Big Ears Tomb
Rating:1st September 2000.

This drain is subject to tides check tide times! It will take about 2 hours to walk the entire system, and about an extra half hour to take a look at all of the features.

Drain Report

1. Pier entrance. The drain is located right on the beach. Near a pedestrian crossing on (location deleted for safety reasons) road there's a ramp leading down to the beach and the pier is visible just to the right, at the bottom of the stairs. It's got a fence around the side of the pier, most don't. The pier also contains two unusual openings either side so I didn't have to wander all the way into the water to get in. I suppose I could have got in without getting my shoes wet at low tide, but I had to get them wet in the tunnel anyway.

Immediately inside the pier the ceiling is quite low, and stooping is a must. There can be a considerable buildup of sand in the mouth of the tunnel. I checked to see if there was drainage along the side and walked along that.

Just in from the mouth the tunnel rapidly rises to become a 2.7 meter RCP. Two short and easily navigable slides in the RCP lead to a manhole access on the left. The shaft is not connected to a manhole directly, but one of the side pipes at the top is connected to a grille in the ground above - a tricky emergency exit. Judging from the noise from cars and exploration above ground we'd say that most, if not all manholes open up on to the road above and are driven over often. Just at the top of the two rises, and at the base of the manhole is a sump in the tunnel floor. You can use the step irons to traverse it if you don't feel like walking in the water.

It goes without saying that this drain was only explored at low tide, but judging from the debris marks under the pier I suspect that section does not entirely flood.

2. The Echo Chamber. The tunnel continues on for quite a while. A few minutes walk in the sound of water falling in from a short tunnel on the right is heard. Here and there light shines in from side pipes and manholes. The tunnel winds along for at least 20 minutes walk till you get to a small chamber we dubbed the 'Echo Chamber'. This is quite an interesting feature. On the left side of the tunnel an manhole lets in a bit of light, on the right a short tunnel leads to a wooden wall, indicating work is still continuing. Up the ladder however things get interesting.

From below in the Echo Chamber I could see an unusual cavity above, I initially mistook this for some sort of double bridge and inspected it on the return trip. It turned out to be a cross tunnel leading from the left to the right. As the left tunnel is larger than it's outlet on the right the chamber forms an overflow in the event of high water levels. This small left tunnel is in fact the link to the 'right ear'. The Echo Chamber really is an interesting sight and one of the more unusual features in UA City's drains.

The Echo Chamber looking northwards in the main tunnel. On the lower right is a short dead-end side tunnel. The ladder is on the left wall. Above is the overflow section. After climbing the ladder on the left a small tunnel just up here on the right leads into a larger tunnel which joins with the other branch of this drain system.

Another view of the Echo Chamber taken from about the same place as the pic above. Looking up at the overflow. The dead end tunnel is at the lower right. Just above it on the overflow is the small tunnel to the 'right ear'.

The Echo Chamber is located directly beneath the intersection of two Streets. Note that for clarity reasons the map shows the cross tunnel and Echo Chamber south of their actual position. 1st September 2000. This drain has now been extended up the highway almost two kilometres. It includes a nice new grille room and several small cross chambers. It is a unique double decker drain, having one drain above the other.

3. Left Ear end. The main pipe of the left ear (New tunnel) continues north for some time till you eventually come to a short section of rectangular tunnel about 1.8 meters high, you may need to stoop a bit in it. There is a nice sign here to tell you the pipe was made by; Vic Pits. From the amount of light shining in here we though we were coming to a new entrance to the tunnel but in fact we came to a grille near the end. This was at a wooden wall indicating once again that the tunnel was uncompleted. This part of the tunnel now extends for about 30 metres to end at a grille room.

4. The link tunnel. From the upper gallery of the Echo Chamber the smaller (about 1.2 meter) RCP leads east around a curve for about 20 meters. I know it looks small and uninviting but it gets bigger quickly. The tunnel soon enters a larger RCP which will require some stoop to walk along. After a short walk you will come to a junction. Keep in mind that this tunnel is at a level about 2 meters higher than the 'left ear' tunnel.

5. Junction. This junction is a meeting point of 4 tunnels (essentially only 3 tunnels). The main pipe coming from upstream and heading downstream, the side pipe leading into the Echo Chamber and another side pipe. When approaching this junction from the Parkers road entrance the pipe leading to the Echo Chamber is on the left, marked with directions and an arrow which Emor and myself placed on the wall.

At this junction you will see another small pipe branching off from the main tunnel, with light visible just around a corner. This is an easily poppable manhole in a gutterbox. The manhole is located on the median strip of busy Highway. There's plenty of cars that use this road so don't forget to wave at the traffic.

