Golden Wonder, Rochdale
Ojay/Stepping Lightly
Essentially one of Rochdales trunk sewers, including CSO & shit tank
The striking feature here being that all the turds were a golden brown
Rewind 2 years ago and whilst out with S.L looking at something else we spotted this noisy lid in the arse end of nowhere really
Curious to see what lay beyond S.L whipped it off and headed down (and soon shot back up)
Having had a quick peep for myself it looked grim so we hauled the lid back on and called it a day, or at least we thought..
As the lid slid into place so did his trusty Nokia, straight down the shaft and into the sewer below
Back down he went to fish it out, and miraculously after a few minutes it appeared above ground dripping with crap!
Even more of a miracle, after cleaning it off and leaving it to stand for a couple of days it worked again, well sort of
We already had a rough idea where this system headed as we had both independently had a seperate poke about downstream prior
All in all I've been here about 3 times trying to piece it all together, bad weather and the fact it's in quite a busy location makes for an interesting explore
On a dry day it's fairly safe to spend time down there, but as soon as it rains it goes mental!
Returning about 12 months later one evening with S.L we popped a couple more lids, but the view wasn't pleasant (nor the smell)
About to give up we spotted a much bigger/heavier lid and headed on down
Despite being reasonably dry on this occasion, the place was backed up with p00p, it wasn't near as bad on a previous visit
None-the-less we had a good look around and I snapped away, until I cracked my head on the stoopy overflow down to the river
We got as far as we could downstream, but it was getting late and the level was starting to rise so we called it a day
At a loose end today and having failed with another lead, I decided to return and locate another manhole to check out the downstream section
I had no option to close the lid, which isn't ideal when solo'ing it, but the area gets quite a bit of human traffic during the daytime
In all honesty there wasn't much more to see apart from a storm overflow/detention tank, the sewers splitting in two and re-joining before disappearing through a 2ft slot marking the end of this explore
Also I couldn't be arsed walking back upstream through the 3" of shite that covered the majority of the floorspace, so I popped the nearest lid and headed out
It was finally good to see what's what here, although it being a fairly boring concrete affair...
Upstream - The sewer heads down a 6ft RCP
(Further up is where S.L dropped his phone)
Further downstream, the sewer exits the pipe and runs down a 3ft channel within the CSO
Again, and further down you can see the oveflow weir on the left, as the sewer passes through, complete with golden nuggets either side
We climbed up and over into the overflow side of the CSO
(Here a 5ft overflow quickly shrinks to a stoopy 3ft without warning.. Ouch!)
Back down into the sewer, and a bit further on, it splits into two heading left and right
(It was here we gave up on the last trip)
Having returned today for another look, you can see the middle section acts as a detention tank, filling up when at capacity
Note the tidemark View attachment 458594
It was pretty grim walking through 3" thick shit in only a pair of non-water proof boots and a pair of trousers
After slipping and sliding through the shite the sewers eventually re-joined at beyond the end section of the shit-tank, finally exiting through a 2ft slot
There was no way on here so I headed back down one of the sewers in search of the nearest manhole
Outta here
>>Golden Brown<<
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