On Saturday 26 March we had 17 people (8 vehicles) meet up at Rowes Bay for a Treasure Hunt around Townsville. Once everyone was ready, there were a set of verbal clues given to everyone with specific attention to  – It’s not a race and time is not recorded, read the instructions carefully and read ahead if you would like to, and have a mobile phone with internet and to record your rego on the clues sheet prior to departure to name a few.

There were 39 instructions and 27 of these were clues that required answers. Each vehicle was only given their clues once they were in their vehicle and each vehicle departed about 3min apart.

Upon returning to the meeting point, it was surprising to hear that 90% of the attendees were not happy with the organiser, stating that they had not followed one of the verbal instructions to read ahead, as at the bottom of the second page there were 8 bonus questions which needed to be answered along the way.

Thankfully, there were not reported divorces or breakups from the hunt, however I felt that tensions were strained with one particular family of 4.

Whilst we waited for all teams to return, the BBQ was fired up for the sausage sizzle which gave everyone time to have an open discussion/debate about the nitty gritty of the questions and some of the answers, right down to the wording of – “It says pub, not bar!”

The journey incorporated most of the 4wd clubs supporters that donated prizes to our AGM dinner, however a couple were not able to be visited due to the increasing costs of fuel and their business being out of town, so the trip needed to be shortened.

The winner for the 2022 Treasure Hunt went to Jules, who was 6 points ahead of everyone else.