Over 2019 I've really gotten into draining, thought I could share some stories with you all. From Melbourne's GOD to Herk's Pillars, it’s been a lot of fun.
Our first Drain Expedition was to the much famed GOD. After trawling the forums and a skating "scouting" trip, we had found its location and were ready to go. 3 of us entered the drain from downstream, and were presented with an intimidating visage
The First waterfall of God
No picture can do it justice. Water pouring down its middle, a rusty ladder the only way up. I climbed that ladder shitting myself and was just about ready to go home. But it turns out this was a formative experience that still makes me shiver. I'm not going to post a picture because frankly, it's best experienced by your own eyes, and it won’t quite do it justice.
God was previously an open cut Bluestone drain, running through a large street giving the eastern suburbs access to the city and it is offers one of the most picturesque opportunities for photos.
Eventually, GOD begins to shrink, into a hall termed the
Its small, humid, and full of cockroaches. Its not very pleasant to walk but it was our first trip so of course we tried for a while, before turning back. If you look for ways out of the drain, you’ll notice that on your left as you walk in there's a small opening which comes out in the middle of a road. I’ve used this escape route a few times and I recommend it highly. We jumped out of this and began planning our next trip.
Next came the fabled Maze drain. Huge, twisting, and greatly varying in shape, it is a great drain to explore. After finding an entrance near a small canal, we ventured in. Maze is a rather cramped at times, but has many unique features.
We eventually exited out a grate behind a Woolworths. While I do love a great easy exit like this, you do have to be cautious. And we weren’t. My mates were too busy videoing me leaving the hole to notice a cop car rolling up behind us, which you can see in our video. We had a quick discussion with the cops, and after seeing we were clearly a bunch of 17 year olds who had no graffiti equipment and some camera equipment, were quite understanding. One was visibly holding back laughter. It serves as a good lesson- if you are there to explore, have no graffiti tools and just cameras, and treat the cops with respect, they will leave you alone.
Our next Trip was to the famous “Mini Tenth” This drain has an interesting double opening near a rather large shopping centre. We didnt take many photos here, however the drain mostly has a huge centre channel, which is open from both ends- the cave clan have many pictures of driving down through it. When we visited someone was creating artwork near the entrance, which was rather spectacular, always nice to see something better than the usual tagging. Mini Tenth also has a very cool side pipe, which I would highly recommend exploring, it has a height larger than most drains like maze.
Next we ventured to what is certainly my favourite drain. Great Stairway. The entrance to this drain is very picturesque, combining a green creekbed with the usual drain aesthetic.
Walking down the creek you are eventually presented with the entrance to the drain, which continues on as a large RCP for a while.
Eventually, the drain becomes a coffin or mummy shape, still being about 3 meters high, making for easy walking. Some of my friends took to exploring down a small side pipe, pictured below
I turned back into the main drain, while they went onwards for a little bit, before finding an outing into an urban backyard. It was quite amusing.
We then ventured onwards, towards the stairway itself. The stairs are massive, and really give you a scope as to how far underground you really are. Once again, pictures wont do it justice.
We then continued onwards, pressing on further into the drain than most maps will show you. Eventually our torches spied something a little disheartening- a dead possum. It lay there perfectly still however on closer inspection, it suddenly ran off!
We were unsure as to how the possum had gotten into the drain- we were probably 1.5kms from the entrance, and it couldn't have possibly made it up the stairs anyway. It must have fallen in from a gutter box. After looking ahead for a potential exit, we came back, wrapped the possum in a blanket, and carefully took him back into the outside world. Basking in the glory of rescuing a possum from certain death, we relaxed outside nearby sloth’s- unable to enter because of the water depth around the entrance, instead enjoying a beautiful sunset.
While our first trip to stairway didn't go that deep into the drain, we then found some interesting and unique features of the drain on later expeditions. Firstly, if you go far enough in you will notice that on your left there is a small, pipe opening. Further inspection will show you that this actually opens up into a small room, about which you can easily fit about 20 people in (although it would be a tight squeeze) Obviously as drains are made to divert flood waters on old creek beds, the function of this room is of great curiosity to us. Finding some drain maps online leads me to speculate that the upstream portion of this room has been blocked off, as there was only rubble creating this wall, but as to why we have no idea. This means while living in this room seemed a novel idea, rainway almost certainly seeps through and fills the room.
More excitingly, we found a manhole further upstream than described in Panic’s brilliant guides. I poked my head out of it, and to my great distress- I was in the middle of the road. Ducking down my friends refused to believe me, as they could hear cars driving beside but not over us. As one of my mates was about to pop the manhole from below and poke his head out, a car drove right over us, plunging us into darkness and making us scared shitless to ever try that again. However, we once again visited this manhole, this time at 2am with 9 people, proceeding to all jump down the hole from above as quickly as possible before heaving it back into place. It felt like we were in some Mission Impossible film, and if you find yourself wanting to enter a drain late at night, this would be the place.
Dungeon was the last of the major melbourne drains we did this year. It was a scorching day, and entering the drain made for a much cooler atmosphere. Dungeon is a massive complex, despite not having the iconic features of drains such as Stairway, is a very fun trip.
Our end of year trip to Sydney also promised exploration of some of the drains there. And Herks did not disappoint.
The drain quickly features two massive waterfalls, one of them even larger than the one at GOD.
As seen in these photos, the drain also has a unique and distinctive shape, its rectangular walls tilted slightly as if some sort of racetrack.
Ultimately, we reached the end of the drain and the pillars themselves, and despite some interesting tagging, they were a sight to behold. In fact, the pillars can be seen on google maps sattelite view, so don’t you go asking for the location cause you can see them from f*****g space!
We headed out through what we called “frog alley” a different way out of the drain through a side tunnel, as pictured above. The drain seemed a haven for local amphibians
Sadly, our trip to fortress did not go as hoped, we found the shoreline entry but it is impossible to enter as bars now block you from proceeding in. This was rather disappointing, particularly because I had found the route of the drain and still we couldnt find any manhole entries. Oh well. But it capped off a great year overall of draining. I hope you guys enjoyed the read. I am still looking to do sloths and Anzac, have found some entries/exits and checked them but they are not as viable as one might hope, so if someone wanted to chuck me a pm and trade locations or the like I would be very grateful.
*if someone could help me as to how to format the images so they properly appear on the forum, I would very much appreciate it FIXED: thanks all
After completely drenching our shoes, we were fairly close to the exit at this point and kept pushing forward. We got fully drenched at the drip section and eventually made it to the falls which felt sketch as hell in soaking wet sneakers. But we eventually made it out after the final crawl with bemused on-lookers confused at the site of two half soaked 17 year olds emerging from a drain behind a barbed wire fence. Hopefully we'll be more prepared next time