3 B.C. (Before Child) Part 1

August 24-26th 2007 Part 1

It is hard to imagine at times, hard to remember that once upon a time we were a couple and not a threesome as we are now.

Back in the days before Josh, we would have lie ins, have a tidy house and our bin would not be full of dirty nappies. It was also the days when we were foot loose and fancy free....the days when we could travel.

In August 2007 on the last bank holiday of the summer team Shiltonpig in only their second month caching went to their 2nd country...Spain and specifically Barcelona.

It was boiling....so hot that we cooked an egg on the pavement there and then....first up was a cable car journey up to one of the higher places in Barcelona "Castlell de Montjuic" and of course a cache! This cache will always have a special place to us as it was where we released our first travel bug and 6016 miles and 3 years later it is still going strong! Although its been quiet recently...boo hoo!

The views of Barcelona were spectacular from here and of course you could see the sea which is always nice when you live inland like we do. The cache was on a nice quiet section of pine woodland to the back of the castle....seems to be a popular place for joggers. The cache no longer exists but its a lovely walk in a quiet part of Barcelona....every time I write that word I keep wanting to burst into song and sing that famous song by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe....(watch out in part 2 of our Spain story of our visit to Montserrat).

The next cache on our visit is the story of the photo at the start of this blog and still thankfully exists today. Joan Brossa GC132FV. It is a multi cache, which means that rather than just hunting for the cache you have to collect a series of clues first which then leads you to the cache. This cache meant we were able to be be big kids for the park has a whole load of musical type amusements on which to play on.

As mentioned the 1st photo sees Mrs Shiltonpig jumping from musical note to musical note letting off little squeaks as she goes (to be honest she is well capable of doing that without the musical notes!) The park itself is a pretty area and well maintained and there were no kids around to ruin our fun!

When we eventually found the cache we found a little green toy bug in there and this would eventually be used for our second travel bug which we released this year but sadly has only moved once in the East Midlands.

Of course our trip to Barcelona wasn't all about geocaching....Mr Shiltonpig was able to enjoy his favourite architect the genius that was Antoni Gaudi www.gaudiclub.com years ahead of his time and the other most irritating/rewarding passion on the planet....the art of kicking a pigs bladder around a field, or more commonly known as football.

But while the centre of Barcelona provided some fantastic moments (including the English cinema) the hardest cache known to team Shiltonpig was just a mere 24 hours away....but they didn't know it.....

Keep watching this space (though don't hold your breath) for the next fascinating, amazing, fantastic installment of team Shiltonpigs blog!