Burbon & Critts
Rating:15th November 2000.
2 Drains for the price of 1

This drain is reasonably close to 130 Steps and City View. It is also close to the poor Mini-Maze

Burbon and Critts are tidal. Check tide times here. You can check the weather here and here.

The Burbon - Critts system is an excellent drain with a very impressive entrance, lots of features and a few nice surprises. This drain system is well worth doing! It contains two separate entrances and it joins after a long walk. One of the nicer features of the drain is the unusual shape of the tunnel and the red brick upper, concrete lower tunnel, this gives a very nice color scheme.

Once again, this web page is to show you what is in drains without having to go in them yourself. Do NOT enter drains! Doing so is NOT legal in UA City. This page may contain old content that may refer to readers entering drains, I reiterate that I do not encourage you to do this.

Drain Report

1. Entrance to Burbon. This is quite unmistakable, consisting of a large Red Brick Pipe entrance on the edge of the river at the end of a street. The color of the the drain walls gives this drain its' name. Take a look above the entrance on the footpath and you will see a large bluestone slab set in the ground with the names of a few people carved in it. Remember this. There are a set of sort of stairs on the downstream side of this drain, head down them to the water's edge. If the tide is up, water will cover the bluestone landing at the drain entrance, the water is only about ankle deep, so walk on in. Beware that the bluestone platform only extends a meter into the river so don't step back to take a photo.

Just inside the entrance of the drain look up. You should see the bottom of that big bluestone slab. Weird metal spike things too. There is also a little side pipe on the left that has a weird litter trap built into it.

About 30 meters into the drain is a sump which traverses the entire width of this drain (about 2 meters). You will get your feet and shoes wet, so don't bother trying to keep them dry. As there is glass and rocks on the bottom, keep your shoes on. The sump is about half a meter deep, and on most people should come up to waist height only. About half way along it there's a sort of wire across it which almost made me trip over. A friend of mine did and I got a good photo of her but she made me delete it. :-( It does get shallower as you go on.

The bad and evil pit which is about waist deep!

Past the sump, the tunnel curves to the right and runs along under Holmes Road.

2. Side tunnel. A bit of a way along the tunnel a low side tunnel about 80 cms high branches off the right hand side. I have crawled up it to the end of the curve where it stretches off into the darkness. It looks like it extends off towards Critts but I can think of better things to do than crawl off through a mud filled tunnel just to see what's at the end. So, if you do explore this you're more diligent than I

There are also a couple of side pipes here which lead to gutterboxes.

3. The surprise. Walking down this tunnel to the point where it turns left to head north up under Waverly Road you will come across a surprise. You'll know it when you see it. I'll give you a hint, it's not the manhole. Check it out, come back and head north again.

4. Tunnel Change. The tunnel changes from a semi-mummy shape with a cement bottom section, to a fully red brick tunnel, but with a fairly flat bottom here. Watch out for holes in the floor. If you are exploring this drain during the daytime (recommended) you should see a spot of light shining way down the tunnel.

5. Join and rectangular section. After a very long walk, you will finally come to an upright rectangular section of the tunnel. A number of manholes in the top of the drain allow plenty of light to enter. Keep your eye out for a narrow opening on the right, this is the connection to Critts. If you look back down it you can see that it is a RCP, which will require a bit of stoop, but don't worry, it's well worth doing.

The concrete section of drain is very interesting as it is an excellent place for leaving your name and tag. It has a few good messages in it, including some really old graffiti. There is a manhole thingmy on the right hand side of the drain that you can climb up, but the grille is right on the side of Waverly Road and people tend to walk over it. I heaved away but was unable to budge the grille.

Go back to the side tunnel, the RCP, and go down it. It will require some stoop, but is manageable and gets bigger after about four minutes.

End of the drain. Beyond the connection with Critts the drain continues on a short way. There is a curve to the right, some small side drains and finally the end of the drain. It simply continues on in a smaller version of the main tunnel.

6. Low section. It is unknown why this is included. The tunnel gets low, for about 60 meters, but you can just walk it doubled over. It changes back into a RCP in which you can walk fully upright, just. There is also a manhole here, it lets in welcome light and air but don't even bother trying to open it.

7. Crawly exit. If you really need to exit, you can exit here, but it's better to continue on. Look out for a side RCP on the left that slopes upwards and has light on it's left about 10 meters along it. This leads to a small gutterbox which can be exited from. The gutterbox has like a brick bench you can sit on and peer out on to the street. The two concrete sections are heavier than normal, so require 2 people to move the one nearest the road. Open it just wide enough to squeese through. As said, it's better to continue on.

Just past here, look out for a small RCP where the water goes down. Crawl through it if you want or continue on down the RCP. There is a short stoop section just after it, but it's only a few meters. Walk on along the tunnel, notice that it actually goes up hill a slight bit. You should be able to hear the roar of water ahead, since there should be almost no water in the bottom of this tunnel, this is unusual at first. The tunnel will curve to the right and after 3 minutes you should come to the next feature.

Short stoop section reminiscent of Dungeon

8. Stairs and small side tunnel. You will come to a set of stairs in the tunnel. These stairs are unique in that they are the only curved ones that I have seen. That is, their bottom is curved just like sections of an RCP. There are about 7 stairs, and they drop about 2 meters. There is also a sort of mini-Burbon side drain here on the left. It normally has a bit of water flowing in it. Unlike the similar tunnel in Burbon, this one is rather clean.

This area is marked with a fair bit of graffiti, including a reference to this drain's surprise and the two who pioneered it.

Above and below. The unique circular steps

Exit of Critts

9. Critt's entrance. The location of this drain entrance has been removed from this web site. This site's purpose is not to encourage you to enter drains, but rather to show what is in them so you do not need to enter drains yourself to see what is there. It is low and very tidal, there is no fence over it to mark it's position. The entrance gets bigger quickly, changing into an RCP of stand up height.

Burbon at Sunset

Exploring drains in UA City is NOT legal! Do not enter drains. Some drains are particularly slippery which may cause you to fall over. Impact with the bottom of the drain by parts of your body may cause injuries and wetness.

Do NOT enter drains. Read this warning!

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