Secret Squirrel's Rating

This is by far the best drain in Urbana. We would say that this drain is worth making the trip to Urbana just to see. We have not found any drain like it in UE City. The view from the top is unique.

Drain entrance.

Of course all drains must have an entrance if you plan to get into them. The entrance of this drain is very deceptive. We walked up thinking; "Oh no. not another boring Urbana drain." The entrance consists of a pair of 1.8 meter round concrete pipes, set in a rock sides open drain canal. The pipes look smaller than they are because of the canal and the extra 100 year flood culverts on the road above.

The floor of the open drain is covered in part by slimey green stuff. We noted that there were thousands of bubbles of methane on the bottom of the drain. Maybe the power company should consider growing drain slime to power their new power plant.

The first chamber is just under 50 metres in the drain. As we looked back towards the entrance we realised that there is a bit of a slope in this drain. The three of us rested here in the drain to let our eyes adjust and to get a feeling for the drain. It was quiet in the drain apart from traffic noise from the nearby Athillon Way. We pulled out a felt tip texta to mark our names then continued on our way.

The entrance of any drain we have explored is always good. For the first few minutes there�s almost always some light from the entrance so you feel a little reassured that if things go wrong with your flashlight you can walk out safely. It is much better exploring in a group where you all have a flashlight. This drain had light shining in all the way up past the second chamber about a hundred and ten metres in.

We walked on in, chatting, sipping on our fruit juice and reading the graffiti. There was the usual stuff about some locals who didn�t like some other locals. Some people seemed to have explored the drain from other cities. There was a warning that "Fil is a fat fart." Written in black paint along the drain wall a bit further in. There seemed to be a lot of graffiti in Urbana drains about �Fil� and we felt sorry for the guy.

Triple split grille chamber

We wandered on into the drain in the left hand side tunnel, hop skipping either side of the streamlet of water running down the drain. After a couple of hundred metres we saw light ahead and knew we were coming to the drain�s first major feature. And what a feature it was!

The impressive first chamber of the drain blew us away. It is way cool! We walked in to the light of this chamber and were greeted by the amazing colours of the layers of graff on the walls. Light shone in from the huge grille, lighting up the whole chamber. It was amazing. The three of us stood around, looking at the graffiti, reading messages, writing down who had been there.

The huge pipe on the left was the biggest pipe we had seen in any drain in Urbana. It was massive, abut 2.4 metres high but we can�t be sure on that. At least big enough to drive a car through. We sat around in the chamber, climbed up the ends to look out and generally relaxed a bit before deciding what to do next, take the bigger left side pipe or the two smaller ones on the right.

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We finally decided to take the larger drain on the left. It was really a no brainer, who would pass up the bigger tunnel? The big tunnel had a bit of debris on the floor. There was some graffiti from some dude who had been in the drain way back in 1987. Probably the first dudes in the drain because it was only built in the late seventies.

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Temple of Doom

The big tunnel isn�t really all that long. We could easily see light from the grille room down the tunnel as we spotted a chamber up ahead. This chamber is without doubt the largest chamber in Urbana apart from the semi submerged chamber in the Lake Side drain.

We walked into the chamber where our breaths were taken away. It was huge, the roof was at least five or six metres above us. A large vent let in some light. Although we have tried to take a picture that really gives an idea of the true size of the chamber the pictures we have were not adequate because our flash was just not all that powerful. The chamber is not all that wide, but it is very high and about 12 metres long.

The picture above shows the view from the far end of the chamber. In the foreground are two pizza type metal manhole covers that seem to have drifted down the drain. The flashlight in the middle is resting on one of the flood water baffles in the drain. The floor of the chamber is covered in heaps of rocks and debris, indicating that occasionally a lot of water pours down this drain. Barely visible in the center of the picture is a circle of light coming from the drain�s entrance.

The first three times we explored this drain there was a mountain bike in the Temple of Doom. At first we caught the reflection off of it�s pedals and wondered what it was. It looks like it is intact from the front but in fact the back wheel is missing. It would have been amazing to ride the bike down the steep hill in the drain.

