Exploration:Woodlands

Background info

The southwest of England is renowned for its tin mining industry which was at its most prominent in the 1870’s. The last mines were closed in the 80’s and 90’s, as a by-product of all this mining you can’t really go for a stroll in the woods without stumbling across, and nearly into old mine shafts.

Ready for the story?

*cue scary music and enter fantasy world*

In the heart of southwest England there is said to be a troll, a troll that roams the woods and watches through the trees, creeping and crawling around. Here is the story of two brave souls on a mission, nay a quest to find this troll!
It began on a Wednesday afternoon, the sun was barely noticeable behind the blackened clouds, the sounds of thunder were mimicked by the rumbling of my stomach.

My trusty companion wonder woman accompanied me and we set off for the hills. Our only weapons to use if we found the troll and it became angry were our fists of steel... Anyway, we started following a few country footpaths aiming to get as high as we could, after about 5 minutes we found this clearing.


Now to the untrained eye, this may look like a photo of 2 hay bales. BUT! If you look long and hard enough you will start to realise/imagine that these are actually troll pellets, trolls are naturally hungry creatures. With the fear of a troll being close by, we ran up another country lane and found this sign.


Jackpot! We followed the path for what seemed like hours...


Eventually we came to a fenced off area.


So climbed through it, then we found two open mineshafts which looked like bottomless pits.





(Zoomed in, I might believe in trolls but I’m not getting that close to a mineshaft)

Wonder woman passed me a stick from her unlimited supply of sticks and I threw it down expecting to hear it hit the bottom, there was nothing. Not a sound. It seemed like it just kept falling and falling, we never heard it hit the bottom.

After realising we were too close we walked on through a holly bush and found a tree full of old bird nests.




Now I know were both thinking the same thing, these nests are empty! The troll has clearly found the birds and eaten them all. At this point, I soiled myself. After cleaning up, we kept on our trek and found this strange contraption.


Is it part of a bigger machine for cultivating crops? No, It’s a... Well yes it is but it looked sinister. Continuing on our walk we started to see rubble appearing and then came to another structure.




This time it wasn’t an open shaft, we weren’t quite sure of what it was and then it hit me like a squid to the face. It was part of the troll’s house, being afraid of directly trespassing onto property and being eaten alive we looked for a more subtle way in, and found the most frightening discovery of our quest.


Looks like a broken branch to you? Looks like a message from a troll to me; it was a perfectly formed square in a tree. Wonder woman was quick to realise that this obvious marking was a bit too obvious, so we started to suspect foul play... Thoughts were running through our heads faster than a sloth can fly.

Was the troll watching us as we carefully explored through his land? Were we about to be devoured by a 20 foot tall abomination? Then, out of nowhere, I kid you not! A gun wielding hamster came running towards us as a great speed. It was so fast we couldn’t take clear photos of it, but here is a rough one we managed to get.


As you can see, he had a Rambo bandanna, an Uzi, and was so awesome he even kept a knife in his back to prove how awesome he was. We both froze in fear at this tiny bundle of death, and were told surprisingly in English to follow him. “Or what” I said, before reminding myself of the whole gun wielding hamster situation.

We were taken back to his lair, where there were many other hamsters and we were forcibly pushed down onto miniature hamster sized chairs by this beast of a hamster. We then had quite a lengthy conversation which went like this.

Me and wonder woman: So... you’re a hamster? (Yes we both talk at the same time.)
Hamster: No I’m Spiderman...
Me: OMG SPIDERMAN I KNEW YOU WERE REAL! (I was told to be quiet by wonder woman, there is something called sarcasm that I don’t understand)

He then went on to explain how, starting in a Mexican pet shop, he managed to escape across the border, buy a gun, get married, have kids, stick a knife in his own back and make it to the woods in southwest England. And! Pretend he was a troll for years to get peace and quiet, whilst having kept the birds as pets! (He also won a local chess tournament)

Me: Wow
Hamster: What’s that smell?
Me: Oh, sorry it’s the excitement.
Hamster: You rodent.

In the end all was well, wonder woman and I safely got back home. The hamsters in the hills were still living happily and everything was back to normal.

*Cut scary music and exit fantasy world*

Um so yea, mines and things...


WARNING: Some things described on this site are potentially dangerous/illegal. The writers of this site assume no responsibility for the consequences that may result from attempting the activities described here.

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