ESCAPE rooms and hunts have grown in popularity in recent years, giving groups of friends, family or colleagues the chance to work together to solve a challenge under pressure.

With each one offering a unique experience, Basingstoke is spoilt for choice when it comes to escape experiences, with three different businesses thriving in the town.

Having completed a few in the past and really enjoying them, I was excited to try Escape Hunt’s new City Hunt adventure, Return to Wonderland, which launched at the Festival Place branch on March 23.

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Arriving at the venue on a Sunday morning my family and I were given a warm welcome by our friendly games master, who set about explaining our challenge.

We discovered that the Queen of Hearts made the mistake of looking into her magic mirror before it was quite awake, causing it to shatter into pieces.

The broken looking glass pieces were scattered across Basingstoke taking Wonderland’s citizens with them.

By order of the Queen, we were asked to help the White Rabbit return everyone and the broken glass pieces to Wonderland or it’s off with his head. Yikes!

Our team of six adults were presented with a picnic basket filled with possible clues to use on our adventure.

It caused us much amusement to see my brother-in-law carrying the hamper around town in the rain.

We were also given an iPad to show us where we needed to go and help us find the virtual lost characters of Wonderland scattered around the town.

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Using a digital map to crack clues, complete puzzles and solve challenges, we were given 90 minutes to complete the mission and return the characters to Wonderland to save the Mad Hatter from the Queen of Hearts.

Our knowledge of Basingstoke proved useful and helped us identify exactly where we needed to head, giving us an advantage over those less familiar with the area.

The first clue had us somewhat stumped, but when my sister finally figured it out, the answer proved to be rather obvious.

We raced through the next clues, with none of them feeling particularly challenging. However, it was fun to work together and nice to be out and about exploring the town, opening our eyes to things we may have walked past hundreds of times and never noticed before.

There was a good mixture of clues to suit everyone, from maths to riddles, and everyone was able to participate.

Half-way around we were presented with a real-life escape challenge when we passed a woman stuck behind some gates to a communal bin area asking for our help. My brother saved the day and managed to free her, leaving us wondering whether it was all part of the mission or an unlikely coincidence.

By the time we reached the final clue, we had plenty of time left on the clock, making our mission somewhat more relaxed than previous escape challenges I have done.

However, the last clue proved to be the biggest challenge and we ended up having to request our first hint to solve it.

As we headed back to base, we were given one last challenge to complete and finished with 14 minutes left on the clock.

While I didn’t feel the same pressure of previous challenges – one of which I failed to complete in time - it was fun and offered something a bit different for a Sunday morning.

With a mixture of easy and more challenging clues, Return to Wonderland is a great escape hunt for families with older children who could solve many of the clues themselves. Families with younger children can still bring them along for the fun, as those under eight can accompany a group taking part for free.

Teams of two to six can take part costing £15 per person.

For tickets, or for more information on how to book, click here Escape Hunt.