E.N.O.F.
Epic. Night. of. Fail.
These are the nights were, exploring in London, with its in-house security guards, passive infra-red alarm systems, twenty billion CCTV cameras and just general lack of hiding/ninja-ing/stealthing space, just doesnt work out and site after site, location after location, you just keep... failing.
Its very frustrating, especially given such failure rarely occurs in Australian, Canadian or American cities because they lack a lot of the above mentioned attributes.
Last night was a minor ENOF (or 'Enough' if you'd like) as we only failed to access two sites. The first was a former hotel. Place has been abandoned for almost two years. Steel plates over the front windows, yet easy access around the side. We knew there was a security guard on site, near the reception area on the first floor, so we made a beeline for the rear stairs, aiming for the rooftop... got to the third floor and walked straight into an alarmed PIR.
PHAYL!
Our second location was a 43 storey residential tower, under construction. We were hot on the heels of some dafties who'd hung a St Georges Flag from the sites Crane, so invariably site security was on the lookout. We scaled the scaffolding, climbed over the hoarding, scoping for cameras, didnt see any, so in we went... Got 30m before the PA system announcement siren went off... loudly! A lazy security guard's way of saying 'I can seeee you! Now fuck off!' As we exited... hastily... we noticed a camera we hadnt seen.
FAY-HILL!
Walking through central London on my way to the night bus was nice though. At 3am Central London drops into catatonia. At times its easy to imagine the place overcome by hidden zombie hordes... I was able to walk for almost 10 blocks down the middle of High Holborn.
Anyways, onto some less fail.
Brusnice Drain.
Short one this, just a little culvert really, bout 400m long. I first spotted it in 2004, but it was on my last day in Prague and it was raining at the time.
Going back to do it wouldve been a lot less eventful if i hadnt gotten myself arrested. The drains infall is in the grounds of Prague Castle, which during the day is an open public thoroughfare. After dark tho, the gates are closed and it becomes military property. I didnt realise this, jumped the fence at 10pm and soon found my self confronted by a sub-machine-gun wielding soldier with a big Alsatian.
My excuses of being a tourist we're given a wary eye and back up was radioed for. More soldiers arrived and just as i couldnt feel any more of a tit, they told me to come to the Police Station. They ran my UK passport, Australian D/L and Canadian D/L through every conceivable test lol, phoned about 8 different intelligence agencies and after asking 'Are you Terrorist?' and getting an answer in the negative, pointed to the door and said 'Go Home.'
I did lol, till the next day whereby i managed to sneak into the drain during daylight hours.
The Infall is interesting. A 'V' shaped entry into a thigh deep pit, off to the side of which is the grilled tunnel. Some huge flood event had mangled the grille since 2004 (when it hadnt even been in place...) to the point that i could squeeze past it.
The tunnel was a 7ft brick oval. Almost bone dry except for the 'Royal' sewer overflow coming from the Castle. Being a minor amount of overflow meant it was 'Straight From the Bowl', rather smelly and slippery as fuck (but then whats new in Eastern Europe).
I headed d/s and dedicated most of my time to staying on my feet, only stopping for one photo when i encountered a slight dip in the tunnel, where a steel splash plate had been installed. The one time i did fall over i found that being a tunnel so narrow actually made falling sideways to the floor impossible... i then unjammed myself from between the walls n slithered onwards.
I soon reached the river, passed under a penstock gate and took a picture before doing the limbo out under the outfall grille.
Keramicky Drain.
Meaning simply 'Ceramic', this 8ft pipe was spotted from a bend on the river i was walking along. I got lost then trying to pinpoint it once on its side of the river, but eventually finding it, was glad to discover it was a dry sewer overflow. Climbing down i was amazed to find the entire pipe made of thick glazed ceramic blocks...
It was a good length, about 1.4kms long and very noisy as it ran beneath a main road and the clanking of cars running over covers cacaphonied all over the place. The floor was surprisingly grippy, only because the tunnel was almost entirely dry. The Ceramic section lasted about 800m, round a bend finally to become a brick tunnel.
From here it switched back and forth between brick, ceramic and the odd section of concrete, with little side pipes dumping in minute amounts of poo.
Ahead i could hear a rushing sound and passing beneath one of those ultrasonic flow detectors (and probably setting it into the red lol) i reached the sewer overflow chamber.
The sewer was about 10ft high at its upstream end and emptied down a slide into the overflow forebay. A the d/s end it the flow was squeezed into a 5fter. The height of the overflow wall made getting a picture kinda hard. The thing i couldnt figure out was, i was just north of the main sewer treatment works, yet this sewer seemed to be flowing away from it... I headed out and on my way home stopped off at the Sewer Museum and bought a copy of their history book... which i then promptly left on a metro train... doh!
