Drain entrance.

This is the very first drain we ever explored in Urbana. Now we had read the old Cave Men�s web site and were thinking that this drain was the one with the great views of Southern Urbana. You see the Cave Men had mixed up this one with Secret Squirrel�s. So we caught the bus down (it was before we scored the Drain Mobile �) to the drain. The bus driver was real cool, playing music on his portable cassette player. There was no one else on the bus so it was okay by us. It was sixties music so we bopped away to "Rocking Robin" right down Athllon Way.

"He rocks in the tree top all a day long. Hoppin and a boppin and singing his song. All the little birds on J-Bird street love the robin go tweet tweet tweet! Rockin robin, rockin robin. Well go rockin robin cause we�re really going to rock tonight."

We were jumping up and down on the bus and the whole thing was shaking from side to side like mad. It must have confused the motorists as we jumped up and down at the end of the bus, bouncing into the air with every bump. It was a bummer to get off.

We walked across to the open drain then walked down the step irons near the foot bridge into the open drain. Soneek added some graffiti to a local substation just before we entered the drain.

Walking on in to the left most drain we were surprised at how short it was. And it all stank of petrol, probably leaking from the petrol station above. We walked back to the other pipes, walked on in, marched up to where we eventually spotted light. All the time we were looking for the �electrical� feature mentioned in our drain location sheet. No sight of it.

Chamber.

We reached the strange looking junction chamber room. It looks like it might be under some round about but we have been unable to locate it above ground. It is a round chamber with shelves on both sides. Vents let in plenty of light right around this chamber. Now, this chamber offers a challenge for the dry foot drainer.

As can be seen from the picture above there�s a pool of water in the middle of the drain about ankle deep. If you want to keep your feet dry you have to grab hold of the side of the drain and heave yourself along the edge of the drain into the pipe. It's doable though.

End of the drain.

From the junction chamber a single pipe continues on southwards. The drain was just high enough to walk upright in. It looked so very really exciting to us. I mean all those lovely round concrete pipes. That lovely water leaking in at the joints. The delightful grey finish of the concrete. Hmm, yeah excitement plus.

A couple of hundred of these pipe sections later we were getting mightily pissed off. "I don�t care if are supposed to get great views of Urbana, this sucks big-time." I exclaimed.

" Come on, you never know what�s around the next bend." Soneek replied.

" What f**ken bend? It would be a lot more interesting if there was a bend. There isn�t even any bends."

We eventually got to a small junction room where the main drain tunnel got just a little bit too low to walk upright in. We figured screw that and decided to walk back out, tagging the drain with our fashionable pink paint.

This drain was not the one with a great view, nor did it have any electrical features. Having expected these we were sadly disappointed and perhaps harshly judge the drain.

Warning. Exploration of drains can lead to dehydration through excessive sweat. Drinking drain water can lead to serious intestinal illness. Drain water often contains heavy metal poisons, pathogens, e-coli and cryptosperidium. Do not drink the water unless you are from Urbana in which case it�s probably better than what comes out your taps anyway.