The Winchester

October 2011

Not a very sexy drain, Teh Ditch. It was probably once ‘really nice‘, as Siologen’s pictures show, but we had been warned it was something of a slippery sludge pit. It was also identified that there is a 10 foot waterfall at some point in the middle of the drain. Concrete lining had occurred relatively recently, but at parts deeper from the outfall the eternal wash of Hungarian poo had exposed the brick on the floor again. Hence, it’s a bit of a mess. We entered from the infall, which Siologen kindly pointed us in the direction of, and slowly made our way downstream.

Making a sanitary sewer the first destination on a 5 day road trip was perhaps not the most sensible of decisions, however taking a trip to a foreign country specifically to go in sewers is something considered unwise by many. Given we’d be sleeping rough and probably not washing until we returned home, getting wet wasn’t really part of the plan. My new studded waders served me well however NC Kapita was not so lucky, and fell into the flow while traversing a side-pipe. Game over.

A couple of days later, we made our way to the outfall and noted that it had been blocked off to the point that the only downstream access would be through a brief underwater swim. Although the water was clean and odourless, for some reason it had plenty of steam rising from it and was warm to the touch. Perhaps a bath would have been in order?

To some degree I feel we missed the boat a little on this one. Had we visited prior to these works we would have been able to traverse further up from the outfall, and with a surer step, could have gone further downstream. When an outfall is blocked the most obvious and easiest access is removed and for this reason, additional research needs to be done to identify lids. The work of a drainer is a fine mix between stepping in the fresh, and sitting studying maps and conducting ‘research’, and I don’t think the balance was neccesarily right on this trip.