These are the nights were, exploring in London, with its in-house security guards, passive infra-red alarm systems, twenty billion CCTV cameras and just general lack of hiding/ninja-ing/stealthing space, just doesnt work out and site after site, location after location, you just keep... failing.
Its very frustrating, especially given such failure rarely occurs in Australian, Canadian or American cities because they lack a lot of the above mentioned attributes.
Last night was a minor ENOF (or 'Enough' if you'd like) as we only failed to access two sites. The first was a former hotel. Place has been abandoned for almost two years. Steel plates over the front windows, yet easy access around the side. We knew there was a security guard on site, near the reception area on the first floor, so we made a beeline for the rear stairs, aiming for the rooftop... got to the third floor and walked straight into an alarmed PIR.
PHAYL!
Our second location was a 43 storey residential tower, under construction. We were hot on the heels of some dafties who'd hung a St Georges Flag from the sites Crane, so invariably site security was on the lookout. We scaled the scaffolding, climbed over the hoarding, scoping for cameras, didnt see any, so in we went... Got 30m before the PA system announcement siren went off... loudly! A lazy security guard's way of saying 'I can seeee you! Now fuck off!' As we exited... hastily... we noticed a camera we hadnt seen.
FAY-HILL!
Walking through central London on my way to the night bus was nice though. At 3am Central London drops into catatonia. At times its easy to imagine the place overcome by hidden zombie hordes... I was able to walk for almost 10 blocks down the middle of High Holborn.
Anyways, onto some less fail.
Brusnice Drain.
Short one this, just a little culvert really, bout 400m long. I first spotted it in 2004, but it was on my last day in Prague and it was raining at the time.
Going back to do it wouldve been a lot less eventful if i hadnt gotten myself arrested. The drains infall is in the grounds of Prague Castle, which during the day is an open public thoroughfare. After dark tho, the gates are closed and it becomes military property. I didnt realise this, jumped the fence at 10pm and soon found my self confronted by a sub-machine-gun wielding soldier with a big Alsatian.
My excuses of being a tourist we're given a wary eye and back up was radioed for. More soldiers arrived and just as i couldnt feel any more of a tit, they told me to come to the Police Station. They ran my UK passport, Australian D/L and Canadian D/L through every conceivable test lol, phoned about 8 different intelligence agencies and after asking 'Are you Terrorist?' and getting an answer in the negative, pointed to the door and said 'Go Home.'
I did lol, till the next day whereby i managed to sneak into the drain during daylight hours.
The Infall is interesting. A 'V' shaped entry into a thigh deep pit, off to the side of which is the grilled tunnel. Some huge flood event had mangled the grille since 2004 (when it hadnt even been in place...) to the point that i could squeeze past it.
The tunnel was a 7ft brick oval. Almost bone dry except for the 'Royal' sewer overflow coming from the Castle. Being a minor amount of overflow meant it was 'Straight From the Bowl', rather smelly and slippery as fuck (but then whats new in Eastern Europe).
I headed d/s and dedicated most of my time to staying on my feet, only stopping for one photo when i encountered a slight dip in the tunnel, where a steel splash plate had been installed. The one time i did fall over i found that being a tunnel so narrow actually made falling sideways to the floor impossible... i then unjammed myself from between the walls n slithered onwards.
I soon reached the river, passed under a penstock gate and took a picture before doing the limbo out under the outfall grille.
Keramicky Drain.
Meaning simply 'Ceramic', this 8ft pipe was spotted from a bend on the river i was walking along. I got lost then trying to pinpoint it once on its side of the river, but eventually finding it, was glad to discover it was a dry sewer overflow. Climbing down i was amazed to find the entire pipe made of thick glazed ceramic blocks...
It was a good length, about 1.4kms long and very noisy as it ran beneath a main road and the clanking of cars running over covers cacaphonied all over the place. The floor was surprisingly grippy, only because the tunnel was almost entirely dry. The Ceramic section lasted about 800m, round a bend finally to become a brick tunnel.
From here it switched back and forth between brick, ceramic and the odd section of concrete, with little side pipes dumping in minute amounts of poo.
Ahead i could hear a rushing sound and passing beneath one of those ultrasonic flow detectors (and probably setting it into the red lol) i reached the sewer overflow chamber.
The sewer was about 10ft high at its upstream end and emptied down a slide into the overflow forebay. A the d/s end it the flow was squeezed into a 5fter. The height of the overflow wall made getting a picture kinda hard. The thing i couldnt figure out was, i was just north of the main sewer treatment works, yet this sewer seemed to be flowing away from it... I headed out and on my way home stopped off at the Sewer Museum and bought a copy of their history book... which i then promptly left on a metro train... doh!