We were supposed to meet at Hawthorn Station at 10am but thanks to Metro choosing this weekend to conduct railworks trains were not running between Camberwell and the City, so by the time we got everyone together it was closer to 11.
We headed down into Maze with solid plans to head to the Camberwell Junction Gutter box. Probably took us somewhere around an hour to walk there, accounting for a few rests and photo taking along the way. This was my third time there while the others hadn't been up that far before. I think anyone who has done the gutter box will know that the main novelty is yelling at people crossing at the traffic lights right there. The box is on one corner of a 6 way intersection and there is usually a fair amount of foot and car traffic around. It is actually 4 gutter boxes so plenty of room for all 3 of us to get a reasonable view out at the world. Now I've had a lot of fun at these gutter boxes before. Previously I've had some guy stop and pass us french fries through the gutter box and the looks on people faces when they figure out where you are is priceless. So we're calling out to people and what not and some teenage girls figure out that we're there and they start having a conversation with us. And then they gave us a packet of Tim Tams.... I mean what more could you want? Pretty girls, an awesome drain, and Tim Tams. My life is complete. So they moved off and we got a number of weird looks and some more friendly conversations from people over the next hour or so. There was this one guy stopped at the lights with his window down and he acted like it was the funniest thing he'd seen all day. He couldn't stop looking at us and absolutely losing it laughing so much. The lights turned green and he was just sitting there as the cars behind him were getting annoyed. I think we may have made his day. Eventually some grumpy old woman decided that, although we weren't affecting her day in any way, shape or form she had to call the police. So she tells us that we should leave as the police are coming, considering the Police station is about 500m from where we were it was one of the slowest response times I've seen in my life. But when they got there we quickly knew about it. It was a male and a female and the female was pissed. Like, I've spoken to police through this gutter box before and they are usually pretty chill. More interested in how you got in there and things than anything else. But this woman must've been having a bad day because she totally lost it at us. She actually refused to ID herself and we had to ask multiple times for that, then she threatened to shoot us. It was almost comical. Her partner hardly said 2 words throughout the whole exchange. There is actually asphalt over the top of this gutter box so we weren't particularly worried about getting caught but we eventually decided it was best to leave anyway. We'd had our fun.
1. Inside the Maze.
2. Probably one of the best drains in Melbourne.
3. Of course we had to sign our names and the date in the guestbook.
4. Pretty cool grill that looks out onto a quiet oval on the way to the gutter box.
So our next stop was The Great Staircase. Using replacement buses we eventually got there just in time to see a Cave Clan Newbies Expo getting under way. I had a quick chat to Chewy and Blacklodge, a bit disappointed Ath was running late because I would've liked to say hi but it was already one hell of a coincidence we were doing the exact same drain as them at almost the exact same time so we decided to get going. Hardly got any pics of it because my camera just couldn't handle the cavernous darkness.
1. This pic courtesy of @oliverhale_ on instagram starring me. I'm only photogenic from behind
2. And this one is mine. It really was a beautiful day for exploring.
So I didn't really have a time to be home but the other 2 had to be home around 6ish and I knew that wouldn't leave enough time for us to walk all the way through the drain so we decided to walk up to a manhole a bit past the stairs. A coincidence that it was the exact same manhole I'd used when I attended my newbies expo back in February.... Ahhh the memories. Saw the post from that night in the guestbook..... Just memories now. Good memories. Long story short we walked to the stairs, they got some photos and then Dupe exited via the manhole while we walked back and took some more shots of the stairs and then we both exited via the manhole.
Good day all up I'd say.
Also I'm getting a Nikon D3200 for Christmas!!! Excited haha. Finally I may be able to take some awesome pictures.
They don't understand how fun it was haha
). In saying that, messing with police is kind of a different story. It's very possible that it will eventually lead to the place being locked up (of course, it hasn't happened yet, but the likelihood increases with every incident) or some other s*** (too tired to think of other stuff). But whatever, each to their own, I think you've decided on your philosophy/approach and people hassling you about it isn't going to change s***. I for one couldn't care less... do your thing if it makes you happy, that's what this hobby is all about 
