Hit up a new (to me anyway) drain last week (what better way to social-distance then by hiding underground where you're not going to find anyone!).
I'm calling this one the "Sandy Freeway" on account of it's location and the significant amount of sediment and gravel throughout the entire system. Like the Douglas Darkie, the metal sections of this drain were coated in a tar or asphalt-like substance which had a very distinctive smell.
The first challenge was getting in since the municipality helpfully stuck this grate in front. Fortunately it was pretty easy to squeeze around it.
In stark contract to the HoW and DD there was almost no graffiti in this drain; Just a couple of shitty tags near the outflow. About 100m in we encountered the first manhole, there was a chain across the width of the pipe which immediately made me nervous about a potential sudden dropoff. Took about 5 min of gingerly stepping around in a circle to feel satisfied that it was safe to continue.
Further on it became quite obvious that the weight of the buildings above us was slowly crushing the metal pipe (kinda hard to see it in the photo but it's very squished here).
5 min on we encountered the second manhole, and a fork in the road which lead to a 1300mm pipe. It was again marked off by a chain.
We decided to explore the smaller pipe later and continued forward. After about another 5 min we found the 3rd manhole and the metal pipe opened up into a chamber which quickly split in 2:
Each room in the chamber led to a section of smaller metal pipe we decided not to follow. Looking back at the pictures, It seems like the sand and sediment has filled about a quarter of this pipe.
We turned back and explored the smaller junction, after about 5 minutes the pipe opened up into a chamber where we found our 4th manhole and another split. To the left was pipe of roughly the same size, to the right a bit smaller. We decided to take the left fork since we could see some hints of light at the end.
Just 2-3 min later we were dumped into a small creek, and had to scramble through a bunch of blackberry bushes to make it back to civilization. Would not recommend doing so in summer when the bushes are at their best.
Overall a good explore! I was quite surprised at the sheer amount of sediment in this drain (in some places it was probably about 1.5' high). I'm curious if all the drains in the municipality have the tar substance coating them. Clearly more exploring is needed!