Archive for the ‘Brad’ tag
Deep Level #5 – Down St Station
February 2011
When news filtered quickly that a glitch had been identified at Down St station, 5 of us made our way down quickly to inspect. Read the rest of this entry »
Prohobohemia 3.4
August 2010
One more left, then I’ll finally stop writing about this trip! Again, written from the road. The best bits are fueled by some 500ml bottles of Becks. Happy days. I write a lot because I think the trip was significant in a number of ways in terms of how I view ‘Urbex’ and the lifestyles we adopt to fulfil our aspirations within our means. Hopefully this will make sense.
Glitches
January 2011
A series of glitches allows the infrastructure of Paris to be accessed through various portals. Along with our ever generous host Marc, I joined Brad and L’Ottoire for some Parisien place hacking, with Dsankt, Mrs Dsankt and Olivier joining us at times across the weekend too. I use the term coined by Brad as I felt that at times we were not exploring as such; the places we were accessing had been previously ‘hacked*’ and we were enjoying the fruits of the hard work of others. On the contrary, at times we immersed ourselves in the unknown and pushed for the new, when Paris’ delights are well known to many.
*To program (a computer [a place]) for pleasure or compulsively; especially, to try to defeat the security systems and gain unauthorized access to a computer [place]. Read the rest of this entry »
Eagle House
August 2010
“Eagle’s fly high, but weasels don’t get caught in Jet engines”
…As I was once so succinctly told, a quote relayed from her father by a philosphical girlfriend. Not quite sure what it’s supposed to suggest? If you aim high, somebody will shaft you somewhere along the line? If you try and don’t succeed, cheat? Either way, this site was simple as pie. Back to basics, the hardest part was the 29 flights of stairs.
Cut and Cover #2 – Lords
We hit Lords. As service ended on the Saturday night we found ourselves on the tracks just close to the abandoned station. This was unlike the other stations that I’ve visited, in that we didn’t enter into the station, we had to walk on the tracks to it. Thankfully not too far, but a new experience nonetheless. It gets the blood pumping, knowing a diesel works train could steam up behind you forcing a hasty walk into a jog or a run for sanctity.
Polska Sowiecka – August 2010
‘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.
Prohobohemia 3.2
Our third sleeping spot was set up in Stadtbad Duisberg, a sports centre on the outskirts of the city. We found a perfect room, adjacent to it was a flushing toilet with paper, that at least three of the group utilised. A flat floor gave us a reasonable night’s sleep, and we explored the buildings in the morning. Both a sports hall and a swimming pool were bathed with light from the high windows, but the rest of the site was vandalised.We found a footpump which served us well for the rest of the trip.
Standard.
Prohobohemia 3.1 – Belgium, July 2010
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
Prohobohemia 3.0 – [Soon, we’ll leave for Europe] – July 2010
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!
Quest for the Westbourne. May 2010
Wednesday
Having got accustomed to the ways of the drains, we prepped for the Westbourne as best we thought possible, with a handful of maps printed from google. With a rough route highlighted along the roads the underground river allegedly followed, we trekked through Knightsbridge in our civvies, heading south towards Chelsea through mews and terraces.
