Oldham athletic football club, Boundary park, Oldham, 10/06/08

Ok being a generally cautios explorer i had BAD karma about this all day, now fellow explorers know if it feels bad, then its generally going to end in gettin busted, but not on this occasion!! a mate had told me about the impending demolition of the lookers stand (new start mortgages stand) on boundary park a few weeks back, so i decided to put the place under obs.

we had a little reece on monday evening but sadly DIDNT have the time to explore it, SO Tuesday night was decided upon for a hit!!

Now, my mate had spent 2 weeks telling me how they have stepped up security at the site due to copper cable thefts, by the local pikies and knowing what the local police are like, any chance of getting a theiving pikey will have them out in force, i REALLY wasnt feeling it for this reason, but decided to press on, we approached the stand and found the previosly recced entry point as we left it, good i thought, "lets go look for signs of life through the gate near the rochdale road" i said, OK, said my mate BUT on the way to the rochdale road end, a stroke of luck, the pikies had been in AND LEFT A DOOR OPEN !!! well it would be rude not too!! so in we goes, carefuly at first an open door COULD be too easy..........

we proceede to the top of the stairs to be greeted by......................... nothing!! an empty football stadium, no sign of security, no sign of the pikies (thank fuck) no police no nothing!!

the ONLY sign of life was the automatic sprinkler system which gave a nice effect in some of the pics!!

so we proceeded to explore, we had decidied between us NOT to explore the rest of the ground, although we could have with NO problems, afterall it was WIDE open, but we'll stick to what we came to see!! the lookers stand!!

and its paddock!!

on exploring the inside we found a pie shop and some signage!! but the rest of the stand was firmly locked.

anyhow, we had seen enough, it was time to go, but not before a team shot taken from the car park!!!

a brill night, i enjoyed this, and it was good to stay above ground for a change!!!

B..

Processor drain, 04/06/08

Another week, another drain *sigh* !!!! LOL

after the usuall text message to thenewmendoza, we decided on doing processor, i liked the sound of finding machinery underground in a drain!! but nothing could prepare me for the STINK!! jeez this place hums, REALLY bad in places but we persevered and got the job done in the end!!

Anyhow, the "processors" are sewage oveflow surface scrapers to keep the solids out of the culvert/drain, and are automaticaly run when the sewers fill right up so you can imagine HOW unpleasant this place is, and we visited on a good day!!!! but its interesting non the less, a mix of brick pipe, RCP, and a box section RCP make this well worth the visit you just gotta dodge the jamrags!!

pics..........

as you can see a real good mix of modern old and downright crusty!! im not going to go into anymore details as im a lazy boy and have a severe dose of "icantbearseditis" LOL

Till next time

B..

Red Barn drain, chadderton, near oldham, 26/05/08

Visited with thenewmendoza.

Ive been wanting to do this drain for a long time, we had a failed mission infact about 4 weeks ago, so we did foxdenton drain instead!!! Anyhow the fails were due to the council, kindly fiting a HUGE padlocked steel gate over the E/E point, so it was a nogo anyhow, about a week ago i saw a report from here on Derp, hmmmmmmmmm i thought, i wonder if...................

Jump on a few days and MENDO had done a report on it on NWE!!! shit i thought, id better do this quick then as it wont be long before they lock it again!!!

so a quick text to mendo last night, and the plans were in place!!all i can say about this place is WOW, its really amazing inside, it changes shape every 50 yards or so, its everything from cathedral tall to stooping low, RCP, bricks, stone and iron pipes all make this place up, i think it should be renamed to HEINZ drain 'cos it really has got 57 varieties!! so we meet up outside the beast, with me, late as usual and set off up the pipe, "well get to the top, and take pics on the way back" i said, and with mendo agreeing, we headed up the pipe as far as we could get.now i say this because this drain is what is known as a "shrinker" Ie it gets smaller and smaller till you hit a point where you cant get any further, and it is at this point we start the pics with mendo, seeing if we can get any further!!

we obviously couldnt as it toooooo narrow, so we headed back taking pics all the way!!

this is looking back down the pipe we had just come up, note the big pile of iron under one of the outfalls further down, this stuff is ROCK hard! this next pic is of an brick inverted egg, its only small, and apparently leads to a sewage overflow

then the brick pipe opens out into a stone built chamber

Then it closes dow AGAIN, into a stone pipe, with a funny iron ceeling!!

Then another suprise, a HUGE brick inverted egg, this is a good spot for the group shot methinks!!

then down the RCP, you see int he last shot, that opens out into a funny shaped bit, that shrinks again, it looks like this bit is on the point of collapse ;)

then thankfully, the way out apppears in the distance!! *phew*!!!

Manchester, Cathedral Arches air raid shelters!!

Now then, here i have a rare treat for you people tonight!! i have FINALLY been down the cathedral arches in Manchester, well over 12 months after stepping lightly discovered the entrance to these beuties ive finally cracked it!! and boy oh boy was the wait worth it, There has been a HELL of a lot of speculation going on about this place of late, with certain parties pettily attempting (and failing) to lock access and selfishly keeping the site to themselves, and when local well established explorers dont get the chance to see them, BUT people travelling from far and wide do, the line has been crossed and it no longer is fair. add to this the lies about the access to the entrance, and the unwillingness of other so called explorers to help or show these to anyone outside of there own elitest little click, it all adds up to a HUGE headache im sure you will agree!!

Enter andyj23uk, and bigjobs, they devised a cuning plan to make the arches accessible to ALL explorers without jeapordising the site and without making it too obvious what we were up too!! a HUGE thanks goes out to these lads in getting this sorted and it just shows how easy it would have been for "other" people to do this to get us in!! Oh and before you all start bitching that we used the soft entrance i would like to catergorically state here, that we did not, we did it the proper way!!

Anyhow present on the day were as follows, andyj23uk, big and littlejobs, sparkuk, dodge, havoc, gibbo and myself!!

enough ramblings now and on with the pics!!!

All in all it has to be said this was a proper evening out, i thououghly enjoyed it, and if it wasnt for my late arrival i would have had a LOAD more pics!! needless to be said, me and the arches WILL do battle once more!!!

bungle

Im singing in the DRAINS!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have found a new addiction in my life, no it isnt some new drug, or tobbacco its DRAINS!!

there brilliant!! who would have thought there could be SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo much under our feet!!

we started the week with a known easy one, Foxdenton in Chadderton near Oldham:-

half brick half concrete construction, walk in access it couldnt have looked easyer OR SO WE THOUGHT!!

about half way along the water got wayyyyyy to deep for the waders, and we had to beat a hasty retreat, we were told it WAS shallow all the way through, but it seems that there may be a blockage somewhere!!

Anyhow, after we were forced to abandon foxdenton, we went to look at another i know has needed checking out for a while, under the M62 in milnrow ;)

a pretty boring culveted river, BUT it needed exploring non the less!!

Then to top off the week nicely we did the mighty BUNKER in Warrington, this place is drain mecca, and we've done it!!

3.5 miles (ish) of 2meter RCP, chambers, waterfalls, pipes, and a swirlpot, this place has got the lot!!

bungle :)