In need of T.L.C (Ticknall, Limestone and Caches)

Josh on his trail of destruction

Sunday April 11th 2010

You may be a parent yourself...or you may yet to have children....but nothing upon nothing can prepare you for having a "Josh". Josh is a whirlwind of destruction that makes the Tasmanian Devil look calm....just have a look at this wall....moments before Josh showed up it was in perfect order and had survived several centuries, through civil wars, the industrial revolution and 2 worlds wars...but 5 minutes after Josh arrived it was in pieces....he is a handful and some more that is for sure.....so we were clearly in need of some TLC....otherwise known as Ticknall, Limestone and Caches.

Light at the end of the tunnel

We last came to Ticknall on St Paddys day, but had one remaining cache to do, another multicache. We thought we knew all the secrets that Ticknall had to offer, but team Shiltonpig were in for a surprise. As mentioned previously the Ticknall tramway bridge...of course as you can see in the photo the bridge is actually a tunnel...one that is 140 yards long....we know that because we measured it (well to tell you the truth, between you and me, we just looked it up on wikipedia). The walk is near Calke Abbey a place we also know all too well, as we took Josh here when he was a mere 3 weeks old. But this walk is a must when you come here...

2 Become 1

Now readers of a more delicate disposition may feel that they need to skip ahead...as we have to talk about the birds and the bees, froggy style. Yup just days after capturing a frog sunbathing, team Shiltonpig capture two frogs mating in one of the many ponds on this walk. They were clearly too busy to notice Mrs Shiltonpig taking this photo...(click on it to enlarge, if you are having difficulties seeing them). The ponds are a highlight of the walks and must have been a connection to the lime that was mined here in the 19th century. Talking about frogs....our tadpoles are doing well...they haven't changed much in the last few days...but we are proud of the bigger ones in the "tank".

A little bit of Australia in Derbyshire

"Tank" being the codeword for large plastic tub! Mr Shiltonpig feels that this photo could have been taken in Australia as it reminds him of a creek...not that he has ever been...but just take his word for it. This particular cache made you use your maths skills to work out the final co-ordinates...basically you had to be Albert Einstein and understand E=MC squared....well not really but maths had never been Mr Shiltonpigs strong point! The final clue was to count how many bars were on a metal gate....we liked this one as we could count the answer on our hands and toes!!! Finally we were on our way to the final location and this meant walking through a field of vegetables..

Mrs Shiltonpig meets the "Beet"les

 Not sure entirely why but the vegetables were lying on top of the soil with big bites marks on them (probably Josh)...last time we checked I am sure that vegetables were supposed to grow under the soil. A short walk later and the cache was found....and we were satisfied with a very enjoyable cache. There are plenty more walks in this area as well....so I'm sure we will be back at some point to finish them off. So back home where Josh continued his trail of destruction he looked at a jar of gherkins and though they were tadpoles....he does make us smile.....

St Patricks Day: Our story about drunks, trams and of course poo!

Wednesday 17th March 2010

There are some days we go caching and there are one or two things I can write about. Days like today I could write about 4 or 5 posts, and so I have to choose what to write. So lets start with Ticknall, like pretty much every village near here they all were part of the Domesday book from in 1086, it seems in some ways as if nothing has changed very much! The first cache of note today takes us to something known as a "jug" or lock up. Apparently in the 17th and 18th centuries, local drunks and people who had committed naughty crimes were locked up in these boxes until they could be sent to court or had become cured of their hangover! Mrs Shiltonpig shows what a criminal would have looked like, although to be fair we were tempted to lock Josh up....sadly though a passerby told us there are laws against child cruelty these days!!! Sadly we didn't actually find the cache and what makes it worse was that 85 (no I'm being serious) people had been before us and found it, including people that were 105 years old and blind (ok, ok I'm not telling the truth there). We were the first to do not find on this cache....an award we would prefer not to have. A new low for team Shiltonpig....thankfully the day did get better!

Next up was a short walk up the road to the a place called Tramway Bridge, near the National Trust property Calke Abbey...and just like the Abbey which has never been an Abbey, the bridge is actually a tunnel.....confused? Well join the club! Believe it or not the arch that Josh and Mr Shiltonpig are standing next to is one of the worlds oldest railway arches.....(a loud oooohhhh, comes out of your mouth in real awe!) The cache was one of those evil nano caches the size of a mustard grain or something equally frustrating. In all seriousness we have drove through this village like 1000 times and yet we have missed all this, until we stopped the car, got out and actually walked around the village.

It also gave us an opportunity to admire Mr Shiltonpigs dream home....a lovely house that is currently empty, but it will be a while (sometime in 2110 more like) before we can afford to live there!!

Moving away from history for a minute, one of the next caches we attempted was another Mr Shiltonpig favourite...a large big oak tree! 2 in 24 hours! And this one was climbed all over as well...the cache being in a massive hole in the tree...it was great. Would like a tree like this in our back garden. Now for those of you non-geocachers that read this and think that caching is all about walking, walking and more walking....let me share a team Shiltonpig secret with you, the only way Mr Shiltonpig is able to get Josh and Mrs Shiltonpig out the door to go caching is on top of the log on the photo to the right!!

The next cache was typical of certain members of team Shiltonpig, mentioning no names (well ok Josh), the cache was a fake dog poo, and Josh is holding it in his hand. Moments later Mr and Mrs Shiltonpig were holding a different kind of poo in their hands courtesy of Josh...thanks son! It is worth noting that 30 minutes later we were holding another, the second of the day....I think he was trying to compete with the number of cache we were finding in the day! Its always good to find caches that are a little bit different...however it is worth also noting that Mr Shiltonpig almost picked up some real poo thinking it was the cache, before Mrs Shiltonpig found the real one moments later...disaster averted!

Recently Mrs Shiltonpig has pointed out that Mr Shiltonpig is teasing her far too much on this blog....but he can't resist when he has to do all the hard work when caching....for example there is a cache by Stantons Wood link and poor Mr Shiltonpig had to climb the fence and walk all the way to the cache, get on the floor, stick his long arm in a hole and retrieve the cache, and then bring it back all the way to the rest of the team for them to open it...and the photo to the right shows what he saw walking back to them, resting on a fence like some slackers that they were! So I will leave it up to you avid readers to make your own minds up!

Well, were running out of time...but we can still squeeze in mentioning a water pump in Ticknall that reminded her of using a real one in Southern Ireland when she was little, she claims it was camping, but growing up in Ireland was tougher than you realise! Also Mr Shiltonpig found yet another massive oak tree...3 in 24 hours...yipee! Its here we picked up a fairy geocoin and its mission is to spread fairy dust everywhere....(umm, no comment) so in honour of that geocoin we will leave you with a picture that shows spring really is here...the frogs favourite flower...the "croak"us...boom boom!