Tales
from the drains
27
th July 1998
Sky
High.
As well as traipsing through drains we like to explore above ground buildings and bridge rooms. One of the best bridge rooms to explore in UA City is the new Tullamarine - West Gate Freeway extension bridge. This is a sort of flyover thing, like most new freeway bridges it is a box girder affair.
Emor, Id and I rocked up to this place one night after doing something else, well we must have done something else that night even though I can�t remember what because it was late at night.
The really good thing about the TWGF is that its' really easy to get into. After parking the car we hoped some orange plastic temporary fencing and walked down to the creek. A few bits of wood lying round got us a small bridge to cross the creek allowing us to walk straight up to the entrance of the bridge. Looking around we couldn�t see anyone so we climbed up the scaffolding and into the bridge room.
Emor and I had been here before so we immediately noticed the absence of the convenient little wooden steps that made it easier to explore the tunnel like bridge. Still the pipes running along the bottom of the bridge made it easy to stand on and hop over the many knee high spars running across the bottom of the bridge floor.
Bridges are in many ways more interesting than drains, for one thing they don�t have water in them and there are all sorts of pipes and cables running through them. We wandered through the bridge room, leaping across gaps in the bottom of the bridge or walking across the reinforcing rods there. It wasn�t bad hopping across these gaps because you couldn�t see the ground below, the support legs of the bridge hid the ground.
At some stage we came across a gap in the roof of the bridge room, with a ladder leading up to the deck of the bridge. Emor poked his head up to have a look and announced the coast was clear. The three of us climbed up the ladder, taking care to avoid sharp reinforcing rods. We stood on the unfinished decking of the bridge and looked around. We couldn�t see anyone so we took a quick vote and decided to walk along the top of the bridge and check out the machinery and vehicles parked at the top of the bridge.
That was the highlight of the night, where things began to get interesting. There was all sorts of machinery on top of the bridge. There were locked up shipping crates, site offices and toilets, skips and more. We walked past a skip full of shackles and metal work. We came across a big heavy circular saw lying on the ground. We passes a dual cab truck, unlocked but we weren�t about nicking stuff, we were just exploring so we left it alone. We passed a ute, also unlocked, and I noticed through its' window that the keys were hanging from the sun visor. Not real tight security, still I don�t think they were expecting visitors.
We walked on past most of the machinery, noticing a site office suspended across the gap between the two bridges that ran side to side, forming both sides of the bridge. We looked out over the suburbs and towards near by high ride housing commission flats. We were pretty high up, at least 30 meters which was about 7 stories above the ground at least.
After walking some distance we decided to head back for the ground. Instead of walking all the way back we decided to head down one of the on-ramps. To get to the on ramp we had to climb through a safety rail and step over a half meter gap, beneath which was a 30 meter drop. This wasn�t that bad, you could easily step over the gap, placing one foot on each side and using the safety rails for support.
So we headed down the on ramp, looking at the factories off the side to try work out if any were abandoned. We walked on down and came to a gap in the road surface. The gap was at least a meter wide, but there was a small foot bridge across it so we walked on over. When we arrived at the next gap however there was no bridge. All that was there was a few reinforcing rods and a hand rail. The reinforcing rods did not span the entire gap, they stuck out about half a meter from each section of bridge, with a 30 cm gap in the middle.
I looked over the gap, we were at least 20 meters up, probably more. I don�t mind admitting that I�m scared shitless of heights. I don�t like heights at all. I was debating heading back when Emor cautiously stepped down onto a reinforcing rod, stepped across the gap and onto the other side. Id soon followed him. So here I was standing on this side of the gap by myself and not feeling too happy. Thank god it was dark so I couldn�t really see how far down it was.
I remember thinking �I�m heavier than those guys� so I took off my back pack and threw it across the gap. I then took a death grip on the hand rail and stepped down on to the reinforcing rod, then another. I mean these rods were only about four centimeters thick, it was like tight-rope walking, with no net. I was thinking if I slip I still had the hand rail. Then I though, don�t kid yourself, fat lot of good that will do you.
It seemed an age but I stepped across the gap and gratefully stepped across the gap and retrieved my bag. We headed down the ramp towards the ground. At this time Id stuffed some of his gear, including his flashlight, into my backpack as he didn�t need it anymore.
Arriving at the bottom of the ramp we noticed a big drop down the last two meters. We figured that we could jump it but in a building next door we noticed a security guard wandering about. As we took cover to ponder our next move Id�s flashlight fell out of my back pack and clattered to the ground in three pieces. I picked them up, put the thing back together and shoved them into the backpack and looked up to see if the security guard had noticed. He hadn�t.
The security guard was preoccupied with taking things out of the office he was guarding and putting them into a car. We waited a while until he disappeared then we hastily walked down a narrow concrete abutment to the ground, ran for another orange plastic temporary fence and breathed a sigh of relief as we hit a quiet UA City street.
But the fun was not over yet! We decided to short cut across the creek path. It had rained recently so we walked along the road which soon turned muddy so we climbed up to the fence and walked along the grass. Then Emor suggested we walk across the creek for a short cut and Id agreed. I looked down at the creek and though, that�s mud, I hate mud! I watched with amusement as the two waked down to the creek level, got their shoes covered in mud and announced �Its' slippery!� with an air of alarm.
They headed back towards the area I was walking on and I watched as Emor struggled up a slightly sloping but sodden mud laden bank. I reached up to help him while at the same time thinking that if I wasn�t careful I was going to join him in the mud.
Anyway we made it to the next road and spent some time wiping mud off of our shoes. We crossed the road and walked up to a fenced off bridge construction compound. The gate was wide open so we wandered in and walked over to the creek. Looking down we noticed that if we were take a short cut down the creek again we would have to walk across boulders and through deep water so we headed back out and headed down the road back towards the car. Id pulled out his stickers with e-mail and web site address and put one on the tram shelter.
As we drove past a couple of minutes later we saw these two guys pull the sticker off of the tram shelter to read it. Id wound down the window and yelled at the guy to put the sticker back. The guys looked amazed, here were these three guys yelling at them like mad. I don�t think they understood much English, so they were probably wondering what they hell we were on about. Still with us waving madly they got the idea and put the sticker back.
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