FLICKR SCAVENGER HUNT: TEAM JOHNSTON

 By Team Johnston

We gathered a few Saturdays ago on a beautifully sunny day at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden. Our task was to photograph the answers to various clues - in a style akin to 'Treasure Hunt' from Channel 4 years ago, except that we didn't have to wear a spandex jump suit unlike Anneka Rice!

Being assigned our teams (no one knew each other previously, although a few looked/sounded vaguely familiar from Flickr/Twitter. We attempted to start as quickly as possible and work out a possible route - not easy when you're not exactly sure of the answers to some of the questions nor their locations.

We decided to go for the easy ones first - roundels from the Transport Museum itself (although security were on us pretty quickly ;) The two photos below show the front of the LTM - on the second, the clear blue day is reflected in the sign - nice!

And so to our first clue:

“I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse."  The Godfather would be proud of the management of these roads where this roundel is.

A difficult one to start off, which had us all thinking of possible Godfather connections - it didn't help that between us, only one of us had seen it in the last twenty years! However, the same of 'Sicilian Avenue' was bandied about by a bright spark, and off we rushed, past one of the other clues we knew - Holborn. Initially finding it difficult to find the roundel among the coffee drinkers in the afternoon sun, we eventually found it in the middle of the road, relating to traffic works. Bletch took this amazing photo, showing both the roundel and the place - well done!:

We then returned to Holborn, a certainty, as all of the team recognised a small portion of a station facade on the photo clue given to us. Londonstuff took this photograph from pavement level, with a flower seller in the foreground - an unusual sight for most tube stations!:

Along the way, we managed to spot a couple of furtive quasi-advert for an Oyster Card. No roundel, but close enough we think - photos by Sou'wester and Metromotion

Miles along towards Chancery Lane, we had to recreate a vintage photo, similar to the one below. It was difficult getting it exactly right and modern street signs didn't really help. After much trying, we ended up with this by Metromotion:

And again, along Chancery Lane towards Hatton Gardens, where on a photo clue we could see 'tton Gar' or something similar. Except it was nowhere to be seen. Checking bus stops all over the place, we thought we'd drawn a blank when someone came up with the idea of it being a bus information poster thing back at the tube station. And they were right!, as Blech's photo shows:

 Not fancying another run towards Holborn for Zone B's clues, we took a bus ;)

Zone B 

A royal location for a roundel that will take you to anywhere in the country.

We immediately thought 'Kingsway' being so close to Holborn, and we thought there may well be a coach stop there. Alas - no! Then, seeing Bush House, we thought about the radio - that can go anywhere. Again - fail! In the end, we settled for Victoria Embankment, which again was wrong, but Metromotion took this rather nice photo of Victoria Embankment...

2. Recreate this famous photo from London Transport Museum's collection:

All noticing that the photoclue was Temple, we rushed there. Londonstuff took this photo and with a little iPhoto help, tried to make it look a little more vintage:

3. A roundel behind bars on one of England's garden counties. 

This stumped me completely, but fortunately Sou'wester cleverly worked out that one of the garden counties is Sussex, pointing us in the direction of Sussex Street, where the closed-down Aldwych station is. Luckily, the sun was in the right place, and so Metromotion took this photie:

And back to Temple, for a heritage map situated there. (Actually, we did this at the same time as Clue 2, but don't tell anyone ;)

And so to Zone C, along the river. Feet beginning to hurt, legs beginning to tire! 

1. Find this roundel with a dark habit.

I'd have never got this, but luckily someone suggested Blackfrairs station. Very clever. This is Londonstuff's angular photo:

2. Catch it if you can - a moveable roundel on a sherbet dab.

Much scratching of heads, until, unbelievably, I (and I'm not even a Londoner by birth) suggested cockney rhyming slang. Only one thing could be a sherbet dab - and Sou'wester was fast enough to snap an excellent photo of the licence plate of a passing hackney (let's hope it didn't go up in flames shortly afterwards!). Well done Sou'wester:

3. Watch your step as you head down towards the river to find this roundel:

This one was a nightmare. We looked everywhere - and when I say everywhere, I mean it. On pavements, recessed into the road, on traffic islands, below bridges, on bridges, besides bridges, etc. Luck played a part here because we found this one pretty much by accident - recessed into the stairs leading down towards Blackfriars tube station. Difficult to photograph without looking like a weirdo. Even more difficult for 5 people to take a photo of them and look sane! This is Blech's photo:

4. There are a thousand reasons to look for this roundel:

First outright fail. Just couldn't get it. Thought of slang words for a grand, other words associated with 1,000, such as kilo, but simply didn't get Millennium - which would have let us to Millennium Pier. Duh! Here's an amazing photo by Metromotion instead showing a typical river scene. Weren't we lucky with the weather?:

And so to our final zone, Zone 4, which took us slightly away from the touristy area and more towards the city, which was obviously much quieter during the weekend.

 2. Find the rest of this roundel - another photo clue. Knowing that St. Pauls station is being refurbished, this one was a pretty good bet. Simple photo really by Blech:

3. Find this very useful roundel near a moving walkway. 

Another fail! We were stuck with this, but eventually thought that this could be a National Rail station, with an escalator and bus info near it. Sounds stupid? Correct! Anyhow, we got a couple of nice photos of the area, being mainly buildings of different shapes and sizes, with the odd piece of artwork dotted around:

 4. Power to this St. Paul's Roundel!

And to finish, what we thought was a relatively easy clue, turned out, I think, to be wrong. Rushing to finish quickly, we spotted some illuminated roundels outside St Pauls station - this photo by Londonstuff shows the rather attractive roundel in the late afternoon light:

 (Pity I don't think it got us any points!)

And with that, we headed as quickly as our weary legs would take us to The Patinoster near St Pauls to meet up, compare photos, check our answers, and most importantly at this point, have a drink. Beaten by Team Schleger on the clues, we think we've got a really good set of photos here, so we'd be delighted if you'd vote for us (begs).

A final thank you to Jane Findlay and her team at the London Transport Museum for setting the afternoon up. It was really well organised and a great laugh as well. Apparently there'll be more Scavenger Hunts in the future, so keep your eyes peeled. The LTM is also definitely worth a visit. The refit is excellent and it's a great afternoon's enjoyment for all the family. At the moment, there's also a great exhibition all about the roundel, which is currently 100 years old. Do go and have a look.

If you're interested, the full set of photos from Team Johnston's day can be seen here and there'll be a few more nuggets of info on Londonstuff's blog within the next day or so.

Thanks for reading and do vote for us and/or leave a comment below.

Team Johnston :)