G'day Mate put a shrimp on the Barbie!

Sunday 7th March 2010

G'day mate....Boomerangs, Kangaroos, Koala Bears....yes thats right we were in Melbourne.....ok, ok, ok perhaps not Melbourne, Australia, but Melbourne, Derbyshire. Though believe it or the two are connected as you will see from the portrait to the left. Though I am sure Mr Lamb might have a few things to say about his portrait being covered in bird muck!!

Team Shiltonpig has all been ill in one form or another this week and today was a gentle drive and walk around some local spots to get away from the cabin fever that had set in.

First up though was a place called Breedon on the Hill....of course there is a church at the top of this hill and you can see it for miles and miles around...but now has the added memory that we found a cache there as well. For avid readers will know by now that Mr and Mrs Shiltonpig have a competition to find the oldest grave stone in a churchyard. This time it was Mr Shiltonpig that had the honour of winning this particular match finding a grave from 1702....., this was around the time Mrs Shiltonpigs mother was born. Weird to think that people have been living on this hill for over 2000 years and there has been a church on the site for a 1000 of those years. The views on this particularly sunny day were great, you can see East Midlands airport nearby and Josh (well ok Mr Shiltonpig as well) enjoyed seeing the planes coming in and landing...just wish we could be on a plane taking off to a hot sunny location!

The cache in question is found in the church wall...not quite sure why but it is...and Mrs Shiltonpig had soon found it after some expert advice from Mr Shiltonpig....nothing exciting...but well worth visiting for the views!

Oh and another thing about Breedon it has it own beacon, which is occasionally lit as part of the nations beacon set...the last time it was lit was 5 years ago to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar...the nearby notice says that the next time it will go off is on a day of national importance....like today for example Joshs first curry!

After Breedon we headed to Australia (oh sorry have already done that joke to death) and ready for a couple of caches. Melbourne is the type of place Mr Shiltonpigs mom would like...picturesque village, nice walk, tea rooms and antique shops and craft rooms. Probably the nicest place in the area so far visited (sorry Swad, you are just not posh enough lol)

It was a lovely sunny day...families out enjoying themselves and there was one disaster no ice cream shops were in the nearby walking vacinity!!! Aaarggghhhh.....

Anyway apart from the man that Melbourne took its name from...Melbourne also has another famous man born here...one that we all have heard of....Thomas Cook as in "Don't just book it, Thomas Cook it" I kid you not....for a small tiny village it sure has some important people born here.

The two caches in question were easily found one next to a lions den (well ok a large container with a lions security sticker on it) and one by the lake which was failry straight forward to find although Mr Shiltonpig was on his knees again trying to find it. This last cache will be remembered for something else though, Mr Shiltonpig was off
getting an ice cream when a small rowing boat appeared on the lake. Mrs Shiltonpig was watching them when all of a sudden a large scream from the boat, and suddenly all 4 people in the boat were in the water....the boat had capsized! Everyone was ok so it seems perfectly ok that Mrs Shiltonpig burst out laughing.....Mr Shiltonpig returned ice creamless to say "what did I miss?"

Will definitely be back here again in the summer as it really is a beautiful place...hopefully some more caches will be here next time as well! Toodlepips for now...

Battys Revenge!

6th February 2010

Geocaching has the ability to take you to places that you would never have walked in your life....and so was the case of today.

The first cache took us to a place called Stretton en le Field...no no this village isn't in France, it is in fact in Leicestershire....Stretton was mentioned in the Doomsday book around 1000 years ago...things haven't changed much....

This was one of those rare moments for us where we just walked straight to the cache, there was the sight of several pheasants near the cache and the sound of several bangs in the distance....can't imagine that those pheasants having a long lifepsan! Think we will have chicken for tea!

While Mrs Shiltonpig was taking her time finding the cache, Josh was too busy looking at the trucks going by on the nearby A42. Its a good job that the cache didn't take us into the next field

as it was clearly flooded from this weeks snow and rain. Josh looks bearly eyed in the photo, think it was too much drink the night before lol

The cache in question was a "high quality" cache meaning that there was a calculator, alarm clock and several other good finds...instead we were able to find two travel coins, which we took instead.

The first originated in California Death Valley...Mr and Mrs Shiltonpig visited there before Josh came on the scene and it is the hottest place we have ever been around 50c! The second was a sheep from Germany that had been to all manner of places before ending up in this corner of the East Midlands!

We then decided to walk back up the path to the church where we took a photo of some snowdrops...after all Spring is on its way. The nights are getting lighter...yay...more time for geocaching in the evening!

Mrs Shiltonpig has a rather smug look on here face...it could be that she found a cache all by herself but more than likely its the fact she is watching poor old Mr Shiltonpig carry Josh on his back all the way around the geocaches, and watch him get smaller and smaller as he shrinks with the weight.

The church in question is now longer used for anything....although the graveyard has been used more recently.

Do other people do what we do? Every graveyard we come to, we have a competition to see who can find the oldest grave....Mrs Shiltonpig must have been on a roll today as she won this competition as well. 1750 was the oldest she could find.....perhaps the reason she was able to find it was because she was there when the grave was dug out!!! (Think its fairly obvious who is writing this particular blog).

So once this cache had been accomplished...we were then on our way to the next. This took us to an unfinished cache that we didn't get around to last week due to the "muddy buggy".

It took us to a railway...now that may not sound exciting, but actually this area of the country doesn't have any railways at all which means that we were a little surprised to say the least. What was stranger is that it is right next to a modern housing estate. We made a meal of this cache...we crossed the railway line, realised we were heading the wrong way. Then we started walking up the railway line and realised this was wrong as well, finally Mrs Shiltonpig took control and took us right to it. And another travel coin to add to the collection as well!

So two caches in the bag already, it was time to tackle one from last week, the one that got away from us. Having had a look at the website it was clear that the cache was there, it was just team Shiltonpig being useless at finding caches....

So when we arrived what does Mr Shiltonpig go and do? Put his hand in dogmuck....yuck! In fact the whole area that he looked in had dogmuck.....after looking through so much ivy, a lot of leaves, lots of trees, posts, holes and bridges.....He started to widen out the search.......and then when all else failed...Mr Shiltonpig found the 3rd and final cache of the day! And what a cool cache, no wonder he looks so pleased with himself.

Even his hat is lopsided as he holds the "bat" cache in his hand! Josh was screaming by this point so we had to call it a day but for an afternoon of tiding up a few loose ends in the area we were able to enjoy some very different caches.

February starts off well with 3 caches in the bag...and the weather has been kind to us recently.....

No geocache can beat us!!!

The 3 geocoins are proudly displayed after a hard days caching!

So as this blogger goes and washes his hands after all manner of geocaching adventures, he prepares himself for the biggest adventure of them all...Joshs bath time.....