City View
Rating:15th November 2000. -Tidal

This drain is close to Cougars and Burbon & Critts. It is on the way to 130 steps and 50th

City View tunnel is a fairly easy to do and pleasant drain. Despite the amount of water in the entrance it has a certain charm. It's easy to get to for the drain explorer. However, with all other drains on this web site, please do not enter or explore this drain. Exploring drains in UA City is NOT legal.

The entrance to this drain is Tidal so check tide times here.

Drain Report

1. River Entrance. The entrance is fairly easy to spot once you are down by the river. Just south east of the bridge is the fence is where the drain mouth is. It does not look like much. The insides hides a drain of some small charm.

City View entrance. The university buildings are in the background. A rowing club is on the right. Despite the clouds, it soon got sunny that day.

Close up of entrance, note that it is tidal and can get knee deep

Just within the entrance of the drain

 

When Emor and I did the tunnel there was about 30 cms of water in the tunnel. The drain is about 2 meters high and about 3 meters wide, a rectangular concrete shape. We spotted some stinging jellyfish just in the entrance. They are clear with purple inside so we had to watch out for them. The tunnel heads in for almost 100 meters before curving to the left, Here is a strange wooden sort of framework which hopefully is not supposed to be holding the roof up. Small fish have made this area their home and dart in and out of the flashlight light.

The wooden bit, presumably to reinforce the roof, it is under a road here

Walking upstream you eventually pass the low level and walk up to where a dip in the tunnel floor has created a large pool of water which is home to several more small fish. Just beyond this there are a couple of manhole covers, the impossible to lift gattic types. Here the old meets the new, Graffiti from 1947 and 1998.

Tunnel

2. Junction and sump. A short way into the drain the rectangular section ends. A large sump in the bottom of the drain is located where a pair of pipes enter the drain form either side, the one on the left is about a 1 meter RCP covered in slime. Directly in front the main drain turns into a 1.8 meter RCP which disappears into the darkness.

The big debris filled sump, and a small black camera lens cap. Oh well, can't be perfect.

This tunnel runs as straight as an arrow for quite a long way, with only one discernible turn in it. The occasional manhole can be seen and you can tell that the tunnel runs very deep underground.

Vent tunnel exit

3. Dunnyhole exit. After a long walk along the tunnel you will come across a lid on the left side of the tunnel with the words 'Drainers go in here' or something like that. I don't know if I would follow the advice because the small chamber within stinks to high heaven. The air isn't that good either. But there is a ladder leading upwards and presumably an exit. At this point the tunnel is very deep underground.

4. Exit. Walking along the tunnel, past the dunny-hole exit you will come to a number of pipes leading into the tunnel on the right. About the third is one with the word exit written on it (by myself). You can tell the pipe easily because although it is about a 45 cm RCP, it's got a kind of scraped bottom ditch in it so even with a trickle of water in it, you can keep your hands and knees dry.

Crawling up the pipe about 7 meters brings you to a gutterbox with an easy to remove concrete lid. The gutterbox exits to the corner of a small side street and a main road, the latter quite a busy street. We went as far as the room before we used this exit.

5. Junction Room. The 1.8 meter RCP eventually ends at a small junction room. Ahead the main tunnel shrinks to approximately a 1.6 meter RCP. To the left a 1 meter RCP curves off. To the right a dark black 45 cm RCP can be seen heading west for some distance, with light shining in from above about 50 meters down.

The main tunnel begins a series of curves left to right and a very wandering path. Light from several (very heavy) manholes shines into the tunnel periodically. There's nothing to see up here, and the floor gets a bit slippery so there's no real point in going past this point.

1st September 2000. Looking at UA City Water drain maps of the area it now seems very likely that this last chamber in fact is a junction between City View Drain and Coaugar's Drain. The maps show the two lines representing each drain to be joining, but I am not sure if the drains themselves actually do join.

Cougars Rating: 1st September 2000

This drain is subject to illegal chemical dumping and very bad gas!

It is entirely possible that this drain is good and I just caught it on a bad day, twice. The drain is located at the eastern end of a canal that runs from the UA City River. The canal is not very deep so entry is just a case of stepping down to the ledge then into the canal.

The entry to the drain is a concrete rectangular capped canal. This winds right towards the north east. It is low so stoop is required which adds to the bad rating of the drain. The drain continues northwards to a RCP that is only just high enough to stand up in.

It was at this point that Emor and myself decided that the fumes in the drain were getting worse and we exited rapidly. We had trouble maintaining balance on exit and consider that to have remained in the drain would have been very bad for our health. We noticed that the water in the drain was now milky white and stank of some chemicals.

It would appear that the drain is subject to dumping of industrial pollution, most likely from the factories alongside and above it. It's worth exploring if, and only if, it has fresh air blowing in it and clear water.

1st September 2000

This drain is not that easy to explore, with the low section and hard entry and exit points. It is not all that long. It does still have a problem with bad smelling air and gas.

6. Cougar's entrance / exit

This is a low concrete rectangular drain which curves around to the right, heading almost north. After about 2 / 3 minutes of low stoop the drain changes into an RCP which curves around a while before changing into a higher old bluestone and red brick drain.

7. Old style tunnel

Not much to say about this type of tunnel. It was relief being able to walk upright in the tunnel after such a low walk earlier. The bottom of the bluestone bit reminded me of some small open drains found in Richmond and other suburbs that double as walkways. There were many curves in the drain, so I have relied on other maps to plot it's position on the map above.

8. Upstream Exit.

The tunnel finally emerges into daylight between some railway tracks. The area is laden with debris. This is also a haunt for druggies so it is not a place anyone should visit. And yes, that was a computer left in the drain.

Draining is NOT legal in UA City! Warning drains may be subject to bad air and flash floods. Please do not try this for yourself. This web site is intended to show you what is in drains so there is no need for you to go yourself. Heavy metals poisoning in drains has been linked to such medical conditions as Drainer�s Lurgy. Symptoms include severe athlete�s foot, premature baldness, infertility, liver poisoning, inability to walk straight and level and reckless acts of sheer stupidity.

Do NOT enter drains. Read this warning!

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