Captain Caveman and "Geo"ology

Saturday April 10th 2010

The bad news is that this blog is not about that world famous Hanna-Barbera creation....Captain Caveman...instead you are going to have to suffer a blog about a cache and a cave. So this morning we woke up and it was warm already and it was only 3am (time Josh wakes up!!)...the sun was shining and all we thought was lets cache! The perfect place to cache would be by a river.....but lets set the scene for this cache. Mr Shiltonpig has investigated 4 websites and all 4 of them have all have different stories about the cave we visited....think we need some music to set the tone (some music to set the tone). Somewhere between the year 500 AD and 1500 AD (good to see we can be so precise) a man or a woman (again good to see we can narrow this down) decided to live a life of solitude, some say because they had committed a crime, others say it was that they split up a marriage...and where do you go when want a life of solitude?

Well South Derbyshire apparently....well whoever  the 1st person was...and whatever they did...will remain a mystery until someone invents a time machine (erm....didn't they do that in 1985?). But Hobbits would be proud of this cave...in the mids 1800s it even had a front door...bet those npower salesman would still have found them. But the cave is carved on of rock called Triassic Conglomerate.....now actually, this rock is actually kind of interesting...(all the blog readers, all two of you, start to fall asleep) why? because it is sediment rock, with sandstone on top and then more sediment rock...and forms a kind of layered effect...its pretty cool actually.

If you click on the photo with Mr Shiltonpig and Josh you can see more clearly what I am on about. Mrs Shiltonpig had only been in the cave a few seconds, when she became all motherly and was standing in the doorway waiting for us to get home..."where have you been?" she shouts "I've been slaving after a hot open fire for hours making this water vole stew for you" (Please note that no water voles were harmed in the making of this blog, we love all animals except spiders) To get to this cave, you walk along some magnificent river views, some of the best in the National Forest we have been to yet...as you follow the footpath, things start to get a little hairy (no, were not talking about the fact Mr Shiltonpig hasn't shaved again).

The cave/house is at the end of a very steep footpath...we would not like to walk along here when its raining...otherwise the life insurance policy might be put to good use. "Life insurance policy?" Mrs Shiltonpig asks "I didn't know we had a policy...Mr Shiltonpig do you fancy another walk along the path?????" Moving on swiftly, you walk past a large tree that J.R Tolkien must have seen to get inspiration for an Ent...whats an Ent?this is one. We also saw a swans nest and heard a woodpecker...(no not Woody, a real one). Oh and the most tame and unafraid sheep we had ever seen...had they been on some kind of confidence seminar for sheep?

The cache in question is a stone throw away from the caves, in a large yoghurt tub. Joking aside, this is exactly what geocaching is all about....taking you to places which are great fun, that you would never have known about otherwise. Big thumbs up from team Shiltonpig for this one! So if things get really hard up in the near future, team Shiltonpig have at least found a home to sleep in....it has its own doorway and windows....who needs double glazing and central heating? who needs an immersion heater and microwaves? oh hang on we do...so if you are anywhere near the village of Ingleby...take the advice of Leslie Crowther from the Price is Right...and "Come on Down"