New Year’s Day 2017 saw the annual running of the Ulster Centre Treasure Hunt. This year’s hunt was planned by Josef Connolly, ably assisted by his pal Eamonn, and the rendezvous point was the car park at B&Q complex, Sprucefield.
The day was cold but clear blue skies and bright sunshine brought out 24 teams (which was slightly up on last year’s event), 2 of which brought their MGs out to play. My dad, Cyril, and I used my daily drive MG ZR 105 and Kenneth & Helen Irvine appeared in their MG TF, these were the only two MGs out. With the start time of 2pm most began to meet up from 1.30 or so to sign on, collect quiz sheets and have a chat & catch up before heading out on the hunt.
Josef had a fantastic route designed that took us through to Hillsborough and across the rolling drumlins of Co Down, stopping off at the Harry Ferguson Memorial Garden to allow the stretching of legs and to hunt for a number of answers to the quiz on the information boards in the garden. From here the route continued through the countryside to Dromara, with the finishing point at O’Reilly’s Pub & Restaurant where many stayed on to enjoy a New Year’s Day dinner.
A huge word of thanks has to be given to Josef for organising and planning such a fantastic route and fun quiz which was full of a wide range of difficulty levels (some maybe even cryptic clues) which was the perfect remedy to get the old brains working again after a week or so of food and festivities.
Joint winners were the McKee/McLaughlin team and Team Campbell (Ian and Cyril) in their MG ZR and both teams received a box of chocolates for coming first and The Irvines can cook up something tasty with their wooden spoon. As a special reward both winning teams were excluded from having to set the 2018 Treasure Hunt but Roger and Angela Fynn were duly drawn to carry out that task.
Here’s to what the rest of 2017 will have in store for us and our MGs, and we are already looking forward to our next annual event which will be the Derek Walker Trial on Saturday, 4 February.
Happy New Year to everyone and happy motoring.
Ian Campbell