So here we are, standing at the side of the road in the freezing cold, half naked and soaked from the waist down in water of questionable content. It's not really what I would normally describe as an ideal situation, but right now it doesn't matter, we're just glad to be out. It's been a day of highs and lows, but the sound of a van and car pulling up slowly behind us just tops it all off. I watched as Yaz's face dropped in cliché cartoon style, there was no need for me to turn round, his expression told the whole story. The road was littered with waders and soggy clothes and the car packed to the roof with all manner of incriminating artefacts including but not limited to barriers, road signs, a crowbar, a dingy, some sewer maps from 1906 and a rubber halloween wolf mask. Oh dear, this is one fine mess that isn't going to explain itself away in any sort of a hurry...
Rolling back, the day started off pretty badly with the forecast of 2-3mm of rain already disproved by the fact I could barely see more than 20m ahead whilst pottering along at 40mph. It's a good job these X5 owners have the luxury of owning a car with x-ray windscreen to see through rain and airbrakes to allow instant deceleration regardless of road conditions. As I patiently trundled around the M60 wondering why every car wasn't equipped with such magical safety features, the ever annoying radio 1 blasted out words of wisdom. "It's Sunday morning and it's raining EVERYWHERE, so stay indoors and treat yourself to a lie-in". With the wonderfully appealing duvet now 1 hour behind me the only option was to find shelter somewhere warm and dry. Drains it is then.
SSSI
After meeting up at Yaz's crib and admiring the stair rope swing damage we cruised over to the infall of Processor, which as expected wasn't accessible without scuba gear, something which we both had somehow neglected to pack. Determined, we made our way downstream to SSSI as it had stopped raining and I figured it shouldn't be overflowing any more. Sure enough after some "controlled sliding" and fun navigating the flooded beck we got into the dryish overflow tunnel. The water had blatantly been close to ceiling level some hours earlier, but lurking around in the main chamber we could always jump up ladder if the shit hit the fan. We busted out the top hat and wolf mask and let the photons do their work, although I found my vision to be severely impaired without monocular assistance.
Standard
No ARMS in this drain
The Works
With the Irk sadly still flooded way past navigability, we decided to grab some lunch, we could hear the footlongs calling. Strangely I'm discovering that contaminating subway with sewerific flavours is fast becoming an essential part of my draining experience. For some reason I just find rubbing my turd encrusted clothes against the meticulously sanitised surfaces strangely satisfying. I'm blaming dsankt's post-pandora bag scraping activities entirely for this one. I'm still young and impressionable mkay? Sufficiently nourished we returned to the ghetto to survey the water situation. Despite a break in the rain the river seemed to be as high as ever, but it was quite dark so we decided to have a closer look anyway. Once again the studded waders held their own, but this time to the disadvantage of being the safety stop should Yaz start an unexpected controlled slide high above the swollen river. After a thankfully uneventful descent we soon found ourselves balls deep in the ever tasty Irk. It was higher than I'd ever done it and sure enough, I soon found myself perched somewhat precariously, tiptoeing on a unstable piece of debris. Memories of a near-zero experience in Accrington soon came flooding back and we reluctantly aborted, this clearly wasn't a way in. Yet more controlled sliding ensued and we soon found ourselves back at the car, time to try something else.
The outfall access to The Works seems like a right of passage for a first trip, but given that we'd already suffered the most interesting part, we headed over to the infall of Inhospitable to approach the chamber from above. The brook was still well high, and judging by the turd content the CSOs upstream in Processor were obviously busy doing their thing. Still, given that The Works itself appears to have only overflowed once in the last year and a half we made our way in with a worst case scenario of just having to wait it out of the water got any higher. We made our way down the uber pipe, a washed up handbag making a welcome addition to the usual array of random items and providing much comical photographic opportunity. In addition, the brand new latest game of extreme super-spiral football was invented, paving the way for star players such as Mrs Wolf Beckhamshire.
Serenity
Old sk00l
After spending quite a bit of time clowning around I decided to leave Yaz to it and double check the levels in the chamber. Climbing up the array of stairs it was soon apparent something wasn't right, the noise had increased dramatically and the air had begun to stink of turd. Sure enough, on reaching the chamber the situation presented was somewhat less than ideal, the water level had nearly doubled and it was debatable whether we'd be able to stay upright in it let alone walk upstream. I had work in less than 9 hours time and we were stuck 80 miles away in a storm relief between two flooded watercourses. As legendary as it would have been, phoning in sick from beneath a manhole in a flooding drain, the option of getting the hell out seemed worth a try, so I collected Yaz from further down the tunnel and lowered myself carefully into the fast flow. Thankfully it wasn't as bad as expected, but a surge from one of the upstream CSOs would definitely tip the balance so we steamed along as fast as we could, taking careful note of the manhole savepoints along the way.
Time flies when you're having fun, and we soon saw the welcoming night sky looming ahead. We busted out into the open with waders overflowing, soaked to the core. Back at the car I didn't fancy the journey back in soggy pooey clothes so I decided to just strip down in the street. And that's when the police arrived. With an unmarked car pulling up right next to us and a meat wagon immediately behind it was pretty obvious that we were royally screwed. However, whilst I was trying my best not to touch cloth we watched in astonishment as they walked straight past us to a nearby house, barely acknowledging our strange existence. We had forgotten where we were, this is Cheetham Hill, the coppers clearly have bigger fish to be dealing with. As fun as it would have been to watch the potential house raid in action, we'd already pushed our luck enough so we made like a tree and got out of there. The epic 70m tunnel will have to wait for another time...
