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Best places to have a poke around (for a beginner) Victoria
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Evening everyone,

So just wondering if someone can give me a list f good places to have a poke around l begin in my Urbexing career here in Victoria.

I've been to a lot of your places, Aradale, J-ward, Beechworth asylum and the likes, but id like to have a look around some old abandoned places with out a guide.

I like abandoned buildings, and also ships or boats (but you seldom find accessible abandoned ships) and train stations, so if anyone has explored around Victoria and has any recommendations please post! :)

Thanks guys!
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Blakjak of the Sydney branch of the Cave Clan.
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The Yorkshire Brewery in Collingwood seems a nice start point for a beginner, along with Laurendel Mental Asylum in Bundoora. You'll find the more trashed a place is, the more people will talk / be willing to talk about it, all the good ones are kept on the down low so they don't get trashed. There's not a great lot of Vic talk on this forum in general, but there's a hell of a lot going on, just not here, if you're serious just PM me and I'll get a group together and we'll do something fun.
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There's an abandoned boat at Tooradin airport...
The explorer in the west................
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Bangers wrote:There's an abandoned boat at Tooradin airport...
FYI, it's owned by the airport and the restaurant next to the airport calls the PO-Leece if they see people heading towards it.
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It's called "The Edwina May" very sad story actually,

Last time I visited there was a rather large bees nest on the foredeck.

I don't believe the Airfield owns the boat, it's on public land, sad story behind it too:
In the early 1970's, father-son team William & Ray Curtain ran a small shipping company, purchasing a larger vessel to add to their tiny fleet - The Edwina May. They moored her in shallow waters off Tooradin next to the Airfeild, where they worked on restoring her and added a 6m section to her hull. However Christmas Day 1974 saw the Ray (The son) stationed in Darwin, as Cyclone Tracy hit, alone on the boat he was captaining, Ray attempted to battle the storm, but both he and the ship were lost at sea, with the wreck only being found in May 2004.

The boat they both worked on never was finished, William Curtain never returned to his project with his son since his son's death. The ship still lies there in the shallows, water lapping at it, rust eating slowly towards it's inevitable complete decay as the sea reclaims it.

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Just be careful if you're heading out there, as Doug mentioned, the restaurateur owner is a delightful woman who phoned the cops on us too, and even came out to yell at the girl who I was with & myself to inform us of that point.

Also, from a safety standpoint, the decks are rusted to hell, so be super careful, it's been about 18 months since I was out that way, so I can't vouch for it's current state, but I doubt it's changed too much. I went on a Sunday night when the airfield was closed. We wore our EPA fluro jackets when we walked out their, but after all the camera flashes, and the titanic poses up the front, I think they may have cottoned on. :)
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When i was looking into it there was an article about the owner of the airport buying it to use as a prop for parachutists to land on (he'd planned to put a new bigger deck on it).

Not sure about prior to that. Maybe he purchased it after it was found? I also read that "they" want it moved as "they" thought it was an eyesore.

I think it's great.

It also had MMBW signage on it(???)
Last edited by dougo on 05 Jun 2013, 12:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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This was the first clip I ever put online.
I say that it's in Tassie as i didn't want YouTube dicks trashing it.
2min clip. The name comes from the movie The Boat That Rocked.
[youtube]r1PW2YUx12U[/youtube]
Last edited by dougo on 28 Aug 2013, 12:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Nick wrote:...and the titanic poses up the front, I think they may have cottoned on. :)
Tsk tsk, childish.





;)



It was too dark for our crappy camera to reach so we did a slightly different version (1:45 of clip linked in previous post)

The ship and airport can currently be seen I'm a bank(?) ad doing the rounds on TV.
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I'd be pretty cautious and slightly afraid of boarding a rusty ship. Sounds like all kinds of danger could occur if you were to fall through the hull. :(
Subscribe to my journal to see random exploration photos.
Where are the cat emoticons?
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dougo wrote:
Nick wrote:...and the titanic poses up the front, I think they may have cottoned on. :)
It was too dark for our crappy camera to reach so we did a slightly different version (1:45 of clip linked in previous post)
Hehe, it is a very romantic site.

Midget - We actually crawled along the deck as at parts it was rusted through and we could see down into it... Plus the wasps nest. But just to confirm it's not floating, it's wedged into the mud (And the mud is working it's way into the boat too so it's held in place too.)

Just to clarify, the son died captaining another ship, not the one in Tooradin, it was a joint project with the father / son, and the son died on another ship.

Was quite a cool place though, I was amazed that all the tools were still out on the bench untouched,
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You lucky bastards, I would love to explore this when I'm in Melb in a few months.
Please if you can, don't let too many people know about this, lest it get's trashed, &/or secured.

