‘Lidlifters of the world, unite...‘
So, a few of us assembled for the 28days drain meet in Coventry. Roll call (nabbed from @Yorrick ) is: @Punk (thanks again for organising) @elhomer12 @Lost Explorer @slayaaaa @Alley @FreshFingers @Ferret @jsp77 @albino-jay @Yorrick @tallginge @chills @Drew howe and me.
History
(more here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-30446327)
Crouching between a high rise estate and a busy dual carriageway, the slow-flowing river looks nondescript until it comes to a large caged concrete tunnel, thrusting under the city's ring road. This is the where the River Sherbourne, once vital for early settlers, disappears from view and becomes a hidden river: contained, covered and contaminated.
Historians believe the river was much larger in Anglo-Saxon times and would have supplied fish and drinking water to small hamlets in the Forest of Arden, the forerunners to Coventry itself. Despite its current condition, classified by the Environment Agency as "poor" (or two out of five for quality), some believe the Sherbourne could be liquid gold for tourism in the regenerating city.
The river, which disappeared into a culvert under city centre development in the 1960s, could be worth £1.5bn in flood action savings and increased property prices and business investment, according to a Defra-funded report by Aecom. The River Sherbourne makes a brief reappearance in the city centre, among the bins and back doors of shops behind Cross Cheaping, where its rotten smell, like damp decomposing cabbages, unmistakably rises from its murky flow.
The Explore
Assembling in a nearby carpark, we ignored the rain, which soon passed to make way for reassuring blue skies. [Apologies for spamming the forum with a third report from this visit but sharing is caring....]
Making our way in, we soon took a turning from the main flow into a boxed side pipe.
@FreshFingers disappeared off down here for a while, where the first part appears to be supported by some vertical wooden struts that have been wedged
Back to the side pipe there were some changes in size, until it became standard RCP...
Stopping occasionally to stretch and take a pic in a chamber...
The pipe got smaller, but then turned to brick, which was nice.
Taking a breather in a chamber, after a bit of a chat we turned back.
From here, anyone with any sense turned and headed back to the main event. Having little sense, me and @tallginge decided to investigate another RCP heading in the other direction. After this junction, and a lot more walking (and st00ping)...
... we arrived here. First we tried the biggest pipe (we are now talking proper st00p, as you can see in comparison to TG's leg....)
This culminated in a long but shrinking pipe, which contained the world's most disappointing water fall (given that it actually sounded relatively impressive from a distance).
We returned to the chamber of choices, and somehow ended up crawling single file through shitty water through a 2ft pipe. Any attempts to stay dry or any kind of clean were abandoned here. This is from the other side.
And this is the chamber we emerged into. We tried to get at GPS to find out what we had just crawled under, but to no avail. The chamber itself was slightly confusing in the it looked like the concrete had been hacked away for some reason...
We kept walking through ever decreasing pipes, unwilling to turn back given that we knew we'd have to go back through the 2ft pipe that hadn't been much fun the first time, let alone a second. Lids proved unliftable, however, in spite of TG's increasingly valiant and acrobatic attempts....
Another chamber and another unsuitable lid, argh! At this point we were both losing the will to live, deciding that our only option was to turn around and head back the way we came. We marched (and st00ped and then crawled) back, filling up my waders again during the crawl and deciding to ditch my socks. It turned out to be fortunate that we hadn't escaped as we eventually ran into @Alley and @FreshFingers who had come looking for us. Before we met them there was a really rank bit that stank strongly of piss, which we hadn’t noticed on the way up..
The rest of the walk was less eventful, and also less back-breaking as a result and we got to see the sights of the main drain. TG decided to head off down a couple of side pipes but didn’t find anything other than moar pipe.
@FreshFingers is a spider-egg licker
The view in this open section was nice. Managed to get a message out here to the others who patiently waited at the end to assist our exit (thanks!)
Posers...
Gatic...
Exit...
@elhomer12 took a nice group shot of the others under here, so here’s my version of the stragglers doing the same...
And shopping centre shortcuts for the win...
Cheers everyone!
Assembling in a nearby carpark, we ignored the rain, which soon passed to make way for reassuring blue skies. [Apologies for spamming the forum with a third report from this visit but sharing is caring....]
Making our way in, we soon took a turning from the main flow into a boxed side pipe.
@FreshFingers disappeared off down here for a while, where the first part appears to be supported by some vertical wooden struts that have been wedged
Back to the side pipe there were some changes in size, until it became standard RCP...
Stopping occasionally to stretch and take a pic in a chamber...
The pipe got smaller, but then turned to brick, which was nice.
Taking a breather in a chamber, after a bit of a chat we turned back.
From here, anyone with any sense turned and headed back to the main event. Having little sense, me and @tallginge decided to investigate another RCP heading in the other direction. After this junction, and a lot more walking (and st00ping)...
... we arrived here. First we tried the biggest pipe (we are now talking proper st00p, as you can see in comparison to TG's leg....)
This culminated in a long but shrinking pipe, which contained the world's most disappointing water fall (given that it actually sounded relatively impressive from a distance).
We returned to the chamber of choices, and somehow ended up crawling single file through shitty water through a 2ft pipe. Any attempts to stay dry or any kind of clean were abandoned here. This is from the other side.
And this is the chamber we emerged into. We tried to get at GPS to find out what we had just crawled under, but to no avail. The chamber itself was slightly confusing in the it looked like the concrete had been hacked away for some reason...
We kept walking through ever decreasing pipes, unwilling to turn back given that we knew we'd have to go back through the 2ft pipe that hadn't been much fun the first time, let alone a second. Lids proved unliftable, however, in spite of TG's increasingly valiant and acrobatic attempts....
Another chamber and another unsuitable lid, argh! At this point we were both losing the will to live, deciding that our only option was to turn around and head back the way we came. We marched (and st00ped and then crawled) back, filling up my waders again during the crawl and deciding to ditch my socks. It turned out to be fortunate that we hadn't escaped as we eventually ran into @Alley and @FreshFingers who had come looking for us. Before we met them there was a really rank bit that stank strongly of piss, which we hadn’t noticed on the way up..
The rest of the walk was less eventful, and also less back-breaking as a result and we got to see the sights of the main drain. TG decided to head off down a couple of side pipes but didn’t find anything other than moar pipe.
@FreshFingers is a spider-egg licker
The view in this open section was nice. Managed to get a message out here to the others who patiently waited at the end to assist our exit (thanks!)
Posers...
Gatic...
Exit...
@elhomer12 took a nice group shot of the others under here, so here’s my version of the stragglers doing the same...
And shopping centre shortcuts for the win...
Cheers everyone!
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Still, at least we now know what's up that side pipe.... or isn't. That was the tightest pipe I've crawled through - never again! Yeah glad none of those lids lifted. Nice pics mate. Good times down there - thanks everyone 
