A trip a long time in the making after several pull out dates and failed attempts to devise a plan we finally agreed on a date and began to seek out our info. Our main plan was to visit the "top 5" drains of Manchester then head down to Sheffield to take a look at something new.

In tow was Myself, Alias, loops and the traveling hobo Dsankt. The night before was a bit of a disaster, finished work very late forgot to pack a load of kit and ended up getting less than two hours sleep before waking up early in the morning to meet the others. We met up at a station south of London and all crammed ourselves into the car.

Onward!. We set of up north off the M25 and up the M40. In regards to our plan we were hopefully going to do as much as we could starting with "Gorton Falls" and "The Works" and then just keep going until we collapsed.

The traffic gods were kind to us that day and we had clear roads as well as clear skies. Perfect. After a brief stop of at a service station before the M6 with the dirtiest kfc in the world. Half of which was ejected via the sun roof at 80mph we eventually arrived in Manchester. Now this town is seriously derelict. Everywhere you look there was factories and god knows what galore.

We ended up at the reservoir near Gorton and headed towards our entrance. We passed what seemed like two massive railway vents. We climbed up and had a look down we couldn't even see the bottom so we dropped stuff down. It took almost 8 seconds for the sticks to hit the bottom with a splash. Daaammnnn. We found a possible entrance to these but they were bolted shut. Hmm another time. We continued on to the falls, and when we got there we realized we were defiantly not getting in this way. The cover had been stupidly secured. We counted over 20 different screws and bolts with anti lift beams. Luckily we had a backup entrance the other side so off we went.

After a small walk down the river we came to the siphon with water flowing out of it like a fountain. We headed up into the tunnel in the hills above and found out entrance. Now the cover was in a mess, it was old, rusty and someone had made a fire above it so we only managed to get it open just enough to squeeze under it and onto the crappiest ladder known to man. The handles had eroded away so much they were now twigs and only half remained. Defiantly not to be trusted we took our time firemaned it down the side and into a large red brick pipe with the lip down into the siphon of death just behind us.

Once we were all down we headed east towards the falls themselves and after 10 minutes of walking through the crustiest pipe we emerged into the chamber. My initial impression was i thought it was a little bit smaller then i had imagined it was still cool though don't get me wrong. We spent a while setting up lighting and taking pictures before Dsankt ventured up and down the pipe, reporting back with news of another smaller falls at the other end.

We were about to go before we saw that the light was fading which we would need to find the works. So we headed back to the car and set off to the north.

As we pulled up to "The works" we had a lot of nosey locals staring at us all simultaneously reaching for their phones. Now our entrance was on the other side of the river which we made a complete meal getting over it either being stopped by deep water of walls to high. It took us almost 30 minutes to get over. But we eventually made it to the grassy outfall of the works.

We headed on in and after a small brick up junction we came to the monster stairs. Now being in chest waders this was going to be a bit of a mission as i couldn't lift my legs high enough to climb the steps. I had to practically jump up them and at the top lay the giant works chamber in which "inhospitable" runs through.

We decided we would explore first and take photographs later so we descended into "inhospitable" and headed north towards "processor". Within 5 minutes it was clear why this drain was called inhospitable, because it really was the amount of debris that lurked beneath the water made progress painful and slow. Constantly slipping and stumbling over the fallen rocks was a pain in the ass to say the least. We eventually emerged back into the outfall and after a quick phone call to JD to confirm some details we headed further and into the outfall of "processor".

I really should have taken some pictures of the pipes hear. A beautiful red brick covered in what looked like lime when you shone you torch down the tunnel glowed with a greenish tint. We headed on and eventually came to a side passage leading into the processor chamber with the weirdest overflow/debris removal machine housed in the middle. We progressed a little further up the pipe before heading back due to sadly not have enough time to explore the rest as we had to photograph "the works".

We headed back into the works down to the main chamber and started to snap away. As i finished a little earlier then the rest myself and loops headed down the uber stairs to take pics of the crusty pipe, and afterwards the outfall.

I have to say i was enjoying the whole northern drain scene as it was nothing like the south. In a way it was better as you didn't have to mess around with manhole covers, barriers or small access pipes it was a walk in situation. As we sat in the outfall discussing the day we looked out at the river it was so peaceful and relaxing watching the cold steam rise from the water i felt i could sit here all night.

We were eventually rejoined by the others and we headed back up the riverbank and back to the car.

By this time it was almost midnight so we set ourselves a new quest. The search of the "curry mile". We searched all over the town before asking a cabby "Yo mate where's the nearest curry house". He looked at us and replied "follow me". Result. We followed him through the street of manchester and eventually came to the mile. It really is the Las Vegas of the curry industry. The neon signs competing with each other to win your custom. We looked chose, and my god did we choose well, that was one of the nicest meals I've ever had.