View from the top

The drain reverts to a 2 metre or there abouts round pipe again after leaving the Temple of Doom. Up the hill it goes. At first we didn�t notice the slope but it gets steeper and steeper. The three of us have been up this part of the drain several times and reckon that the slope is steeper than it looks. Along the walls there�s the occasional bit of graffiti but more disconcerting is the line of mud indicating that occasionally the drain half way fills with muddy water. Imagine going down that in a rubber raft. Now that would be a wild ride. The water flow would probably be too much for the two exit pipes downstream though and you would almost certainly drown.

At the top of the drain there is a huge grille room. The pipe ends at this kinda overflow thing. See the pictures to understand what we mean.

Climbing up that ladder is a real challenge. You see there�s no rung at the top. You climb up two and a half metres and then have to heave yourself over that edge. Kova, one of our team, almost fell from the top of this ladder first time we explored this drain.

The view from the top of the drain is amazing. You can see all the way south to the Urbana Lake. The red and white roofs past the lake are the Tuggeranong Hyper-dome, a modern and pretty sterile shopping center with rules against rollerblades.

On the extreme left of the picture is a road which the drain runs under. It travels down hill to the green playing fields, middle left. The drain then turns and runs under the line of trees which form Athillion Way. The entrance of the drain is near the white/tan building just to the left of the top of the gum tree in the foreground of the picture. Incidentally another drain is shown in this picture, not visible due to the distance is the entrance to Sick Puppy�s drain on the right most reach of the lake.

We were so excited with the view that I almost fell back down the open manhole as I was enjoying the view. It was friggen amazing, pardon my language. It was brilliant. Absolutely amazing. I�ve never seen anything like it from a drain. The picture does it no justice.

Second grille

We walked back down the hill after the excitement of the view at the top of the drain. The picture above was in fact taken on another day. We don�t explore drains when it is that cloudy. We climbed back in to the huge pit and easily strode down the hill. Back at the main grille chamber we took the middle tunnel, one of the two smaller tunnels. This travelled steadily up hill. We encountered a cross chamber that was pretty much featureless.

Soon enough we saw more light up ahead. This chamber was maybe 200 metres from the first. It�s hard to judge distances underground. This grill seems to have been white washed recently, why we don�t know. It makes no sense to paint over graffiti underground but the Urbana council had a big clean up campaign in 1997-1998. The entrances to drains are still periodically cleared of tags so don�t bother dirtying up our city thanks.

The second grille was weird with two sets of two pipes leading out of it. It was quite pleasant. We found a video in it which we left for visitors. The graffiti was the norm apart from some nob called Ju Ju who had posted that he had visited the drain some time in October in the year 2000. Since we visited the drain in December 1999 we know he was bullshitting.

Side passage

The two tunnels on the left of this chamber are not quite high enough to walk upright in unless you are a dwarf. We walked down the right side one first only to find it full of debris and water. "F**ing bloody water, f**ing bloody rocks." We grumbled as we walked back to the grille room then tried the other tunnel which was not so bad. Maybe 50-60 metres down this tunnel we came to a shit little grille room about the size of a walk in closet. The drain extended up an unclimbable waterfall which was not happy. Mind you some guy called Luke appears to have scaled that waterfall some time in the past. We trudged back to the grille room, our backs beginning to ache.

From the second grille we walked into the two right hand drains, also not quite high enough to walk in �cept for our resident dwarf who wandered ahead of us spouting all sorts of shit about the advantages of being short. Short people have more sex, me thinks not. Short people are more intelligent, well maybe. Short people get to invade France. Well okay, I�ll admit that.

We walked up hill in the stoopy drain (Yes that is a word. I�ve seen it on other draining web sites so there) till we came to a small cross chamber with what appeared to be a manhole lid set on bricks letting in light. We found a little drop tail lizard in the drain, probably fell in. We threw it back out the entrance where it was bound to find food.

Upstream exit 2

We walked on and on, and on till we spotted light ahead. At last. Beyond a small chamber we came to a grille room. We checked the door, expecting it to be locked. Thankfully it was not. With relief we lifted the grille and climbed out. Stoopy drains are shit and normally we won�t do them.

This drain is in our opinion the best drain in Urbana. Its� entrance hides a hidden wonder. We have explored it three times now and recommend it to our friends. We normally follow the arrows, exiting the drain at the grille at the top of the hill, walking down past the reservoir and past the power station to the second entrance before walking back down again.

We of course do not recommend that you take up the sport of drain exploring as there are many dangers for the unprepared. We 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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