The Impala Adventures Welsh Treasure Hunt was held from December 27th to 29th, we were to be based out of the Hafod Hotel which we'd stayed at a couple of years earlier on a previous treasure hunt. Clues had been sent out by e-mail with a road book section to get us to the start of the treasure hunt and hopefully to the hotel. As ever the clues were a bit cryptic referring to starting at the end and ending at the beginning or something like that. We inspected the maps and worked out where the track was and also where the pottery was where we might see a camel (the name given to Neil in Africa is White Camel so we thought they may be there).
We made it to the pottery about 2:30pm and had a look around, couldn't see any camels or anything else other than very expensive pottery so left to do the track. Ignoring the start at the end bit I'd decided to do the track in the road book order so drove past the end of the track to the start and plodded on down it. After a while we saw someone coming in the other direction and pulled over to let them by, turned out to be Steve & Kirsty in their Discovery, so maybe we should have gone the other way, said hello and continued on down the track.
After a short while we saw another vehicle approaching they were trying to tackle a rocky section and had decided to go round it. It turned out to be another Discovery belonging to Susan & David and Susan was driving but having a bit of difficulty getting round the rocks on the mud. We pulled up and I got out to offer encouragement and try not to offer advice as it's not always a good idea to help people get their vehicles into worse situations. Eventually Susan called it a day and we agreed to winch them up the short section of mud. So we pulled back onto the track and with engine running ran the winch to recover them. The winch started to labour and slow down and on returning to the vehicle, where Michele was sat in the drivers seat with her foot on the brake to try and stop moving forward, there was a beeping as the split charge controller was complaining that the 2nd battery was flat. I'd forgotten that there's a 10 minute delay after starting before the batteries are joined so the winch was running on battery only, quick press of the join button and the winch jumped into life and the Discovery was pulled onto the track and after thank you's they were on their way again hopefully to make the rest of the track without event.
That was the end of our run down the track and out start of the treasure hunt, we headed to the hotel and were pretty much the last to arrive. The Hafod Hotel does great food and is an eating endurance test, we had dinner which has great as previously with a couple of veggie choices which we chose one each and shared. At the end of dinner the we had to choose what we wanted for breakfast and being stuffed from dinner this isn't easy. This choosing followed through the next morning where after a large breakfast we had to choose what we wanted for dinner. This pattern followed for the duration of our stay and made it an endurance as we got fuller from the, what seemed like constant, eating.
After a filling breakfast we had cryptic clues to follow and I busied myself moving the 12N towing power connector which we had hit the day before on the track so wanted to move it before doing any more damage. By the time I'd moved the connector Michele had been to get the first clue and we headed off.
The problem with Wales is the distances you have to drive to get anywhere, it's sort of the price you pay for such good tracks. The Sat Nav showed a trip time of over an hour to get to the first clue point on the coast. We spotted the Osprey (in one of the photos) driving along and stopped to take a photo, otherwise an uneventful trip to the coast. The clue from there was based on a location and heading but Graham had looked at the map and guessed the road we needed so we just followed along, sometimes I'm not really into the work involved in these things.
After a slight overshoot and back tracking we made the track in Happy Valley and started working our way along it. Climbing up the fog started to close in and at the top we were really lost in the clouds. Progress on the track was slow going, as ever we weren't in a rush (it's not a race) and were taking it at an easy pace, as we were getting to the end of the track Neil called up and asked us to skip the rest of the clues and head to the end as there were things to be done in the afternoon.
We got to the end of the track and pulled up to work out how to get to the end without following the points. At this stage we've no end GPS point but headings to be taken after a certain distance so without driving the route it wasn't easy to judge the route. Thankfully off-road tracks are few and far between these days (thanks to legislation changes) so it wasn't hard to work out the route to get to the next track, that we weren't going to take and where that would end up. The clue for the last location didn't make much sense to me but as we were there debating the rest of the 'treasure hunters' arrived along the track and with a bit of knowledgeable guess work from Steve we headed off to a pub in a town that sounded right. Thankfully Steve was right and Louise & Neil were waiting there for us. We had lunch of chips and bap and a lightweight pint of ale ready for the afternoon.
The afternoon route was handed out which thankfully had some British Grid references and I plotted these onto the supplied maps and then cross referenced those with our GPS so we might have an idea where we were going rather than just playing follow the leader and taking responsibility for our own destiny.
With a bit of discussion (for that read disagreement) with Graham who was following his GPS and didn't trust my point plotting on the map we caught up with Neil who'd set-up a trial site for us to have a go at. Neil walked us round the course which looked straightforward enough, although it was boggy and the turning circle on the Defender 90 isn't great so I wasn't hopeful of clearing all the gates. I managed to get elected to go first with the usual might as well get it over with point of view. It wasn't a timed test so you could take it slowly and just try not to hit any of the poles. All went well and I cleared all the gates until the last one where I mis-judged the turn into it and had to back-up to get through the gate. Everyone else had a go and all the vehicles got one penalty except for Ian Roy in his Mitsubishi who had a clear run.
By the end of the trial it was getting dark and we still had some more track to do before heading back to the hotel. One last clue referred to tangerines and standing alone (or something like that), we'd done the track before and could remember a lone tree somewhere on it. Sure enough we could see in the distance and off the main track a single tree, we were following Graham and he missed the turning to get to the tree so we headed down it. Michele jumped out and headed off to the tree, which had disappeared out of view. Graham joined us and I explained the position and that Michele would get their item from the tree as well. We watched the other cars drive straight by without stopping, either they missed the clue or wanted to get back to the hotel. As all the cars were now in front of us Neil turned up doing his sweeping behind. Michele eventually made it back with the labelled prizes. Michele had to make a second trip to collect all the others as they'd been missed by not stopping, but this time I did drive some of the way up the track until it became too boggy to cut down the distance a bit.
The drive back to the hotel was in the dark now and we managed to pick up a few more Impala's on the way.
Breakfast included the prize giving for the treasure hunt and then there were some more tracks to do before heading home. We elected to head straight home after breakfast to try and make it home in good time. We did hear from Neil later in the day as his Discovery had got a bit wet and he was in limp home made with a damp ECU, all was well after it had been dried out though.
This treasure hunt was organised by Neil Hopkinson of Impala Adventures.
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