The Olympic gold postbox challenge

It all started back in August 2012 – just a few days into the London 2012 Olympics, with our friend Bryan posting the following Facebook status:

I don’t think it crossed my mind to take part in the challenge when I first read it though. It wasn’t until hubby and I were planning a late summer break a few days later – starting in Sunderland and then heading further north to see the pandas in Edinburgh Zoo and visit a friend of ours in Glasgow – that the idea of looking for the gold postboxes really started to take shape.

 

“You’ll probably think this sounds crazy,” said the hubby, “but I’ve been looking at the gold postbox map…”

“…and seeing as we’re going that far north anyway, we might as well see if we can find some of them!” I finished, already anticipating what he was about to suggest.

 

Yes, it sounded crazy, but it also sounded like fun. Little did I know quite what we’d started!

By the end of that trip, we’d found 26 of the Olympic postboxes. The Paralympics started a few days into our holiday and we managed to visit a couple of the postboxes for these as they began to appear. Our challenge was to find the Olympic postboxes though – finding the Paralympic ones was a bonus at that point – but we were already determined that we would find as many as we could.

 

Over the next couple of years, the gold postbox map became our first point of reference when deciding where to go on holiday – if we could visit any postboxes on the way, we would do so. We would spend a day out for a drive, finding the postboxes within a reasonable distance of where we lived. We took a day trip to Sark during our holiday to France in order to visit the gold postbox there and finally managed to visit the Isle of Man last week. We have also managed to visit the two gold lock gate controls on the Thames that were painted in honour of the London 2012 gold medallists and found a gold-painted phone box on our travels too!  We even managed to get on air during Simon Mayo’s drivetime programme on Radio 2 with a request for Spandau Ballet’s “Gold” in celebration of finding our final gold postbox!

 

After almost three years, and a journey that has taken us the length and breadth of the country, our gold postbox challenge is complete. 110 golden postboxes visited in total – 65 for the Olympics and 46 for the Paralympics (which adds up to 111 but the postbox in Wilmslow is for Victoria Pendleton (Olympic gold medallist) and Craig MacLean (Paralympic gold medallist) and so appears in both lists).

 

It has been a bit of a crazy challenge, but we have travelled to parts of the country that we probably wouldn’t have visited otherwise and have had some wonderful moments doing so. Looking back over the photos has also been a lovely way of seeing how our family has grown and changed since we started the challenge – Jessica was just eleven months old when we visited our first postbox and Sophie didn’t arrive until well over a year later.  It’s been fun, and we’ve had an amazing time – but how are we going to choose where to go on holiday now that it’s over?

 

Here is the list of where our Olympic postbox travels have taken us:

August 2012

#1 – Nick Skelton (Equestrian Team Jumping) – Bedworth

#2 – Jessica Ennis (Women’s Heptathlon) – Sheffield

#3 – Ed Clancy (Men’s Team Pursuit Cycling) – Huddersfield

#4 – Andrew Triggs (Men’s Four Rowing) – Hebden

#5 – Alastair Brownlee (Men’s Triathlon) – Horsforth

#6 – Nicola Adams (Women’s Boxing Flyweight) – Leeds

#7 – Luke Campbell (Men’s Boxing Bantamweight) – Hull

#8 – Katherine Copland (Women’s Lightweight Double Sculls Rowing) – Stockton-on-Tees

#9 – Scott Brash (Equestrian Team Jumping) – Peebles

#10 – Chris Hoy (Men’s Team Sprint Cycling) – Edinburgh

#11 – Chris Hoy (Men’s Keirin) – Edinburgh

#12 – Katherine Grainger (Women’s Double Sculls Rowing) – Aberdeen

#13 – Tim Baillie (Men’s Double Canoe Slalom) – Westhill

#14 – Tim Baillie (Men’s Double Canoe Slalom) – Westhill

#15 – Heather Stanning (Women’s Pairs Rowing) – Lossiemouth

#16 – Andy Murray (Men’s Tennis Singles) – Dunblane

#17 – Bradley Wiggins (Men’s Cycling Time Trial) – Chorley

#18 – Bradley Wiggins (Men’s Cycling Time Trial) – Eccleston

#19 – Jason Kenny (Men’s Sprint Cycling) – Bolton

#20 – Jason Kenny (Men’s Team Sprint Cycling) – Bolton

#21 – Steven Burke (Men’s Team Pursuit Cycling) – Colne

 