Rolling back, the day started off pretty badly with the forecast of 2-3mm of rain already disproved by the fact I could barely see more than 20m ahead whilst pottering along at 40mph. It's a good job these X5 owners have the luxury of owning a car with x-ray windscreen to see through rain and airbrakes to allow instant deceleration regardless of road conditions. As I patiently trundled around the M60 wondering why every car wasn't equipped with such magical safety features, the ever annoying radio 1 blasted out words of wisdom. "It's Sunday morning and it's raining EVERYWHERE, so stay indoors and treat yourself to a lie-in". With the wonderfully appealing duvet now 1 hour behind me the only option was to find shelter somewhere warm and dry. Drains it is then.
SSSI
After meeting up at Yaz's crib and admiring the stair rope swing damage we cruised over to the infall of Processor, which as expected wasn't accessible without scuba gear, something which we both had somehow neglected to pack. Determined, we made our way downstream to SSSI as it had stopped raining and I figured it shouldn't be overflowing any more. Sure enough after some "controlled sliding" and fun navigating the flooded beck we got into the dryish overflow tunnel. The water had blatantly been close to ceiling level some hours earlier, but lurking around in the main chamber we could always jump up ladder if the shit hit the fan. We busted out the top hat and wolf mask and let the photons do their work, although I found my vision to be severely impaired without monocular assistance.
Standard
No ARMS in this drain
The Works
With the Irk sadly still flooded way past navigability, we decided to grab some lunch, we could hear the footlongs calling. Strangely I'm discovering that contaminating subway with sewerific flavours is fast becoming an essential part of my draining experience. For some reason I just find rubbing my turd encrusted clothes against the meticulously sanitised surfaces strangely satisfying. I'm blaming dsankt's post-pandora bag scraping activities entirely for this one. I'm still young and impressionable mkay? Sufficiently nourished we returned to the ghetto to survey the water situation. Despite a break in the rain the river seemed to be as high as ever, but it was quite dark so we decided to have a closer look anyway. Once again the studded waders held their own, but this time to the disadvantage of being the safety stop should Yaz start an unexpected controlled slide high above the swollen river. After a thankfully uneventful descent we soon found ourselves balls deep in the ever tasty Irk. It was higher than I'd ever done it and sure enough, I soon found myself perched somewhat precariously, tiptoeing on a unstable piece of debris. Memories of a near-zero experience in Accrington soon came flooding back and we reluctantly aborted, this clearly wasn't a way in. Yet more controlled sliding ensued and we soon found ourselves back at the car, time to try something else.
The outfall access to The Works seems like a right of passage for a first trip, but given that we'd already suffered the most interesting part, we headed over to the infall of Inhospitable to approach the chamber from above. The brook was still well high, and judging by the turd content the CSOs upstream in Processor were obviously busy doing their thing. Still, given that The Works itself appears to have only overflowed once in the last year and a half we made our way in with a worst case scenario of just having to wait it out of the water got any higher. We made our way down the uber pipe, a washed up handbag making a welcome addition to the usual array of random items and providing much comical photographic opportunity. In addition, the brand new latest game of extreme super-spiral football was invented, paving the way for star players such as Mrs Wolf Beckhamshire.
Serenity
Old sk00l
After spending quite a bit of time clowning around I decided to leave Yaz to it and double check the levels in the chamber. Climbing up the array of stairs it was soon apparent something wasn't right, the noise had increased dramatically and the air had begun to stink of turd. Sure enough, on reaching the chamber the situation presented was somewhat less than ideal, the water level had nearly doubled and it was debatable whether we'd be able to stay upright in it let alone walk upstream. I had work in less than 9 hours time and we were stuck 80 miles away in a storm relief between two flooded watercourses. As legendary as it would have been, phoning in sick from beneath a manhole in a flooding drain, the option of getting the hell out seemed worth a try, so I collected Yaz from further down the tunnel and lowered myself carefully into the fast flow. Thankfully it wasn't as bad as expected, but a surge from one of the upstream CSOs would definitely tip the balance so we steamed along as fast as we could, taking careful note of the manhole savepoints along the way.
Time flies when you're having fun, and we soon saw the welcoming night sky looming ahead. We busted out into the open with waders overflowing, soaked to the core. Back at the car I didn't fancy the journey back in soggy pooey clothes so I decided to just strip down in the street. And that's when the police arrived. With an unmarked car pulling up right next to us and a meat wagon immediately behind it was pretty obvious that we were royally screwed. However, whilst I was trying my best not to touch cloth we watched in astonishment as they walked straight past us to a nearby house, barely acknowledging our strange existence. We had forgotten where we were, this is Cheetham Hill, the coppers clearly have bigger fish to be dealing with. As fun as it would have been to watch the potential house raid in action, we'd already pushed our luck enough so we made like a tree and got out of there. The epic 70m tunnel will have to wait for another time...
