Deer oh deer!

Josh and Mr Shiltonpig in the dog kennel again!

 Friday April 30th 2010

Now we know that part of the fun of geocaching is the journey...but today was a little bit too much excitement even for team Shiltonpig. We were driving along to Bignalls Wood near Calke as normal, all of a sudden a deer bolts out the hedge and runs across the road, swiftly followed by a further 4 deer, emergency brakes to the full as team Shiltonpig including the driver are in absolute shock. An accident is narrowly averted, the car on the other side of the road has to come to a complete

Evil looking tree

 stop too. Startled the deer just carry on as if nothing was any difference. It was a pretty scary experience...trust us....its a good job the worlds best driver was behind the wheel otherwise Bambi may not be starring in that sequel he keeps promising us. When we finally parked the car at The Ferrers Centre, we just sat there in shock. It seems at the moment that pheasants, cows, horses and now deers are all trying to attack us. Once and for all to any animals reading this (and we don't mean Mr Shiltonpigs mother in law) we love you and please don't harm us any more. So shaking like a leaf we staggered out the car and proceeded walking

"Why are they researching us?"

 to the first cache. We had been the other week in an attempt to find these caches first, but the cunning Ashby Bells had beaten us to it, so we came back to find them (although we were now 13th to find!!). We had seen an Ent the other week near Ingleby, but now we had come across the worlds most evil looking tree...now it probably is a very friendly tree, but we didn't stop around to find out before it trapped us with its evil clutches! We carried on regardless and found an area that the National Forest are conducting research in. Why they are conducting research on nuts, we have no idea....we decided to make a run

A Guard on duty

 for it before they captured us too. Its clear to us that dodgy things are going on here, as the next cache took us to a "Watchtower"...what strange research are they doing? Are they expecting the trees to escape? Are people going missing and they suspect the trees? Or are trees appearing and they have no idea on why? Its up there with this mystery as well! Well whatever the trees are up to, team Shiltonpig tippy toed out of there and on to the next cache. Things didn't get any better for Mr Shiltonpig at the next cache as the rest of the team forced him to take a bath in an old trough....why do the rest of the team always pick on him! Its just not fair!

Mr Shiltonpigs 1st bath of the year!

But the heavens were to have a say on the final part of the day as we were poured upon by big fat rain....Mr Shiltonpig literally ran back to the car (over a mile, nearly breaking his ankle and jumping across fences that were designed not to be jumped across) hoping that he could drive the car (avoiding any deer) and pick up the team without them getting soaked. He drove down roads that were not even supposed to carry traffic in order to collect the team, but he was too late....when he found the team, they were in a huddle, soaked to the bone, and looking pretty sorry for themselves. It was a rare moment where Mr Shiltonpig felt a twinge of sadness in his heart of stone at his family. Time to take them home, feed them, water them and change thier bottom...and that was just Mrs Shiltonpig!