Easter is approaching and its time for some eggs to find – 120 two-foot high ones are in London right now thanks to the Elephant Family and Clarence Court. The challenge is called The Big Egg Hunt and the definitive map is via downloading a smartphone app also called The Big Egg Hunt. Or you can just come across them in the tourist-focused parts of the capital that have signed up for it. The app shows the eggs on a rather dull but functional regular Google Map – with grey eggs to be found, yellow once they are found, and grey exclamation marks showing under-repair/coming-soon ones.
There are several distinct “clusters” of eggs, and the two furthest away from central London – the Battersea Power Station and Canary Wharf complexes – have thankfully produced their own printable “decorative” maps, to go along with the app-based map which covers the full hunt, and it is these maps which we feature here:
Battersea Power Station’s Big Egg Hunt
Battersea’s effort is useful and functional, albeit not particularly “Easter-y” with the egg symbols in yellow showing where you need to go. There are 21 in total, however only 11 symbols are on the map. This is beacuse one inside the power station itself is actually representing 11 eggs in total, scattered throughout the interior of the building, on multiple levels. Battersea Park also makes an appearance on the map – it’s a lovely park, but sadly there are no eeggs there.
Canary Wharf’s Big Egg Hunt
Canary Wharf has been busy the last few years reinventing itself as a shopping and tourist destination, having traditionally been the preserve of office worker (and modern architecture enthusiasts) in the proceeding decades, so it loves to have events like this and has also produced a map showing its subset of 18 eggs in The Hunt. Canary Wharf’s map has more of an Easter feel, from the pink o fthe background colours, do a yellow duck swimming in the North Dock. 8 eggs are around the Jubilee Line station, 2 are close to the DLR station and 4 are around the Elizabeth line station complex, but you’ll need to go east to the all-new Wood Wharf to find the last 4 eggs.
Like Battersea Power Station, Canary Wharf is partly multi-level and the 2D nature of these maps mean you could end up above or below the egg “level” – but in Canary Wharf’s case they do include a photograph of each egg, which will help.
More central clusters, albeit without their own dedicated map, include Covent Garden, Sloane Street, Marble Arch, Fleet Street, Marylebone, the City of London and the City of Westminster. Personally, we would have loved at least one egg in each London Borough, but if you are in London suburbia, you’ll have to make a trip in for this one.
The eggs are in situ until 27 April.
Good hunting and Happy Easter!
