LOWER LABYRINTH

This drain had been on the radar for a very long time and finally we decided to give it ago. Down the ladder i go, which lead into a medium sized vertical chamber with an old mechanical crank used to open a flood gate below, which surprisingly still worked as smoothly as when it was made. Two more tunnels fed off from the bottom, three if you include the one behind the gate. I chose the one that wasnt full of sewage and thought it was a dud at first as i could just about stand up in it and it just seemed to keep going, Oh well nothing else to do today so i pursued with it. After a long and boring walk i heard the water in the distance.

I climbed up another ladder and bang, a red brick split chamber! fantastic, I peer over down the tunnel and more junctions and turns ghead off left right and center. Jackpot!,

After taking a few photos here and there i headed east towards the wier feature. Another few snaps and i headed back west. Sure enough a little walk revealed yet another chamber where the tunnel split in two, one red brick, one concrete. I choose the concrete one due to it being large and stuck with it for a while. Sadly the waterlevel although calm kept getting higher and higher until it eventually became wader breachable.

I decided to call it a day and headed out.

UPPER LABYRINTH

Clearly 100 times better the lower labyrinth. This section exploded with features.

Was feeling a little ill that day so i wasnt at my top game!. I found the entrance, got kitted up and headed on down. Initially emerging into a small 5ft sewer. According to the map i wasnt too far from the main relief so i began my slouched walk. 10 minutes later of backbreaking pain i started to think something was a tad fishy. Looked at the map again. "youve got to be kidding me". I had gone the wrong way!.

Back i went to discover the relief was only 10 meters from my entrance. Figures. I paid homage to the Sub-urban uber torch which had sadly met a rather dirty fate and pressed on to the north. The tunnel was about 8ft in diameter with a black and red split brick construction, but it was very, very slippery. I almost had several "man down" situations but managed to keep my feet.

After a bit of walking i came face to face with the main junction. This was impressive to say the least. A large set of stairs with a quad junction at the top leading to yet more stairs and junctions!. The climb was a little tricky as it was very slippery and water was splashing in my face at the same time. Not nice.

At the top to the right a small 5ft pipe led to a set of curved stairs with a mainline sewer running at the top. Took a few pictures then headed back to the main junction and continued north with the main pipe.

A bit further on, past several silted sections i came to a junction with one pipe leading down a concrete pipe. Very Bunker'esk. and a little further up was the end chamber. Two dividing pipes one with stairs one with a ladder leading up to a huge mainline sewer. I took lots of photos but sadly has a little problem with lighting as my uber torch had died. Oh well.

As the morning rooster was about to call i decided to head back to my cover and began a slow walk back to the car.