Urban Travel and Photography

‘Up the junction’

“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail”, said somebody wise once. Benjamin Franklin, to be precise. Although not explicity related to the practice of ‘going in the drains’, the theme still stands. Usual kit for these expeditions is: Waders, Torch, helmet, hi-viz jacket, drain keys, camera, tripod. Take away the waders, you get wet. Take away the torch, you can’t see. Take away the Hi-viz and helmet and you’re suspicious. Take away the drain key and you can’t get in. Take away the camera and you can’t take photos. Take away the tripod and you get wobbly ones.

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Union St was an underground station constructed with the cut and cover techniques pioneered during the building of the District and Circle Lines. Union St served the now defunct Aldwych line, with a combination of electric and battery powered trains. The station was opened by King Edward in 1908 and closed just 31 years later; with the advent of the war it was decided to close the station and turn it into one of the many shelters that served during the blitz.*

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The sewers of London serve the city’s bowels; the nervous system is catered for by the miles of fibre optics found beneath the city in these tunnels and more. The lifeblood that keeps the city going is the cable runs, a network of subterrannean tunnels carrying gas and electrical supplies. Take any of these away and the city shuts down, just as the body does if you take away any of the functions giving life. Just as we rarely see inside the human body, we rarely see inside the city.

Map and Ladder

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The River Fleet is the best known of  the ‘lost’ London rivers, being the one that was most central to the City of London. We’d dipped our feet in the waters of the Tyburn, Counters Creek and the Westbourne, but hadn’t really given much effort to The Fleet. I couldn’t say why. Danny had identified a set of lids which may have yielded, and the first we tried set us into the River. We headed downstream.

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‘Poster’

As we sat on the ferry back from our December adventures in 2009, we jokingly said we’d go to Poland and explore the Soviet military bases there. Hit another country, new places, new people, new adventures right? I decided the best way to do this was to integrate it into our summer roadtrip, and lo and behold, after a week in Belgium and Germany, we found ourselves passing the Border into Poland, past the freshly rusting border crossing from the days before the EU.

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Prohobohemia seems to be the adopted name of this alcohol fueled, 3,400 mile trip and it initially seemed  to ring true. At the point of writing, we’d slept in 4 different locations and they were all widely different. A train depot in Belgium, a steelworks in Luxembourg, a sports centre in Germany and a Soviet base deeper east.

Prohobo

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Europe beckons again. The tick tock of a monotonous life of work, rest, and occassionally play has born fruit, and the fruit this time is two weeks off in a hirecar, with Statler, Gary and Brad.

On the last prolonged homeless tour, we all wanted to immerse ourselves further into the ‘lifestyle’ of urbex. With our basic needs met within the crumbling walls of the buildings we explored; sleeping and eating in these spaces seemed perfectly normal, as did finding spaces in courtyards to build small fires upon which we could cook. Should the apocalypse come, our survival would only depend on our ability to acquire prepacked sausages from the Carrefours and Aldi’s scattered across the continent.

6 nights was the length of the last ‘long’ trip, a couple of weekenders thrown in for good measure at the start of the year are good fun albeit brief. This time, we’ll be away for 12 nights, spread across 4 countries. We’ll hit Poland for Soviet Military bases, the Ruhr for mining, Berlin for general dereliction, Belgium for the last few bits on the official ticksheet, and Luxembourg for some heavy industry.

Prohobo 3.0 here we come!

Covered in soot and tube dust I emerged elated, my companion Danny following me out into the cool and quiet London night. The past two hours had been a nervy affair, our first deep level tube line and abandoned station. The site was scoped out a few days prior, the night we returned we were fully prepared and were soon in the tunnels beneath.

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Having realised that June was a very quiet month for my nocturnal expeditions, I guess the last night of the month was the best one to top up the explore count with. Originally meeting for a couple of beers and some of the finest grub mr JD Wetherspoon could muster, we discussed our recent lack of high stuff as we walked past the local Novotel, realising that maybe we could get up on the roof there.

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Elvis Presley’s ‘It’s now or never’ belted out from the car stereo as we roared down the A21 into Hastings, swigging cans of Monster in anticipation of the challenge ahead. A drive coming on three hours had seen us arrive at the entrance to the Hastings Storm Relief Sewer with local boys Patch and Davey greeting us at our arranged meeting point. Previous recce’s had resulted in the knowledge that an entrance chamber led down three sets of poo and condom encrusted ladders into a short infeed to the main tunnel, but time was needed to explore the main tunnel itself. That time was today.

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