It was still raining heavily and during the drive over it got so bad i had to pull over and stop. Visibility was zero, thunder and lightning flashed and roared in the skies above and the window wipers couldn’t cope. Even if we managed to get close enough i wasn’t about to walk across a waterlogged field in this, regardless of the fact i would be wearing waders.

Its been a while since i last ventured under London, problem is Ive visited most of the large diameter sewers now leaving only the smaller, unnamed and insignificant ones. While some swear by it, personally, unless there’s a good reason, i dislike the idea of stumbling and sloshing down small diameter pipes, you always end up soaked and dirty, there is a higher chance of gas due to less ventilation and most importantly, you have little chance of finding anything substantial.

Designed by Jacques Hittorff and built between 1861-1865, Gare Du Nord receives over 180 million visitors a year making it the busiest railway station in Europe and third in the world. The eight most prominent statues on its roof represent the international destinations at the time, with the twelve beneath representing other french cities.

The night was coming to a close, the sun teasing the horizon. Much like vampires sunlight is detrimental to a tunnel rats health. It was no longer safe for us to roam the streets, our playtime atop the structures of Paris over. We retreated back to the underground, our safe haven to wait out the day where light cannot find us.

For a while now, archive photographs of a redbrick chamber on the Counters Creek have drifted in and out of discussion. As a rule interceptors have always been considered “off limits”, and Counters Creek is one of them. A fast flowing, liquid nightmare, fudge dragon of death. Couldn’t hurt to take a peek.

So far we had been taking it fairly easy, exploring only the sub and mid level underground stations. The time had now come to step it up a gear. Deep level stations are notoriously hard to access, usually with only one way in and out, many from active TFL buildings above. The risks were great, but so were the rewards. Untouched, untagged and unexplored platforms and tunnels. If anything was to go wrong it would be now, an orange clad guided tour this was not!