‘King Alfred’ picture. Rachael helped break off a chunk of vine and I wove it into a crown, though it was bit of a druid looking thing. Grabbing twigs we used them as Pooh sticks (like from Winnie the Pooh) and raced them on a river from one side of the bridge to the other. It was there that we got a picture of an unusual sign, which for ours was ‘The University of Winchester’ as a joke. 

Pooh Sticks

Back by the King Alfred statue, we dressed Rachel up with the broken branch as her sword, Suzanne’s knitted cape around her shoulders, a vine crown upon her head, and a grocery bag with a balloon attached as her shield. We took the picture.  

In town we stopped for a quick break and found a map that luck would have it had all the museums in Winchester on it. Devising a route, we hit all the museums within an hour, even found another sign that was called ‘Archery Lane’, where we had all the archers in our group pose in front of for another possible funny named sign. In the main street in Winchester, Rachael and I found the man on the street handing out balloons and we both got one for ourselves.

Archery Lane

Finding the place where the waitress had our final clue of where to go to end our hunt and meet up with our Treasurer we discovered the place was packed. Luckily one of the other teams was there already and we joined them to our final destination which after reading the clue we knew it was at Wetherspoons. Grabbing hot chocolate and relaxing in a warm pub, Josh and I were trying to come up with a team name, and we finally came up with our team name to be quite fittingly: ‘Bears, Bites, and Balloons’. Alex, the Treasurer, went around to collect everyone’s answers and to see the pictures. Soon every team had their Alfred picture up for ranking. Finally, Alex deemed our team to come in first!!! Our team prize was a tin of Christmas goodies that we shared of course with the other teams. Hannah and I came to the conclusion that we make an amazing duo since any team with us seems to win. It was only earlier this week we won ‘best tasting’ at the pudding party, and now we won the Treasurer’s Treasure Hunt. The train ride back was not as hectic as it was earlier this morning, and I got off with some of the other hillwalkers that were getting off at the Airport station and walking past Monty. 

It was a full, fabulous, and action packed kind of day.