We have been sent a Spy Mission from Treasuretrails.co.uk. There are several trails available, customised to towns and cities throughout the UK. We were sent the one for our local market town, Beverley in East Yorkshire, so we thought we’d go out today and give it a try.
We set off with our binoculors, pen, map and notepad (just incase).
The trail has a story – the evil genius, Baron Ivor Grudge is planning to blow up the bells of St Mary’s and it is our mission to crack the code to stop him. We follow clues, write the answers in a grid, and then use the letters and numbers to create a four-digit combination. You can input the code in to their website and are entered into a draw to win £1,000.
The girls didn’t buy in to the whole evil genius story, but their competitive spirit drove them on.
We started at the town’s railway station (as per the map) and followed the directions to the first clue.
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| Excited!! |
There are twenty clues in total, and you have to find the answers on a variety of local objects from street signs, to stone etchings, blue plaques, and drain covers. Once you find the object, it’s pretty obvious what the answer is, although you do have to pay attention to some very fine detail in places.
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| Filling in the answer grid |
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| Look high and low for the answers to the clues. |
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| Inspecting the engravings at Beverley Minster |
The whole trail took about two hours (which the map said it would). The directions on the map were very good. We are local and familiar with the place, but even if we weren’t, it would have been straightforward enough. The clues were obvious once we found them but there were a few my 8-year old struggled with. This is definitely a family activity rather than just for children. To be honest, adults without children would enjoy this, especially as a good way of getting to know a new place.
Overall, I was very impressed with the treasure trail. We entered our 4-digit code on return to HQ (after having some juice and biscuits) and were pleased to see it worked! We were then given a link where we printed out a certificate each for the girls to fill in.
I am very impressed especially with the text feature – if you’re stuck on a clue you can text a code to TreasureTrails and you get the answer. Brilliant if you are really struggling. (you can have up to three free ones per trail, which was ample for us).We had to use it once where the gardens we had to enter were locked and we couldn’t see what we were supposed to be finding. The text answer arrived quickly and enabled us to move on. BUT then, we saw it – a gap in the fence. So we made like proper secret agents and shimmied our way in! Win.
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| Yeah! Jack Bauer, eat your heart out. |
We had a lovely walk around our home town, and saw a lot of details we had never seen before on one of our many trips there. We had a lovely half hour in Beverley’s Coronation Gardens where we had a picnic, and saw many of Beverley’s lovely buildings.
Treasure Trails are available to buy from http://www.treasuretrails.co.uk/. There are more than 1000 trails available. They start at £6.99 each, and personalised ones are available for £12.99 (correct at the time of publishing).
Disclosure – we were sent a complimentary Treasure Trail to complete this review
Written by Joanne Brady
This looks AMAZING! What a way to get out and about but with a bit of intrigue and learning too. I’d love to do one of these. Bookmarking the site!
Good plan. They are definitely worth looking into.
What a great idea for a day out and a brilliant way to get to know a town better. I must check them out
They really are, thanks for visiting !