3 steps forward...1 step back!

13th February 2010

Geocaching can be like a toilet...sometimes you can be the person sitting on it, sometimes you can be the toilet bowl. Today for the main part we were the person sitting on the toilet!

Over the course of the last 3 weeks, we have collated 3 caches which for various reasons we haven't been able to find....one cache was because Mr Shiltonpig entered the wrong co-ordinates, second was because we couldn't find it, and the third was because it wasn't there when we looked for it the first time.
We had to go back to Conkers, we might as well post the website as we wish we were on commission as we have plugged the place so much over the course over the last several weeks...
http://www.visitconkers.com/ . The first cache was stuck in a tree and Mrs Shiltonpig is known as being the size of a hobbit and so couldn't reach the cache (photo below). Mr Shiltonpig being known as being the size of an Ent was able to reach it and the first cache was in the bag!















Josh of course was on the back of Daddy and enjoying looking for planes and birds. Back in the car and after some amazing reverse driving we parked about 1 mile away. With Josh on his back again, team Shiltonpig set off for the final cache in the Waterside Wander series...number 13...(spooky music goes on in the background). After a short walk we were able to find this cache easily it was stuck in a hollow....we could swear that it wasn't there last time we looked, but hey the geocaching gods were being kind to us today lol Josh fell over twice and was covered top to toe in mud, he loved it!














Back in the car again and we drove to a place called Saltersford Valley...nobody was there at all. It was great. We had been last week but the idiot otherwise known as Mr Shiltonpig had typed in the wrong co-ordinates meaning they had walked all around the lakes a few times without getting close to the cache. This week aimed with the right co-ords, we still managed to walk the wrong way. However we able to find the cache in no time....our 75th cache and 3/4s of the way to our first proper mile stone...100 finds! Mr Shiltonpig spotted the likely hiding place in seconds!

As mentioned last week we picked up 3 travelbugs, this week we picked up two more...the one that Josh is holding called Bonzo and a London Eye geocoin. Its always great to find them, and rehide them...it might be a good time to say that we dropped one in some water...but it was perfectly fine! After some Cadburys chocolate and 7UP (product placement....eat your heart out) we were ready to try and tackle one more cache. This cache would be one we had not attempted before.....















We then drove to "The Heart of the National Forest"and parked the car....does anyone else notice that moles seem to love this time of year...everywhere we look moles are a plenty...but do you ever see one? No. However we did spot a very rare purple hat spotted bird....but noticed it was just Mrs Shiltonpig.

This 4th cache would get us unstuck...yet again. We spent around 45 minutes looking for a cache that was not there...(it was really, just we couldn't find it). I mean the clues are supposed to help you....the clue was look under leaves by a fallen tree. That would normally be the best clue in the world but in reality, there were like a million billion zillion fallen trees with ifinite amounts of leaves all over the place...plus to top it all off the gps signal was bouncing all over the place due to the tree cover making it impossible to track it down! Team Shiltonpig implore all cachers to give meaningful clues! Please...pretty please with sugar and icing on top and even a cherry!















Team Shiltonpig has had a recent addition to the team in recent weeks, and if it carries on will be more popular than the other 3 put together....the new addition? Joshs hat!

Joshs hat clearly feels that it can last by itself and find caches quicker than the other 3, this can only explain why it chooses every opportunity to try and escape, just look at the photo above, it jumped off Joshs head and secured itself in a nearby tree. Poor old Josh look what happened to his hair when that happened...and Mr Shiltonpig aged 10 years by the look of the photo. Who knows what will happen next on the journey!

So as team Shiltonpig get back in their car, muddy, slightly wet and looking at the nearby, bull finches, blue tits and robins. They remind themselves that they went 3 steps forward by finding 3 caches that they had struggled to find before..but 1 step back as yet again those pesky caches had got 1 over on team Shiltonpig....but we live to fight another day! And in the immortal words of Arnold Schwarzenegger "We'll be back!"