This RCP is essentially the 'right ear' of the Big Ears system. The tunnel runs straight downstream for about 45-50 minutes (we timed it but were not walking too fast so you might be able to do it in less time than this).

6. Stoop Section. Just in from the older sea entrance is a section of stoop. Although only about 5 minutes long it can be back breaking. This is one of the reasons why it is suggested you do this tunnel from Parkers Road first, to get the hard bits out of the way. Overall the tunnel will reward you for your efforts by showing allowing you to see the unusual features.

7. Parkers entrance. This small pier is easy to miss, not even marked on many maps. It's right by the Parkdale life saving club and only juts a few meters into the water. The square concrete section soon turns into an RCP which involves a bit of stoop, as mentioned above.

Expo report. from 1996

I have visited this a few times, once with my brother Silk, once on my own and more recently with Lord Emor. This report is mainly of the trip Emor and I did.

We walked down to the edge of the water and slipped in one of the side openings, an unusual feature. We invariably got our shoes wet, but we were expecting that. The big pile of sand that had been in the tunnel mouth when I last visited was gone so we had no problems getting in.

Above ground we had spotted a grille on the corner of two roads which looked promising. So we started to look for any sign of it below. There was a short branch tunnel which we climbed into and explored. It was capped off with heavy metal tops. However a pipe was seen which should lead into the grille box. How you were to supposed to get from the ladder to the pipe was a problem but lets face it, if you're stuck in by the tide, you'll think of something.

Some interesting things we saw in the tunnel included the globs of glue on the tunnel roof just inside the entrance of the RCP section. We spotted tags from some other recent drain explorers. There was new graffiti near the entrance, one of Prowler's 'Lost In Space' UFOs greeted us. At the time the first group explored the drain it would have still been exposed to air and under construction. As it is all signs suggest the tunnel is still under construction. Signs along the wall indicate "Section 1", "Section 2" and so on up to 4.

The tunnel had a good breeze blowing up it, we could feel the wind. The sounds of cars was constant, the thump-thump of them driving over manholes could be heard echoing down the tunnel. We could even clearly hear the sounds of planes flying over. The tunnel must go under the railway as we heard the sound of a train going over. In the upper reaches of the tunnel there are sufficient number of manholes that you can walk some stretches without a flashlight. There was a lot of bare tunnel walls, with the occasional 'Rep' marks by the builders indicating to repair sections. There was also a lopsided logo painted in the same pink on one section of pipe but nowhere else. We mostly walked along the side of the drain but since there is so little water in it you can mostly walk along the middle.

At the Echo Chamber I urged Emor not to explore the upper section until we had walked the short way to the end of the tunnel and back. The end of the tunnel, with it's grille was interesting, particularly as Big Ears had left some of his drain reports there. On arrival back to the Echo Chamber we climbed the wall to take a look at the upper gallery. We stayed a while at this interesting feature before venturing into the 'right ear'.

I had never travelled down this small side tunnel before. On my two previous visits I had dismissed it when I peered into it, seeing the corner and not bothering to enter. If I had known then what I now knew. We crawled in, pushing our bags before us. Resting for a moment at the end of this short section of tunnel we left our names on the wall and wandered off towards the 'right ear', stooping along the tunnel.

There was a lot of debris here and Emor spotted a wheelless matchbox car which I acquired as a souvenir. After about five minutes of stoop we arrived at the junction. I was surprised to see some graffiti there by Alien, indicating that she had been there the night of the Bob's Tomb expo, only 3 days before.

The trip down the 'right ear' was a pleasant enough walk. There was ankle deep water in the tunnel, but it was surprisingly warm and clean. We came across some interesting graffiti on the walls such as:

"The valley of the Lost Kingdoms" and "The broken jaw of Lost Kingdoms" with arrows pointing back to the junction.

The long walk back took us fifty minutes, and I was afraid that we'd be locked in by the tide but after doing a run of stoop we were able to exit the tunnel into waist deep water in Port Phillip Bay. As it was a particularly hot day (40 C) we had a paddle in the water before heading off to do another drain.

Above ground we tracked the tunnel along the road to a road where it passes under the rail line then through the car park by the rail station then up another street to the highway.

I do not recommend that you take up the sport of drain exploring as there are many dangers for the unprepared. I also advise you that in many cities exploration of drains is illegal. The purpose of this web site is not to encourage you to find out what is underground, but to show you so that there is no need for you to put yourself and others at risk.

Do NOT enter drains. Read this warning!

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