The City of Hobart Hosts a Large Scale Scavenger Hunt with Their 2nd Annual Great Hobart Hunt

The City of Hobart Hosts a Large Scale Scavenger Hunt with Their 2nd Annual Great Hobart Hunt

It’s not every day you get to participate in a scavenger hunt that encompasses your whole town. With the “The Great Hobart Hunt,” the city of Hobart is hoping to start a new annual tradition in a grand scavenger hunt covering two and a half square miles in the downtown area where teams of two compete for awesome prizes.

The event is in its second year and was held this year at the weekly Hobart Summer Market on the Lake. The scavenger hunt was divided into 7 teams of 2 and one of 3- each with an eye on the grand prize of two $50 visa gift cards. Each team was given a list of clues related to different institutions, points of interest and businesses around town, and given 3 hours to be the first to decipher the clues, head to the locations, and perform a specific task. The challenging tasks included activities like hitting a baseball and running to first at the local baseball field, trying on some fire fighting gear at the fire station, and making a stop at the police station to attempt to drive a golf cart through a set of cones while wearing “beer goggles”- goggles that simulate the effect being intoxicated has on your vision.

Nikki Lopez, Event Director of the city of Hobart, organizes the Hunt with her sister, Kelly Goodpaster, who also works for the city as the Environmental Resource Coordinator. “My sister and I used to do this race with our friends before I [began working for the city],” Lopez told me. “We would get together on the night before Thanksgiving, everyone was home from college, we were sick of going out and doing the bar scene, so we decided to do this scavenger hunt.”

What started as a small activity between a group of friends quickly grew in size to encompass more people, eventually getting so big it necessitated having its own Facebook page. Lopez, who is new to the position of Event Director, used the event her and her friends started as part of her application process to get the job and it ended up winning her the position.

It’s not hard to see why. The event engages community members and even some outside of Hobart to come into their city and run, walk, or bike to various city locales. Often to popular privately owned businesses, such as The Librarium Café, a combination coffee shop/tabletop games store, or Toys in the Attic, a small boutique toy store specializing in toys that engage children’s imaginations and get them thinking. All of these places are located within jogging distance of one another, which gives the Hunt’s participants a good workout while helping bring awareness to local businesses.

Donna Seeley and her son Alek, first-time participants in the race, looked forward to testing their knowledge and teamwork skills. “I’m looking forward to seeing how much we know about where all of the places are in our city,” she said, “This is going to be a good experience for the both of us.”

However, in the end, it was a dream team between Jane Fuller, a second-year veteran, and Chris Duggan, a newcomer, who took the first prize. Fuller, who came in third in last year’s Hunt, was grinning ear to ear as Duggan promised to take her out to dinner with her winnings. Fuller was proud of the accomplishment, touting her local knowledge. “You know, if you’re going to do this, you have to be a Hobart person, you have to know Hobart.”

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 For more on upcoming events in Hobart, visit Hobart Events