Tales from the drains
27 th July 1998

Hey GOD.

Back when Emor and I were stuck on exploring drains we decided to head up and do Northcote Golf course for the second time. As we crossed Alexandra parade in Clifton Hill in the tram I casually pointed out to Emor that a drain runs under it. He asked which one. I woke up from my dream state and announced that it was GOD which I realise d that Emor hadn�t done before.

"Is it good?" Emor asked. " Yeah!" I replied and we pulled the cord for the next tram stop.

We walked back to Alexandra parade and wandered across the median strip to a small grilled manhole that was the entrance to the drain. We lifted a grille and dropped down into the manhole. The fact that we had down this in the middle of heavy traffic bothered us not a bit.

We climbed into the tunnel and rested before deciding to explore the upstream end of the tunnel. We decided that we would come back to explore the downstream end of the drain later. We left our packs to pick up later. Taking our flashlights we headed upstream. I had planned to buy a new battery when we arrived at Northcote Golf so my battery was really low, the light from it was really dim.

We wandered up the drain, admiring the brick work, walked up to the corner and looked up the tunnel at all the light shining in from manholes. We started to walk up the tunnel. This was a nice section of the drain, well lit by manholes and with reasonably good air (although one stinky section).

At some stage past the fourth manhole I looked down the tunnel and warned Emor to be aware of pipes running across the top of the tunnel. About a minute later as I walked down the drain I walked straight into a pipe across the top of the drain. There was a very distinct thunk as my forehead hit the pipe. Emor standing beside me ducked as soon as he heard the bang and avoided the pipe. Emor stood there laughing as I sat down and leant against the drain with pain. Man that hurt. I was half crying and half laughing while I gripped my head in pain. I mean it hurt but it was funny too. I had to stop laughing as it made it hurt more. Thankfully I had avoided drawing blood.

We continued on down the tunnel past the new bits till the tunnel got lower. Doubling over we looked at the graffiti and figured out that from what was said there might just be an entrance to the drain ahead. To cut a long story short we explored every side tunnel till we got to the split and sat down to contemplate our next move. Emor looked out the grille at the split and suddenly yelled �F@*k!�

" What�s the matter!?" I asked with concern. " A car just drove over." Emor explained. I don�t blame him, scared the heck out of me the first time this happened to me.

We decided to explore the smaller round red brick tunnel, which was lower than the higher rectangular brick tunnel but had a lot of promising looking manholes. At this pint, after walking at least two kilometers, and a fair bit of that stooped over our thoughts were turning to getting out of that tunnel.

I checked out a small crawly side pipe and made it into a small gutter box. It looked to be on a main road with lots of cars and people above So I decided it was no goer, in hindsight it was probably just as good as where we climbed out. I walked up to Emor at the next manhole and we walked on to the third manhole. Occasionally a car would drive over these manholes so we were not about to pop them.

At this point I asked Emor where he had left a spray can we had brought with us, he replied that he had left it in an overhead pipe back at the first manhole where I had crawled up the small side pipe. I had looked for it when I came out but not noticed it so presumed he had taken it with him. I decided to head back down the tunnel for the can. Gee I hate stoopy tunnels! Pain, pain, pain. Oh my back. I tell you, it hurt like hell to retrieve that can.

Meanwhile Emor had crawled up a side pipe into a gutterbox and was standing waist deep in water in the bottom. I crawled up and ignored Emor�s advice to lay on my back and climb into the gutterbox, no, I had to go in on my belly.

Now imagine this, the gutter box was only slightly larger than the interior of your average stand up refrigerator, and it was half full of water. The pipe entering it was just wide enough for me to get through, and anyone needing a diet would be screwed. I eased in, realise d that I was going to get wet, reached up for the grille above and then Emor reached to help me. What happened next was like trying one of those telephone box jamming competitions. It was all giggles as I tried to get into the gutterbox without getting my shorts wet. I finally managed it, although I apparently did put a foot into Emor�s mouth.

We popped the grille and emerged into the hot sunlight of a 30 degree plus UA City summer�s day. Thankfully it was really hot as we were really wet. We walked past some amused school kids and took off for the side streets in the hunt for a hose to wash off with.

Hoses are fun. You see most often they are in someone�s front yard and you don�t need to enter their property to use them, you just reach over their fence. They are useful for washing off after exploring drains.

We walked through the hot suburbs back to the entrance of GOD in Alexandra Parade and popped back into the drain. We gathered our packs and headed downstream into the bigger section of the drain. This bit of the drain is much more roomy than the upstream bit so we relaxed as we walked downstream and admired the graffiti there. It was so much more relaxing to walk down a big tunnel. It was easy to walk along the flat sill of this drain. I was pissed off that I didn�t have my camera to take a photo of the unique section of the drain.

We walked on past the power cable down the drain and walked down to rest at a manhole where we could switch off our dim flashlights in the light from the manhole. At this point Emor asked me for something from my back pack. I retrieved the object and then realise d that I could not find a CD-Rom pack Emor had leant me. I emptied my back pack and looked for the CDs, they were not there.

" Shit!" I exclaimed. " What?" Emor asked. " Shit!!." I almost yelled. " What!?" Emor demanded. " I can�t find your CDs." I replied. I had better go back and look for them. You can stay here."

Emor is one really great friend. I mean I had just announced I had lost some irreplaceable CD-Roms and said that he didn�t need to join me in looking for them and despite the fact that we were tiered he joined me as we headed back up the drain to find the CDs.

Ten minutes nervous walk found the CDs laying in the drain, wet but safe. I later dried them out and they worked fine. I don�t blame him for his unsavory comments when he wrote up a report on his web site later.

Finally we walked down to the waterfall and walked up to the edge. Just as we arrived there the water flow in the drain increased, so we were drenched as we climbed down the ladder. At least the water was warm. We climbed down the rickety ladder with its' missing bolt and walked out of the drain. Like two drowned rats we made our way to the foot bridge over the Merri creek and rested with our feet dangling off of the side.

I was tiered from the long walk down the drain and needed the rest. It had been one hell of a long walk. We sat on the bridge, soaking up the sun and drying off for a long while before we finally got up and walked across to the old water mill at Dights Falls. We walked out to the falls themselves and ignoring the signs that said don�t walk on the dam we did. We had a lot of fun setting drift wood to plunge over the dam before we decided to have fun with the flood gate on the weir leading to the old water mill.

Finally we walked on down stream to the Johnston Street bridge room. This was a bit of a revelation to us as we hadn�t been expecting it at all. We crawled in through a gap under the bridge and explored the big room inside. We climbed up the slope inside the bridge room and admired the trappings from a recent party. We read some of the cover of Il-Draino, magazine of another drain exploring group in UA City. It was a great little place.

Finally, growing weary we climbed up to the street above and caught a bus into the city and home.

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