Train Spotting in Peterboro

Friday April 2nd 2010

Now there is an unwritten rule regarding the different level of geeks that exist in the country...so in rank order please find them written down for the first time.....so from less geeky to bottom on the pile down right geeky....we have 5. Geocachers (come on admit it, hunting around for tupperware boxes is hardly trendy lol). 4. Sci Fi fans who don't dress up in Star Trek uniforms. 3. I.T. people 2. Sci Fi fans who do dress up in Star Trek uniforms. 1. and finally the geekiest of the geeks are train spotters....and they deserves to be teased and teased by anyone further up the pecking order.

So imagine for a moment team Shiltonpigs amazement when we (yes, us) were scorned upon by train spotters. Let us roll back a few moments....we had located the nearest cache to us from Marholm, and this had taken us to the end of a country lane, it was as far as the car would take us and so we actually had to get out the car and walk...and much as Mrs Shiltonpig moaned we also had to cross a railway line....as we climbed up the steps we turned the corner and sure enough we saw what has now become an endangered species....the lesser spotted train spotter. They had massive cameras...and seem thrilled that the 09.13 express Leicester to Peterboro train had just passed, they were talking about the luxury toilets that were a speciality on that train, and had the other seen the paintwork. So team Shiltonpig were startled to find they gave us a filthy look as we walked by...now hang on one cotton picking minute here...were higher up the geek ladder...it should be us scorning them...we felt there and then that we should get out our copy of the geek guidebook to show them what we meant, but wisely Mrs Shiltonpig advised against it.

Still in absolute shock at this we carried on....the cache in question was located on windmill bridge...now you might expect that we would find some kind of windmill when we got to the bridge...especially as the cache description says that there would be one there....but while team Shiltonpig found the cache, we certainly couldn't find any windmills whatsoever. Perhaps this cache thought it was in Holland or something like that? So we came back to the railway line, just in time to see the 09.45 Peterboro to Lincoln train pass by and take the 1st photo in this blog. If you click on it and enlarge you will see 3 heads peeping over the bridge...proof that train spotters exist.

But our misfortune didn't end there...we carried on finding some caches in the nearby area. Mrs Shiltonpig bumped into some horse riders in the area looking for a cache...now the geek guidebook page 56 clearly states that horse riders are less geeky than geocachers...but to point out the sign in the photo saying private land, when in fact Mrs Shiltonpig wasn't even on private land, seems a little bit of a strange thing to do. We seem to upset horse riders quite a bit...second time in a month....oh well we do like clip clops as Josh would say. The other photos in this blog show us in an area that Mr Shiltonpig would be proud of, a field full and I mean chocca full of genuine bona fine old old oak trees.

What is it about oak trees that they have so many holes in them....fantastic place for hiding geocaches...there were several oak trees near the co-ordinates and all with holes, so Mr Shiltonpig put his hand in many holes as usual to look for it. In the end Mrs Shiltonpig walked around the tree twice before looking head height to spot the cache! Much to the amusement of Mr Shiltonpig who had already spotted it...a star wars TB was our reward....not sure what page of the geek guidbook that would be on. Oh and what about the photo of the cache near the blue flowers? That is our 200th cache....well done team Shiltonpig, you truly are amazing (have to blow our own trumpets, nobody else is going to do it!)