Please post more pix if you have, especially of the bridge, & any other interesting places like the nav station & radio room. Can't get enough of ships.
Blakjak of the Sydney branch of the Cave Clan.
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Didn't realize there was that much history behind this one, I thought it was simply just a strangely placed boat...
The explorer in the west................
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blakjak wrote:You lucky bastards, I would love to explore this when I'm in Melb in a few months.
Please if you can, don't let too many people know about this, lest it get's trashed, &/or secured.

Please post more pix if you have, especially of the bridge, & any other interesting places like the nav station & radio room. Can't get enough of ships.
We have a beach house down that way if you have a free night when you're down.

But it ain't the Cape Don :)
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Nick wrote:The Yorkshire Brewery in Collingwood seems a nice start point for a beginner, along with Laurendel Mental Asylum in Bundoora. You'll find the more trashed a place is, the more people will talk / be willing to talk about it, all the good ones are kept on the down low so they don't get trashed. There's not a great lot of Vic talk on this forum in general, but there's a hell of a lot going on, just not here, if you're serious just PM me and I'll get a group together and we'll do something fun.
Count me in, that would be great.
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Western Port has three wrecks one can examine without requiring submersion

Jusr round the corner there is a ship I havent had the chance to have a look over but if you time it right, you won't get wet. It's off the Hasting BHP industrial area, it seems to be a salvage barge or something, being 100ft in length and about 45ft in width. Its pretty must rusted to hell from what I hear but I think its possible to enter it as the mud has formed a floor in place. Again, this is old-hear-say but the man who supplied it is the only guy who knows the waters in the bay better than I so I'm willing to bank on it

Off the Hastings Marina, there are two wrecks, first is the Redbird (right across from the ), about 70ft long and sunk into the mud. Shes's rotten all the way though, not surprising considering she sat in that area for so long before running aground, so I doubt you'll be able to really go on it, especially seing it's only a few feet above the mud.

Third one requires a boat, unless you like swimming or wait for the lowest possible tide. The Minah is an old tug that ended up stranded on the Mud Banks between Churchill Island and Rhyll. Similar to the Redbird but in better shape, she's still dangerous to climb on though.
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Doesn't ring any bells.

Seriously though, man, what I'd do to see that ship...
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...go exploring!
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Hi,
My name is Pete and unfortunately this is not the Edwina May.
The database where people are getting this story is wrong. This an old dredger called the Geopotes V.
The original owner of it (a friend of my Father`s) was getting it refitted at Hastings and to either stop vandalism or to get out of payment he stored it here near the Tooradin Airport around 1990 and as to what happened to him who knows but the Geopotes V became a total loss and was left there.
I am going to email the the Victorian shipwreck register to tell they have got it wrong.


Here is a link to one of a few books mentioning it.
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=fo ... in&f=false

Nice pics too guys !
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Dreadnought wrote:Western Port has three wrecks one can examine without requiring submersion

Jusr round the corner there is a ship I havent had the chance to have a look over but if you time it right, you won't get wet. It's off the Hasting BHP industrial area, it seems to be a salvage barge or something, being 100ft in length and about 45ft in width. Its pretty must rusted to hell from what I hear but I think its possible to enter it as the mud has formed a floor in place. Again, this is old-hear-say but the man who supplied it is the only guy who knows the waters in the bay better than I so I'm willing to bank on it

Off the Hastings Marina, there are two wrecks, first is the Redbird (right across from the ), about 70ft long and sunk into the mud. Shes's rotten all the way though, not surprising considering she sat in that area for so long before running aground, so I doubt you'll be able to really go on it, especially seing it's only a few feet above the mud.

Third one requires a boat, unless you like swimming or wait for the lowest possible tide. The Minah is an old tug that ended up stranded on the Mud Banks between Churchill Island and Rhyll. Similar to the Redbird but in better shape, she's still dangerous to climb on though.
The twin hulled wreck off BHP is the Truganina and Tarneet and was a dredge and abandoned in 1966.
I use to go on it as a kid in the 70s and it had a wheelhouse on it up to the 1970s

There is also a wrecked fishing boat near Blind Bight in the mangroves to the north of the boat ramp. You need a kayak or similar to get out to it and its basically sitting on a disused rail the goes up on to private property.
Would love to see some pics of it.
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Interesting you mention emailing Shipwrecks Victoria, they added my blog as a reference...

Starting to think the book may be wrong, have a look at the photos I took of the stern:
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vs pictures of her in action
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Pics on page 5 of this
I've explored dredgers before, and this didn't seem like a dredger,
It looks a lot smaller than the pics of Geopotes 5, has an enclosed area at the back, whereas it's open here, the wheelhouse is completely different (n the center on the dreger, at the rear on the one at Tooradin), there is no chimney, open hull (suggesting cargo?),

Plus, have a look, Geopotes 5 is 72m long, vs Tooradin Ship:
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Not the same ship?
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