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What every parent loves....

 Saturday May 22nd 2010

Wow....now that is hot. I am beginning to think that the devil himself has come up from hell for the day and camped out in the National Forest as it is hotter than hot. The UK just doesn't do hot weather, we get 2/3 days a year like today...and thats a good year...but boy when we do you have to make the most of it. Bikinis come out, flesh is shown....and thats just Mr Shiltonpig. Its so hot today we think the Sahara desert must be getting jealous....anyway down to business, during the course of the last week 12 new caches appeared close to our home which

Errrggghhh...look at those legs

 means that with the cost of petrol rising to stupid levels, it was more sensible to do some locals caches. We started in Albert Village, which is as previously mentioned named after Prince Albert, you remember the guy married to Queen Vic. More important than that...its Joshs fav playground area as they have plenty of slides...Josh is always the kind of kid that prefers the grown up slide to the little toddler slide....he climbs up them and jumps down them. He has no fear. We started the caching walk which is known as the conkers trail, but perhaps today we will name it the bonkers trail, as we must have been bonkers to go walking 5 miles in this heat.

Mrs Shiltonpig is so tired...

 Starting off at Suicide lake, we then walk down to a woodland area known as Dianas memorial. It seems everything has a royal connection around here....and when team Shiltonpig take the throne (read the small print in the new coalition governments policies) we will have a wood named after us as well! This woodland then becomes another wood but this time its proper woodlands, not the tree sapling variety that the National Forest is famous for lol. When Josh has grand children the trees should just be about ready to be called a forest lol After sorting out two birds having a fight on the path in front of us (bit like closing time down

"Evil Knieval" Josh

 in Swadlincote) we carried on past a quarry. Not sure exactly what they are quarrying for, but it must be important as they haven't stopped digging yet. We then come across a railway station that we didn't know about, its Moira West...a freight railway station...which doesn't seem to want to have any trains on its railway line. Onwards we head to that local landmark...Conkers. It seems that Conkers is the heart of Geocaching, we now have more caches here than anywhere else on the planet....this is a fact...honest....would we lie to you, our 1 true dear caring reader??? Tragedy happened next, we got lost....and ended up missing one of the caches off.

Proud sponser of the Conkers Trail

We would like to apologise to all our readers for having to view a photo in this blog, you are able to see Mr Shiltonpigs naked legs, we know this isn't a pretty site and hope that you weren't eating when you were reading. All legal claims can be sent to our legal dept....Mr Cameron, 10 Downing Street. We must have walked forever on this caching trip....so much so that Mr Shiltonpig got 2 blisters on his 2 little pinky toes....ouch. The round trip took us back to the other side of suicide lake and back towards home....the only thing more sad than the end of this trip was the final episode of Ashes to Ashes shown last night. Goodbye Gene Hunt...we will miss you.

23rd January 2010

January 23rd 2010....

Shiltonpig decided to go for a new record and sure enough today was already looking like a good day. It had rained all week and somehow today it was dry...cold but dry. Team Shiltonpig parked up at Conkers and sure enough within 2 minutes the first cache of the day was found. A small micro with a rather strange yellow sticker on it, it was wet inside. Josh aka "Shiltonpiggy" was far too busy making duck noises as you can see on the picture to the left. However "Waterside Wander Number 1" was in the bag and away we went to the next one.

The ducks gave us one more deviation before Josh finally decided he would join us. The next cache was next to a disused canal near Ashby, more of a reminder of the heritage this area once had. Of course Mr Shiltonpig soon found the next cache, even though it wasn't his turn much to the annoyance of Mrs Shiltonpig. Caches come in all shapes and sizes, the hider of the series of caches that we were doing today must have had a lot of vitamin C, as all the caches were vitamin supplement tubes otherwise known as micro caches. Plenty of "muggles" or non geocachers around today along with some of the most wildest dogs known in this part of Leicestershire.

One of the most disappointing things about geocaching is turning up to the location and not being able to find the cache. Sadly our next stop on this canal series meant we were hunting through bricks and old beer cars but sadly no cache. Not to worry, as we carried on our journey we passed Moira Furnace, for further information click on http://www.moirafurnace.com/

Of course there was an opportunity to gain another cache along the way, the third in total so far. Mrs Shiltonpig found this one and this cheered her up, we found it alongside what must be mechanical remains of the furnace. It was around this time that the familar sound of the ice cream van has heard in the background, more on that later.

Off to another bridge in the area and after we had crossed it, we found the cache hiding under one of the steps, the log inside was soaking wet and was very hard to write on, but we managed. Josh was amused by the ducks in the area and we played peekaboo with him, and took a few photos of him from the top of the bridge.

Next up onto our 5th cache was near some electric pylons, perhaps not the best loaction for a cache. The clue said that it was the tallest of the Xmas trees, from our point of view all the trees looked big. Mr Shiltonpig picked the right one and sure enough in what can only be described as a very peculiar rubber pouch was another micro cache. But then the dreaded sound of the ice cream van struck again!! And we were a good mile away from getting close.

A good walk across the National Forest ensued next and Josh finally fell asleep. The next cache was unusual, it was tied up next to some dreadful coloured plastic plants. The crazy thing is that at first glance you couldn't tell the difference between the plastic and the real vegetation, even though due to winter the grass was yellowish lol. But as we had just found the cache and celebrated the most we had ever found in one day (6) along came the familar noise and up showed the ice cream van...two Mr Whippies with flake and raspberry sauce if you please....yum yum yum.

The rather smug with itself team Shiltonpig was now in a state of geocache hunger and they could smell more success around the corner, so on they went further and further down the path. Seconds turned to minutes and minutes turned to hours....and guess what another bridge was up the way...would it be the site of another cache. The answer of course is yes! Mrs Shiltonpig was asked to help in this one, but the first place she looked, she didn't use her geo force (Star Wars meets Geocaching) and Mr Shiltonpig looked in the same place and hidden behind the grass another vitamin C tube was there.

The view from the bridge was typical of this area of the world. But the best cache was just waiting for us ahead today, otherwise known as Moira Madness. It lead us all around this small wood, and I am sure we made a meal out of it, but thats the problem when you have a pushchair. We spent ages getting the gps signal and then in the end we had to use the clue. Firstly the clue was very long to uncode and then it said to look for 3 logs next to a Holly tree....incredible, every tree in this wood was basically a Holly tree and for some reason there were loads of logs lying everywhere.


Mrs Shiltonpig had got stuck behind pushing Josh when all of a sudden Mr Shiltonpig fell over in the mud covering his jeans and coat. Joy of joys! We looked and we looked and geocache fever struck us as we kept looking. It was starting to get frantic as the worry that yet another cache couldnt' be found started to creep over us, however at the last minute we found it. It was a large size and loads and loads of trinkets were inside and also the muggles geo coin was found, which we took. Our second travel bug "Shiltonpigs Nature Bug" was placed inside and off that travel bug starts. Our 8th cache found in a day and a new team Shiltonpig record. Yay to us! Weary, hungry (especially Josh) and muddy we headed back to the car!