High Noon Frenzy - Shiltonpigs 3rd "First to Find"

Mr Shiltonpig catching some "rays"

 Monday April 19th 2010

Caching can be extremely addictive and what had started out as a normal afternoons caching soon became a caching frenzy we were worse than 100 piranhas in a pond trying to get the only piece of meat....we were even slobbering at the end (well Mr Shiltonpig was anyway lol). So it had been a slow start to the day we had started off at Bignalls Wood otherwise known as the posh part of the National Forest, this is where all the reservoirs and stately homes and rich people live...lol Of course as always we were on the trail of those elusive high noon statues.

Josh "King of the molehills"

 We found the statue fairly straight forward...we had little excuse this time as it was in a field with no trees to block it. Mr Shiltonpig thought he would lie down and hope he could catch a tan when the sun shone through the hole in the statue....thats when Mrs Shiltonpig pointed out that the sun wasn't shining. Josh loved it here and was running around without any fear of thorns, stingers or thistles. So then we thought lets go and get another high noon statue....and so after some well deserved nouvelle cuisine (aka McDonalds) we drove to the Sence Valley park for the next one. Sence Valley is located in the part of the National Forest best known for coal.

Mrs Shiltonpig had given him 2 black eyes

 This cache was a sneaky little thing however the mightiness of Mrs Shiltonpig proved too great for it....the valley has 3 ponds which we then decided to have a look around....But then we thought to ourselves, lets go and do another high noon cache. So we then went to Billa Barra park and we found the statue no problem....but the cache was going to be a lot harder. Now if finding empty packets of durex was a competition we would have won, but it wasn't and we looked and looked for the cache and just couldn't find it. So we had found 5 of the 6 high noon caches....to find the bonus cache we had a choice, do we go home email the cache owner for some help or do we get out the fingers and toes and

Josh just didn't want to leave without finding it!

do the math. Well by now we were caught up in the moment, so we sat and worked out where we thought the co-ords should be. Driving with Mrs Shiltonpig directing via the gps was a new experience and lots of fun...and we soon found ourselves in roughly the right location. We drove down a bumpy lane and parked up....this was just the first half of it. We then had to find something that would give us more digits...we walked around for 10-15 minutes and then we saw it. We knew we had arrived in the right place! Then we had to work out some more figures, this took another 10 minutes....but we were not sure we had it right. We entered the co-ords into the gps and away we went.

Great cache...FTF prize was larger than expected

After 5 days, 30-40 miles driven, 6 woodlands and the bonus woodland, 6 statues we walked right up to the cache and its hard to describe the joy and smug satisfaction in finding a series like this first. We can't tell you where we found it....you will have to go yourself. There is no question that this is our favourite cache in the region and should be in everyones "to do list". It really shows off the National Forest in a positive light and jumps straight into our top 10 list of caches found yet. We go home shattered, satisfied and a little disappointed that the series is now over! Thanks to the Ashby Bells for a great series!

High Noon - Shiltonpigs 2nd "1st to Find"

Mr Shiltonpig struts down Swadlincote High Street

 Thursday April 15th 2010

The wild west.....cowboys....indians....and of course sheriffs looking cool and mean all at the same time, walking calmly down the street. Yes....this was High Noon....National Forest style!! Finding a cache before anyone else can be a very competitive thing....so team Shiltonpig left the house with the usual equipment gps, nappies and a couple of .45 revolvers just in case we met any fellow geocachers who stood in the way of us and that precious reward "a first to find"!! John Wayne.....Clint Eastwood...they have nothing on these bunch of cowboys!!

An info board that we blatantly have used info from for this blog

Psssttt...shall we let you into a secret? actually High Noon has nothing to do with the famous film of 1952 starring Grace Kelly...instead it has to do with the sun and the time of day.....basically the National Forest is split into 6 regions....and some clever bloke designed 6 statues or pillars that have holes in them (whats clever about that?...well hang on, hang on...I'm typing as fast as I can to tell you) each statue on midsummer and midwinters day allows the sun to shine through the hole at 12.03pm in winter and 1.03pm in summer. Pretty neat ah? Some of you may be thinking why didn't the artist just buy a watch to tell the time....

Mrs Shiltonpig was unavailable so this "tree" had to make do

But that would be missing the point wouldn't it? Plus it would be hard to carry a 30 foot statue on your wrist on midsummers day wouldn't it? Anyway back to the story....team Shiltonpig love going for first time finds....our last attempt saw us going out in the snow on a cold Friday evening in February. This time it was a Thursday afternoon, we jumped out of the car and started walking like there was no tomorrow. Nothing can prepare you for the thrill...the buzz of hoping, praying that you get there first. But alas there was a problem....we found the co-ordinates easy enough...but where was the statue, we couldn't see it?

 But we did find a black bra attached to a nearby tree? We wondered whether the cache owners had been getting a little carried away when they were here last (Mr and Mrs Ashby Bells...tut tut lol) But black bra's weren't what we were after...so we kept on walking around and around for what seemed like an eternity, until we heard a little squeak from Mrs Shiltonpig "squeak, squeak"....roughly translated as "I have found the statue". Then we kicked ourselves as you will see by the photo at the end of this blog, the statue is so large that you wonder how on earth we could have missed it in the first place! In fact the statue was crying out in a loud voice "here I am"...we felt slightly foolish...so we went back to the black bra....(Mr Shiltonpig tried it on....not really)...and then started looking around. Josh pointed out "plane" and sure enough there was one....erm haven't they heard of volcanic ash? or the fact they shouldn't be flying? Josh was about to ring the civil aviation authority but then realised he can hardly talk...other than say "plane" so left it.

Vogue won't be calling any time soon

Mrs Shiltonpig then pointed to the place where the cache was....and then we held our breath....as we opened the lid carefully...(we passed out, and don't recommend to anyone holding their breath...) and wondered if anyone had been there before us.....if you haven't guessed by now (the title of this blog entry kinda gives it away) we were the first and there was a lovely keyring with a photo of the statue in the cache, which Mr Shiltonpig is showing in the nearby photo...with a particularly cheesey smile If I may say so myself....

James Bond Wild West style

 So in order not to disappoint all you wild west fans out there Mr Shiltonpig re-enacts some kind of scene for you at the high noon statue (some may point out that it looks more like James Bond.....but you would just be nit picking....this is a low budget blog production and don't have the millions Hollywood has to spend....however if you would like to invest our account number is.....). Hopefully you wild west junkies are satisfied??? If not we have 5 more of these to find....so watch this space. So if you are looking for a good cache or just a place to pick up a spare black bra then pop on down to the National Forest in Grangewood. Bring on the other high noon caches!