U for Underground Treasure Hunt

‘Make it short & snappy’

U for Umming and aahing on an underground adventure on the London tube network.

Who doesn’t love a good treasure hunt, a challenge, a puzzle and a series of clues, a race against time, a race to beat others and get the highest scores, to avoid the decoys and be the most inventive? One Christmas we flew from station to station to pick up our points and nurture our competitive streak.

‘Just the facts please’

• Underground Treasure Hunt
• Website: http://www.londonpremierwalkingtours.co.uk/More-Info.html?z=7
• Twitter: @Londonwalktours
• Runs: selected Thursdays from 6.30pm
• Phone: 07852310893
• Cost: £12.50 per adult plus your transport on the tube (sadly you’re not given an oyster card)
• Need: an oyster card, plucky group of friends, a charged up camera phone with space on for silly shots.
• Bonus: We got some unexpected kind gifts: snazzy (read gloriously tacky) London keyring, pen, ruler & shot glass (think everything sterotypically London you can fit onto some plastic).

‘I’ve got a cup of tea, tell me all about it…’

Just tonight at another Listen Softly London, I heard that transport is something all Londoners talk about, whether it’s the commute gripes, train delays, traffic queues, the cars hating cabbies, cabbies hating uber drivers, drivers hating cyclists, cyclists hating pedestrians, pedestrians hating the packed tubes… we can’t get away from our constant movement around this fair city. The way we hustle and bustle and nudge and manouvre, swift overtaking moves, cursing under out breath when stuck behind yet another gawping tourist, elegant leaps over piles of dubious looking liquid on the cracked paving stones, a nifty bob around an unexplained traffic cone… The list goes on.

Not disproving anything, yesterday had a train theme and tonight the tube takes the spotlight!

The tube is probably the number one method of transport discussed: the cause of most stories and tales. We love it, we loathe it, we get sandwiched against its curved walls, we get snared by its glassy teeth and as a real guilty pleasure, we get an awful lot of “people watching” (read judging and eavesdropping) done on it!

So here was an activity to embrace the stuffy underground and to love our intricate tubular network. To have immense fun racing through the rat run out of rush hour.

We arrived with a larger than expected throng of people, both tourists and locals. We were given our sheet of challenges, an allocated time, warned to avoid Agent Orange and given clues on how to pick up more points and then we were off!

As it was Christmas, it was definitely Christmas themed, e.g. finding a large ornate Christmas tree, and taking a photo of someone who looked most like Jesus – we really should have headed East to hipster Shoreditch! There was a good amount of tourist activity pretending to be going through platform 9 3/4, seeing Carnaby Street and Liberty’s all lit up, taking photos of tube stations as proof of our trekking there and lots of people interaction.

Obligatory station photo, one of many, the most Christmassy.

All lit up

A beast of a tree

This was by far my favourite bit, a little like a series of dares set to you on some initiation. We had to get a whole tube carriage smiling for the camera, we had to find someone who looked like one of our team members…

Challenge: getting someone else with glasses

Aw, a couple kissing

Smiling tube travellers

… and my absolute favourite purely based on her amazing expression, was getting a stranger to propose. Heaven only knows what she’ll look like when the real thing happens!

My favourite – the proposal!

Overall, great fun and I’d love to do it again!

Here’s some underground quizzes to have a go at yourself:

This is quite a famous photo of 70 stations to guess.

Here are 10 fun cryptic clues courtesy of Ken’s Quiz.

1. Mad Dogs Stop Here
2. Royal Route
3. Where Blackboard Materials are Grown
4. Irate Monarch
5. Patella’s Lair
6. Bigger than big
7. Nobleman Captured
8. The Longest Reign
9. Big Gun Road
10. Limit of 1760 Yards

Answers here.