Treasure Hunt

On Sunday, we participated in the annual Blue Mountains Four Wheel Drive Club Treasure Hunt. It was based around the Wallacia/Luddenham area and proved to be difficult, challenging and fun.

We started the morning, before meeting everyone, with breakfast at McDonalds. We then all met up at the Penrith Rowing Club and were sent on our way with some clues and two pages of things to look out for during the day and a list of treasures to collect (but not before Tony and Tegan went back home to get chairs). We scavenged a wrapper from McDonalds - we needed a McMuffin wrapper, which we had already eaten for breakfast but threw away the wrappers. Little did we know that we would need it for a treasure. We had to find our way out to Wallacia and stop in Mulgoa on the way because Matt and Mick, the organisers, had a bright idea to hide something there. We found the light switch, but not the light bulbs.

We stopped off at the newsagent at Wallacia to purchase $2.70 worth of goods and collect the receipt and the next set of instructions. We made purchases that we needed for our treasure list, and continued on. It was a little frustrating as I was relegated to the back seat and couldn't really help too much. Tegan was navigator for the day. We had to look out for unusual things that you don't normally see. The gnome in the wreck stood out, though I was actually drawn to it the first place as we needed a wheel nut for a treasure and we got one off the wreck he was 'driving'. We continued following clues and collecting treasures until we met up at the checkpoint at Vickerys winery for morning tea.

The next leg was a little easier, following arrows spray painted on the road and stopping at particular points to answer questions and/or collect treasures, all the while looking out for questions and treasures from the two-page list. It became a little competitive amongst some of the boys, with some impressive slides from Shane. Even though we arrived at the memorial with two other cars - Shane and Teresa, and Steve and Connie - we had to take photos of our own crews as no-one would do it for each other :-) We got back to Vickerys, where we had left Shelby with Andy for this leg, and started off on the final leg. Shelby stayed back again, riding on Thomas the Tank Engine and playing with friends.

The last leg led us to Silverdale and Warragamba and a quick tour around the towns. We had a variety of clues to follow and the highlight of this section was visiting the dam information centre, collecting instructions and questions from the volunteer that worked there. Tegan had great fun at one of the stops, where we had to provide photographic evidence of the navigator playing on the swings. The end of the hunt led us to Wallacia golf club, where we had to buy a drink and get a receipt as the last treasure. Then we had a few drinks, enjoyed a scrumptious dinner and checked in with the organisers.

Overall, a frustrating, tiring, busy, fun day.