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A Fun Friday Wordsearch!

Or is it...

Hidden in this wordsearch, is a trail of clues to lead you to one specific word within the grid. It's this specific word, and the trail you used to get there that I'm after.

To begin, look for words adjacent to the green start-square, use these to find the next word; which again will be touching a new pair of clues.

Continue this until you have solved the board and retrieved the final word (which has no more new clues touching it).

enter image description here

Note: This was originally meant to be a bit of fun for a Friday, and definitely nothing involving cryptic logic or deduction. Below, see the first clue example worked out for you, which should make it clearer how to proceed.

From the start square, we have two words "touching" it. hard and hat. We can use these, and a bit of searching, to find the next word helmet (I, 6) -> (N,6). "Touching" this are the words: "snake", "seasons", and "venonous". Out of those potential clues, two of them clearly go together snake and venomous, which suggest the next word you need in your trail. To re-iterate, each word has a pair of clues that you should use, any additional words are either red-herrings, or you will come back to later.

Also to clarify, as a simplification hint:

All words that you need are on verticals and horizontals.

Any feedback more than welcome as always, this is something I had in my head for a while and hope it's as fun & relaxing to solve as it was to design.

Spelling is en(gb)

Text based grid (will reformat if a better way is suggested)

_   h   a   r   d   f   b   o   s   i   t   s   h   a   p   p   y   p   k   t   c
h   r   e   g   b   d   n   l   n   u   c   r   m   s   l   a   o   p   i   d   s
a   k   c   o   b   r   a   r   a   k   i   n   g   b   f   y   h   u   a   e   e
t   e   f   e   k   a   p   g   k   e   u   i   n   h   j   b   j   r   f   p   m
t   r   j   r   r   p   r   t   e   w   r   o   r   p   s   y   t   s   o   i   o
v   e   n   o   m   o   u   s   h   e   l   m   e   t   e   r   j   e   g   r   l
t   h   g   u   h   u   n   t   f   o   d   b   f   o   a   c   r   q   y   t   u
v   t   d   b   i   n   i   o   j   h   k   c   i   m   s   e   p   p   t   s   b
g   a   d   e   r   f   n   c   f   c   e   a   a   c   o   l   o   u   r   s   r
v   e   c   f   c   y   g   j   e   l   g   r   b   t   n   c   l   g   e   f   a
d   w   r   e   d   a   u   g   h   t   e   r   f   s   s   r   a   i   n   e   s
e   g   t   e   l   w   w   m   p   k   o   t   a   e   w   r   o   t   t   l   f
j   r   y   l   s   r   h   y   m   e   c   a   m   g   i   m   c   u   p   i   b
c   e   p   i   f   d   w   u   w   q   a   x   i   j   n   t   a   v   h   n   a
o   e   a   b   f   c   b   a   i   n   u   i   l   d   d   j   f   w   e   e   r
f   n   q   o   p   a   p   f   n   w   a   o   y   t   v   a   y   p   a   j   b
f   l   n   m   u   r   t   e   t   i   g   e   r   g   i   r   l   c   r   c   e
e   d   e   o   n   d   i   r   e   d   e   o   a   n   o   m   e   k   t   f   r
e   k   k   t   d   l   q   m   r   u   g   e   v   a   r   n   g   m   a   t   r
i   d   s   u   m   m   e   r   g   a   r   d   e   n   i   n   g   e   g   a   e
n   e   r   a   l   f   y   n   a   n   m   t   l   h   t   e   l   h   i   t   a
g   h   e   t   x   v   t   h   j   s   i   l   v   e   r   a   s   f   r   h   a
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  • 1
    $\begingroup$ What does "final" word mean? $\endgroup$ – HollyLeaves Apr 13 '18 at 14:10
  • $\begingroup$ There should be a word from which there no more new clues touching it. I'll update the post. If needed I can add a hint for how many jumps you should expect before finishing. $\endgroup$ – Bilkokuya Apr 13 '18 at 14:12
  • $\begingroup$ So you want the word at the end of the longest chain? Because if you go down from the green square you get 'hat' which has no links. Also it seems like the words can touch anywhere. $\endgroup$ – HollyLeaves Apr 13 '18 at 14:15
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    $\begingroup$ Could you post a text version of the grid? $\endgroup$ – Deusovi♦ Apr 13 '18 at 14:17
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    $\begingroup$ don't worry it's very interesting. I'm just being picky with the premises $\endgroup$ – HollyLeaves Apr 13 '18 at 14:25
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The final answer is

AUTOMOBILE.

Here is the grid, with words highlighted:

enter image description here

and the clues are:

HARD HAT --> HELMET
VENOMOUS SNAKE --> COBRA
PRUNING, RAKING --> GARDENING
WINTER, SUMMER --> SEASONS
RAIN, WIND --> WEATHER
RED, GREEN --> COLOURS
STRIPED FELINE --> TIGER
FAMILY GIRL --> DAUGHTER
CAR, TAXI --> AUTOMOBILE

And there are no words coming off that final one, so we're done.

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  • $\begingroup$ Just in the time I was writing a hint, terrified for how badly I'd given instructions. Absolutely perfect. $\endgroup$ – Bilkokuya Apr 13 '18 at 15:02
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    $\begingroup$ @Bilkokuya I was expecting the letters that each pair branched off of (or maybe the starting letters of the answers) to spell something - the only reason it took as long as it did was that I wasn't 100% sure that was the last word! $\endgroup$ – Deusovi♦ Apr 13 '18 at 15:17
  • $\begingroup$ Ah, I'll definitely look at trying to add more of a "prize" secret in future - would definitely make it more rewarding. Thanks for solving anyway! $\endgroup$ – Bilkokuya Apr 13 '18 at 15:19
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    $\begingroup$ In the solution picture, why are the cells with u highlighted green? $\endgroup$ – Engineer Toast Apr 13 '18 at 18:00
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    $\begingroup$ @EngineerToast ...Because I had ctrl+F -ed u, and I forgot to unhighlight before screenshotting. Fixed, thanks! $\endgroup$ – Deusovi♦ Apr 13 '18 at 18:24
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Partial Answer:

enter image description here
So the clues are:
Hard Hat Go Here
Venomous Cobra
but after that, there are eight words that are connected (depending on your definition of "connected"):
Mud, Hunt, Wet, Helmet, Bars, Pruning, See, and Snake.
Maybe someone else can make sense of all this.

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  • $\begingroup$ Oh...I thought diagonals didn't count..... $\endgroup$ – HollyLeaves Apr 13 '18 at 14:51
  • $\begingroup$ And I thought you can't reuse letters too..... $\endgroup$ – HollyLeaves Apr 13 '18 at 14:51
  • $\begingroup$ It didn't specify in the question ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ $\endgroup$ – Austin Weaver Apr 13 '18 at 14:57
  • $\begingroup$ I've added a hint section that will hopefully clarify how to go about solving this. (Apologies for confusion caused, I'll hopefully be able to make things clearer in future) $\endgroup$ – Bilkokuya Apr 13 '18 at 15:03

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