The Armchair Treasure Hunt Club
Island Treasure

 

Published in July 1999 with a top prize of £1 000 000, Island Treasure was a time-travel story set on the Isle of Wight with a strong factual and historical storyline. The object was to find thirty pieces of a jigsaw map, hidden on the Internet.

The hunt closed on 31 December 2001 with no winner from the 15 solutions submitted. The original hunt (£6) and solution (extra £4) can be purchased and downloaded from the official website.

After the hunt closed, the final answer and an extra hint were issued (still available on the website) and readers were invited to explain the answer. The author of the best explanation was club member Peter Keen who was awarded an original painting of the Titanic. A second prize was awarded to club member Terry Lyndon.

 

 

The method was to map the sky onto the map of  the Isle of Wight at different points of time.

"I realised from the clues that where the central star of Orion's belt was at a point of time was the place to be found.   I found a spot near Ventnor but only after the hunt was over I realised that the answer was Ventnor and I had to go back a million years or so to reposition the star.

The prize was never going to be a million pounds since I doubt whether there were more than a handful of participants.   The adjudicators were very kind and hinted to me where my mistake was, and so I received a painting of the titanic as a consolation prize."

 

 

 

 

 

A follow-up to Treasure Island was published in April 2014 titled "The Gods Treasure II Norway 1009 AD - St Brice's Revenge" which involved a 149 page PDF story and puzzles.

Run in parallel was a £1,000,000 hunt.  It was played by finding treasure chests hidden around the Isle of Wight in Businesses and attractions in which there was a code to be entered within a members area which revealed a coin and a clue question. 

It could also be played online (Goldie hunt), which was intended for holiday makers / visitors who went to the Island for only a few days or weeks and wanted to carry on the hunt when they got home. Codes in the form of Treasure chests or Goldie squirrel images were hidden on IOW retailer's websites like http://www.visitisleofwight.co.uk/

                                                    

There were a total of 50 Physical Chests / Internet Icons and Questions to answer all related to the IOW and all the answers were found in the physical places where the chests were on internet sites
There was a difference in coins / questions numbers as the PHYSICAL treasure chests were released around the IOW over several months and until they were all in place the Coins did not show up, the same is for the internet Goldie hunt, as more web links were released there were more questions.

No-one submitted the correct answer for the online hunt, but club member Pete Colbert was awarded one of the treasure chests and a framed picture of the hunt's image for having the most correct answers. He hadn't actually been able to visit the island, but had trawled through innumerable websites to find the 50 chest and Goldie icons.

                                                                                                

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 


Return to the site contents or the list of hunts for the general public.