Another a"moo"sing tale!

Cowpats with love

Monday April 12th 2010

You would be forgiven for thinking that the cows near the ancient forest of Charnwood were friendly...simply because cows are generally regarded as placid and grass eating. Your view would be strengthened when as you walk down a field, you find freshly laid cowpats laid with a purple heart in the middle of them....but you would be wrong....the cows of Charnwood have you deceived. Imagine if you will 3 inncoent geocachers by the names of Mr and Mrs Shiltonpig and Josh, who just wanted to go happily on their way to their 1st and second letterbox hybird caches (more on that later).

Cows attempt a pincer "moo"vement

But the cows had other ideas....oh yes they allowed us to enter the field and have a look at the beautiful reservoir of Blackbrook...but when we tried to leave, they had us surrounded. Using tactics not seen since the English Civil War...the cows attacked us from both flanks, they had even broken down a nearby fence hoping to trap us....all seemed nearly lost, the 3 of us huddled together and wept bitterly (well actually, that was just Mr Shiltonpig)...when all of a sudden we noticed that one of the wooden planks around the footpath was missing....while Josh starting distracting them singing "baa baa black sheep" we climbed over the fence and onto freedom....just as we got far enough away we shouted back at them "were off to McDonalds"....

Mr Shiltonpig is a stamp collector

In 1796 some blokes decided that it would be a good idea to build a reservoir here, they put an awful amount of time and effort into it...so much time and effort that 3 years later the dam burst and within 11 minutes the water was already in every house of nearby Loughborough, with screams and moans of all the local residents....oops! In 1957 an earthquake measure 5.3 in the area made more cracks in the dam...will somebody just take a hint and just admit that the valley just doesn't want a dam. The caches here are letterbox hybrids, which means that they have their own stamp book and inkpad. We stamped Joshs hand..though he immediately tried entry into the local nightclub....with some fake ID.

Err...whats that?

Charnwood Forest is an interesting place...coincidentally in the same year as the earthquake a schoolboy discovered a fossil known as a charnia, and it shattered the scientific world as it became the first fossil found from a really really really long time ago. These days strange looking creatures also can be found in the forest, just look at the strange one on the right...no, no, no not Mrs Shiltonpig, the mushroom on the tree. The area however is adjacent to Mont St Bernard, the only monastery of its kind left in the whole of England....these guys have it easy though, they get up at 3.15am and go to bed at 8pm...thats 7.25 hours sleep a night....thats double what we get having Josh in the house!!

Leicestershires answer to Rio's Christ the Redeemer

The abbey itself looks like its missing a roof....which is kind of weird....but a short walk to the side shows Leicestershires answer to Rio De Janerios "Christ the Redeemer". Inside the abbey is a wealth of bible related literature and 1 booklet dedicated to its opposition to 1 religion. Interesting. There are more caches in the area and we are all glad, firstly because it gives us a chance to get our revenge on the cows and secondly because there is so much history here that we can learn about. Oh and spare a thought for poor old Josh today...he bumped his head and has a little egg in its place.

A"moo"sing Canal Capers

Saturday March 27th 2010

Of course, some times the jokes come that easily...this was the case with this photo...the cow is the one on the right! Boom boom! Yes another novelty cache on our afternoon outing today. So with lunch in our bellies...another Mr Shiltonpig special sandwich, we felt we had the energy to tackle some caches on another section of the canal we were on the other day. This was this canal linky poo . It was a much quieter part of the canal that housed a stack of caches...so sit back, relax and let us guide you through the pick of the caches in this area.

We parked the car near some donkeys and Josh literally ran to see though....though they were blinfolded, not sure why? (so if you know why drop us a note). Of course Josh pipes up and says "These pair of donkeys are just like my parents". Tut tut Josh you really shouldn't say things like that...sniff sniff. The first cache of the afternoon, was a do not find...and what was worse was when we got home someone had found the cache that very afternoon...in the words of the immortal Homer Simpson..D'oh! One of the good things about canal caching is that it limits the amount of caches that you can find because obviously they can't be in the canal.

One of the highlights of the afternoon came in the form of Josh needing a nappy changed, we took a photo for you to see! Fooled you, this is in fact another poo cache, our second this month. Do people in the East Midlands have a thing for poo or something? Anyway we like these caches, they always make you smile when you see them. Plus you know that they will never be stolen, as who is going to pick up a poo or steal a fake one? The following cache was the one we told you about at the start the cache covered in a plastic cow. We are losing count of the novelty caches we have found this year. We then came up to the village of Stenson, and its locally famous lock....amazingly called the Stenson lock. It is claimed that this is the deepest lock on the canal, we will take their word for it rather than walking all 93.5 miles and checking ourselves. Also of note is the Stenson Bubble...no no we are not talking about the local pub we are mentioning about a small stream that runs to the side of the lock. Its not surprising how popular this place is, it has a marina, 2 pubs and the lock of course.

We were fortunate to see a barge navigate the lock, and to be honest it is hard not to admire the engineering achievement from people in the 18th century. We weren't the only ones to witness it either I counted 40 people (they came out the woodwork, hedges...but mostly the pub) who just stood and watched a barge appear from the lock below them. Impressive. We carried on as we hadn't finished caching, and we were justly rewarded with the best cache of the day...a huge stonking massive cache pretty much the size of Josh...always good to see caches this big...its up there with the largest we have found so far.

But after 4 and a half hours caching, several nettle stings, and tons of thorn scratches (and avoiding the troll..see earlier blog entry for today) we got to the last cache of the day. And a new daily record for team Shiltonpig...yay to us. For all kinds of reasons today has been one of the best days caching this month and the joy that Mr Shiltonpig is showing is one that was going around the around the whole team. So back we trotted to the Stenford Bubble for a well deserved treat...2 cans of Pepsi Max. We thought we would push the boat out a bit....If you are ever in the neighbourhood you could far worse than the caches from Arleston to Stenson on the canal. Righto off home for a roast dinner now...and we will leave you in the immortal words of Josh "num num".