Beringen mine, my most loathsome and hated site from our entire Belgium road trip. Not because of the site itself, but due to the sheer amount of time and effort we spent and pain we recieved trying to get inside. Everything just went wrong, horribly wrong. It ended up taking six attempts to get in, the other five resulted in getting implailed, stung, scratched and cut. Every attempt we made was thwarted by musicians, film crews, tourists, locals, animals, security. Hell even good ole mother nature made an appearence to ruin our day. Eventually we had to say screw this and headed to La Chartreuse instead.

So here we go, round two, FIGHT! We awoke at the crack of dawn and headed over the exterior wall. The band and film crews were now gone, the tour wasnt open yet and the streets were empty. Pefect. We headed into no-mans land and made a run for it, vaulting the secondary fence and dissapearing into the building. Why the hell couldnt it have been this easy yesterday!

As previously planned we headed up the main headstock to catch the sunrise, old fireworks from a recent display were still rigged up at the top. The only other headstock ive climbed before is Chatterly Whitfield and the difference is incredible. Unlike the wonkey steps back in Whitfield this headstock had full staircases and felt completly safe. It looked like it was being well maintained, or was just ageing well. Sadly the same couldnt be said for its adjacent twin, rusting in its own enclosure, looking like it would give up and collapse at any moment.

As we worked our way through the various levels, passing boilers, control panels and general industrial miscilanious I stood on what I thought was a solid piece of metal flooring. Bad mistake. I felt the floor crumble as my foot went straight through it, stumbling to grab a nearby girder as the metal fell down into the dark depths of a storage silo. Heart racing I was now wide awake.

For such a big site Beringen was pretty empty, much of the machinery or switchboxes was covered in dust and soot and it all looked the same. A few sections shined through like the coal truck tippers and the control rooms, but to be fair there wasnt a great deal else to see. We milled about checking most that the mine had to offer before exiting the building for few externals, acting like a tourist who had wandered off the path. Sorry Mr security guard, we didnt know we couldnt be here.