Now a little bloated we headed towards our next target. Two drains connecting to each other known as "Sidedraught induction" and "Supercharger" We parked up and headed into the stream. We came to a small grill which we had to limbo under to get into the pipe. It started off as a concrete pipe before opening into a small chamber and splitting into two oval brick pipes. We headed down the left side and after a bit of walking they converged into one with a side pipe leading into a large concrete chamber with two levels and a slide underneath. We took several photos and had a little break to try and digest some more of the curry before heading back down into the main pipe.

As we progressed the pipe became smaller and smaller and the amount of spiders grew. We looked upstream two see two small grey torpedoes moving around the water. Yay sewer "bunnies". One made the mistake of getting too close to DS, who gave it the swift wader of judgment. A little bit further the pipe came out into the open.

We continued up the river and after a lot of walking and questions "are we going the right way?" we came to "Supercharger A" a long dry red brick pipe in a sideways D shape and at the end was the main section of Supercharger. Sadly i think we were all a little to tired by now and just couldn't enjoy it anymore. Looking back there was quite a lot of photo opportunities to this drain but at the time we were just thinking. "FUCK, another long ass featureless pipe". we continued with it till we just decided no, no more. and began our walk back to the car.

Stupidly we thought it would be faster to walk back Overground Site and came out of the river at the beginning of supercharger. BAD MISTAKE. We got horrible lost and ended up taking almost 1 and a half hours to get back the car. But that time i was not at all in a good mood as the lack of sleep and insane amount of walking had made me a little on the unsociable side. I apologies to all those affected.

Well that was the end of the Manchester side to the road trip as we had finished all our targets so we just had a small trip down to Sheffield were we parked up and attempted to get a bit of sleep before we began a day anew!.

I was lucky as i managed to get around three hours of kip. The others were not so lucky with Alias managing just 1 hour. We left him in the car to get a bit more sleep as we went to recce our drain. We had a quick look and decided it was worth a look so we headed back to get Alias.

We kitted up, bought a few rations from a local store and headed on down. Now which way to go?, we had two pipes one leading east in a small channeled brick pipe and another down into a concrete box. For some reason we chose concrete over brick and headed on in. 5 meters in the floor lowered via a slide and the pipe split into two brick pipe, both seeming to connect to a chamber at the end.

Sure enough we emerged in a massive stone chamber, with small brick pillars holding the roof up and also 8! pipes running off from it!, 3 concrete to the north and 3 brick to the south, down some stone stairs. As we shone the torches around we noticed how the three tunnel to the south were all connected by old stone arches as far as the eye could see which must have been a good half a mile. We headed down the stairs and along the central southern pipe.

After a good walk the central and left pipe converge into one with the most amazing ceiling while the right pipe grows to match, both opening out into a small open section with a tiny weir controlling the flow of water back down into the drain.

We carefully made our way across the weir on the deadliest stones ever and headed down into yet three more high arched red brick pipes. By this point we were thinking this was too good to be true and continued on. The stone arches now changed to a squashed oval shape and continued on before dipping down a little as the water level slightly rose.

As we were walking along Dsankt commented "Wouldn't it be sweet if these three pipes merged into one big ass one". We all agreed and after another 10 minutes of walking. It happened!!!!.

Wow this is so far probably the biggest chamber i have seen so far. It was a mad collection of several different heights, some brick some stone, some new some old. And it was bloody fantastic. In the distance we could see another opening and the pipe coming aboveground before heading back down into two more pipes but due to the pipes converging the water level had risen more then our waders could take. One for next time i guess.

Oh well camera time!. We slowly headed back past each feature photographing it and each walking down a different pipe just in case there was any pipe coming off them. There was, but they all had massive outfall flaps preventing our entrance.

We spent over two hours before we eventually made out way back to the 8 way chamber and felt we should just take a quick look to the north. So we headed up the pipes and 400 meters they all connected in a concrete square box before splitting into two brick pipes and finally converging into one giant pipe at the end which housed a massive "jetty" style screen and a sloping infall. We found yet another outfall flapped drain and decided it was time to head on home.

On the way back we spied the remaining cooling towers from Sheffield power station and as it was a nice day we thought wed pay a quick visit.

We set off home. And all was going smoothly under the life support system on the car began to ermm lets say die. I didn't realize how much the brake pads had been worn away. And let me tell you this going down the M1 with brake pads gone is a scary event in deep the screeching sound of metal on metal with a horrible knocking sound afterwards made we think we had run out of luck. To make things worse we were on the lower end of the M1 were it converges into two lane with concrete blocks either side. So if we broke down here the entire motorway would be fooked. We continued along and the lack of sleep amongst other things made tensions between us rise a little.

We pulled off and took a quick break to make a plan. What to do what to do. We had just another 2 junction to the m25 were we would be fine but the constant stopping and starting on the M1 would kill the car. We planned our route and set off down a few a roads before arriving on the m25. Home smelt so close we just had to make it to the train station before 9.09pm or wed miss the last trains. We pulled into the car park and said our goodbyes. We joked how it was definitely an "eventful" trip but we all enjoyed it.

A bloody excellent trip but we all agreed next time wed get a hotel!.


Zero