Northern Drains
13th January 2001

The Pillars NG Rating: -Gas in top end

This drain can have bad gas in it's northern end. This drain has been known to be subject to sudden, heavy flash flooding without warning.

In late December 2000 this drain was the sight of the drowning of a 14 year old drain explorer and near drowning of another. This is one of the reasons why I stress that people should NOT enter drains!

This tunnel is located in a recreation reserve in the northern suburbs. There are two tunnels, a square / rectangular one on the left and a round one on the right. The one on the left is more interesting and easier to explore. The round one has its' own charm but once again, as all interesting parts of this drain have been photographed and displayed here there is no need to enter this drain.

Just in from the entrance at about 10 and 15 meters are two sort of 'sky-lights' from drains on the road above, a nice spot for bemusing the general public. The tunnel continues on under the park and about 150 - 200 meters in is a most interesting place. The drain here contains a lot of the history of drain exploring in UA City. Read the expedition report!

The chamber itself is simply a small chamber with pillars in it. This is the so called 'Pillars'. At one time some drain explorers organised a party in this section of the drain, but on a rainy night. They were flooded out, having to leave via the manhole in the chamber. Nowdays this manhole is securely locked in place to prevent the large number of people from attempting to explore this chamber. As the pillars chamber is adequately shown here, there is no reason to ever enter this drain to see it yourself.

The walls at the pillars have recently been repainted.

N High Rating:

This is a comparatively newish tunnel added onto an older tunnel, the new bit being built in 1985. I remember them digging up the park to put this tunnel in. As the park was once a rubbish dump people came from miles around to fossick the dirt piles for valuable old bottles and other stuff. It's my theory that eventually you'll have to pay to mine those old tips for the raw materials buried in processed form there. The tunnel entrance is close to N High School (hence the name) and some students explore it.

The tunnel is located on the creek edge just down from the end a road, about 50 meters to the north west of the end of the street. It is in plain view of the school and of The Creek Reserve across the creek. The entrance is square in shape and about 3 meters across and high. Just inside of the entrance the tunnel turns into a RCP tunnel that is about 7 years old. The tunnel extends in a gentle curve to the right north east under the park, eventually turning north. There is a fair amount of graffiti in it, most from the students of the school above. The graffiti includes bits from the Bridge Lords, a small group that originated from the high school above.

A short walk into the tunnel will bring you to the old RBT section of the tunnel and a bit further on you'll come to a rather loud manhole in the tunnel roof. This manhole is on a major road so don't even think of popping it. The tunnel soon starts a nice low slide to the left, turning north to run along under a road. As I was pressed for time I did not explore more than 300 meters but know that it is much longer.

Banger's Rating:

We've now realise d that this drain is in fact right near a railway station near the creek. We took a look at it and climbed in over the litter trap to wander in. It's not really a very exciting tunnel but it's worth a look. When we visited there was a person camping near the entrance in the lee of the cliff.

This is a 2 meter RCP drain, that apart from the litter trap and entrance is not that exciting. It is very long however.

Flooded Rating:

This drain is subject to bad air

To enter this drain I had to lift the manholes at either location given and crawl through a 60-80 centimeter pipe to the drain. It's not that bad but it does make for hard going as the air is often dry and stale.

The crawlway ends in the drain which is a red brick section. Downstream is a pile of mud. upstream is a nice vent and the wall where this drain used to once connect to N High. Even with the grille vent, this drain is poorly ventilated and almost always smells bad, yet it is worth doing as a once off.

Expo Report to The Pillars NG

Come Sunday, with the weather fine I received a call from Ed who was not happy with my report of The Pillars NG.

" You sure you got the right drain?" he asked.
" Um, yeah..." I replied. But had I? I decided to go check it out again.

We met and caught the train out. As we crossed the UA City River we looked out towards Anzac to see some teenager on a pushbike at the entrance... hmm... We changed trains and caught the Hurstbridge one. To our annoyance it was packed with people from the football so we sat in silence until we reached our station

We walked in from the station, skipped under the fence and made our way to the entrance. Ed and I had only discovered this tunnel recently, on our last trip up north so this time I was determined to actually explore it fully. No more of these flying visits. The determination paid off.

Once around the curve in the tunnel we came across heaps of messages and graffiti. Talk about a meeting place! I kicked myself for not going in so far last time, but admittedly I only had no flashlight then. Ed then kicked me for such poor editorial work in publishing my last report on the tunnel.

We stopped off to read much of the messages and graffiti, thinking that we'd best leave a couple of our own. We though that we had done well and wondered what lay ahead. Oh, how I wished I had a flashlight last time!

Then we came to the pillar room! And if that just didn't blow us away! It was great, the messages, the old copies of Il Draino. Wow! It was superb, in some ways better than Mini-Tenth or Anzac!

We obliged by the requirement that we don't use spray cans in the chamber, we couldn't, ours was empty anyway and placed a couple of tags on the far pillar. The message indicated that they had been there only 2 months before. We stayed a while, reading the messages, answered a call of nature then we departed, happy that we had finally explored this tunnel.

Do not enter drains! Drain exploring is not legal in UA City! Drains are almost all totally dark. Without a flashlight it possible to become disorientated and lost. Failure to use well charged batteries or to carry a spare flashlight can lead to becoming lost in some drains which may lead to injuries and panic attacks.

Do NOT enter drains. Read this warning!

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