Sunday Times Where Was I? Holiday Competition

Very tricky this week, it seems that quite a few people were turned to stone in der altvater tagen, for glugging ale and dancing to fiddlers on a sunday, and quite a few of these fossilized revellers are located in national parks around the UK (though some of them still show up at the Glastonbury festival every year). Near as I can figure it, the most likely answers this week, seem to me to be:


Q1. The Peak District National Park


Q2. The Monsal Trail

The initial clues place us in the Peak District National Park, specifically at a bronze age barrow called 'Hob Hurst's House' . Some sources claim this is around ten metres or thirty two feet in diameter and it was said to be named after a local hobgoblin, who liked to glug Superlager and noisily harrang passers by, from a nearby woods.

Travelling around four miles or so, south west of the barrow, brings us to the 'Nine Ladies' stone circle, which is said in some references to be the petrified remains of some witches, who were turned to stone for dancing to a fiddler on a Sunday (sounds very like what still happens in Banff to this day, on Sundays).

A fortified manor house c 12th century,which lies a shade north west of the 'Nine Ladies', is likely to be Haddon Hall. A treasure house located two miles north west of the barrow, is likely to be 'Chatsworth House', which is said in some references to have an 'Emperor Fountain' which has a jet that can reach a height of 260 feet. Some references claim that the house was built c1686.

A trail which starts six miles or so north west of the barrow, is likely to be the Monsal trail, some sources say that this begins at Blackwell Mill in Chee Dale and follows the former Midland railway line for eight and a half miles, to Coombs road at Bakewell. There are several railway tunnels which the trail passes through and these are lit during the day but are switched off by a light sensor at dusk, so carrying a torch is advised if you will be hiking after dark.

The 'gasp worthy viaduct' is likely to be the Headstone viaduct (aka Monsal viaduct), which crosses the river Wye. Several references I checked claim that this is 111 yards long and 78 feet high, it can be seen from Castlegate lane. At the eastern end of the viaduct, lies the 533 yard long, Headstone tunnel.

The Eastender has discovered that some Lotto machines generate clusters of words, as part of their normal operations and that sometimes you can get lucky by betting that the letter which completes a word will show up, για παράδειγμα (eg) : In the week that the Where Was I? puzzle contained a reference to a mathematician called Napier, the word NAPIER completed in the UK Thunderball data:


Fri 14 Jun 13 X T [R] C A 03

Wed 12 Jun 13 02 04 Y T [E] 13

Sat 08 Jun 13 02 U T [I] B 10

Fri 07 Jun 13 06 08 10 [P] E 01

Wed 05 Jun 13 06 Y W M [A] 05

Sat 01 Jun 13 13 Y R [N] A 08

Check it yourself if you don't believe it, the original data below is from the National Lotto Thunderball game results published on their website:

Fri 14 Jun 13       16 20 22 37 39 03

Wed 12 Jun 13      02 04 15 20 35 13

Sat 08 Jun 13          02 19 20 31 38 10

Fri 07 Jun 13           06 08 10 24 35 01

Wed 05 Jun 13       06 15 17 27 39 05

Sat 01 Jun 13         13 15 22 26 39 08

and was substituted as follows:

39 = A, 38 = B, 37 = C, 36 = D, 35 = E,
34 = F, 33 = G, 32 = H, 31 = I, 30 = J,
29 = K, 28 = L, 27 = M, 26 = N, 25 = O,
24 = P, 23 = Q, 22 = R, 21 = S, 20 = T,
19 = U, 18 = V, 17 = W, 16 = X, 15 = Y,
14 = Z

The Eastender has written up the results of his data mining, which if you are into word search puzzles and playing the lotto, can be viewed here:

Lotto Codewords in the Thunderball Game

Link to the competition:

Where Was I?