September 2012

#22 – Philip Hindes (Men’s Team Sprint Cycling) – Manchester

#23 – Jade Jones (Women’s Taekwando) – Flint

#24 – Tom James (Men’s Four Rowing) – Wrexham

#25 – Anna Watkins (Women’s Double Sculls Rowing) – Leek

#26 – Greg Rutherford (Men’s Long Jump) – Milton Keynes

#27 – Geraint Thomas (Men’s Team Pursuit Cycling) – Cardiff

#28 – Peter Charles (Equestrian Team Jumping) – Alton

 

October 2012

#29 – Ben Ainslie (Men’s Finn Sailing) – Lymington

#30 – Henley Rowers (Rowing) – Henley-on-Thames

#31 – Nick Skelton (Equestrian Team Jumping) – Alcester

#32 – Alex Gregory (Men’s Four Rowing) – Cheltenham

#33 – Charlotte Dujardin (Equestrian Individual Dressage) – Newent

#34 – Pete Reed (Men’s Four Rowing) – Nailsworth

#35 – Pete Reed (Men’s Four Rowing) – Nailsworth

#36 – Laura Bechtolsheimer (Equestrian Team Dressage) – Ampney St Peter

 

May 2013

#37 – Laura Trott (Women’s Team Pursuit Cycling) – Harlow

#38 – Laura Trott (Women’s Omnium Cycling) – Cheshunt

#39 – Laura Trott (Women’s Team Pursuit Cycling) – Cheshunt

#40 – Charlotte Dujardin (Equestrian Team Dressage) – Enfield

#41 – Anthony Joshua (Boxing Men’s Super-Heavyweight) – Watford

 

June 2013

#42 – Dani King (Women’s Team Pursuit Cycling) – Hamble

#43 – Peter Wilson (Shooting Men’s Double Trap) – Sherborne

#44 – Ed McKeever (Men’s Canoe Sprint Kayak Single 200m) – Bradford-on-Avon

#45 – Helen Glover (Women’s Pairs Rowing) – Penzance

#46 – Ben Ainslie (Men’s Finn Sailing) – Restronguet

 

July 2013

#47 – Pete Reed (Men’s Four Rowing) – Chiswick

#48 – London 2012 Olympics – Westminster

#49 – Joanna Rowsell (Women’s Team Pursuit Cycling) – Carshalton (this one was originally gold but was later painted red as it was in the wrong location)

#50 – Joanna Rowsell (Women’s Team Pursuit Cycling) – Cheam

#51 – Sophie Hosking (Women’s Lightweight Double Sculls Rowing) – Wimbledon

#52 – Andy Murray (Men’s Tennis Singles) – Wimbledon

#53 – Mo Farah (Men’s 5000m) – Teddington

#54 – Mo Farah (Men’s 10,000m) – Isleworth

#55 – Heather Stanning (Women’s Pairs Rowing) – Larkhill

#56 – Peter Charles (Equestrian Team Jumping) – Bentworth

 

August 2013

#57 – London 2012 Olympics – Stratford

#58 – Ben Maher (Equestrian Team Jumping) – Elsenham

#59 – Victoria Pendleton (Women’s Keirin) – Stotfold

#60 – Etienne Stott (Men’s Double Canoe Slalom) – Bedford

#61 – British Cyclists (British Cycling HQ) – Manchester

#62 – Victoria Pendleton (Women’s Keirin) – Wilmslow

#63 – Carl Hester (Equestrian Team Dressage) – Sark

#64 – Tom James (Men’s Four Rowing) – Coedpoeth

#65 – Peter Kennaugh (Men’s Team Pursuit Cycling) – Onchan, Isle of Man