6 October 2008

The under world of Canberra makes the Times

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Canberra Times has a story with a front page picture today on the underneath of Canberra. It is a pretty generic story about drain exploring in Australia, which they have made a half hearted attempt to connect to out fair city. It is a shame that they didn’t try a bit harder to include some photos of the Canberra drains they reference.

Also interesting on account of the number of urbex related threads on riotact in recent times. Although maybe I am just jealous that they didn’t ask to use any of my photos…

“Exploring” in Canberra – any good tunnels / caves or other fun exploring areas?

Exploring underground bunkers near Canberra

Top Secret military “bases” in Canberra

[ED – we wouldn’t mind getting more of your photos p1]

So who decided the barbed wire was necessary?

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buzz819 said :

I like that on your map there is an area called “evil location” which appears to be the same spot where a high needs care facility is located…. Interesting.

I believe the “evil location” and the nearby “less evil location” were from one of the threads about gas fired power stations, and does not relate to any current usage of the land.

p1 said :

Link to the location of the four bomb storage bunkers.

1337Hax0r said :

Tell me Mr P1, have you been in the tunnel that runs from Old Parliament House under the lake to Russel? Got any pictures of it?

I have been unable to confirm its existence.

I like that on your map there is an area called “evil location” which appears to be the same spot where a high needs care facility is located…. Interesting.

Link to the location of the four bomb storage bunkers.

1337Hax0r said :

Tell me Mr P1, have you been in the tunnel that runs from Old Parliament House under the lake to Russel? Got any pictures of it?

I have been unable to confirm its existence.

poisonivy said :

Hang on . . . there’s a suburb called Beard?!

There is indeed a suburb called Beard. I would joke that it is right next to a suburb called Mustache, but it is right next door to Crestwood.

Tell me Mr P1, have you been in the tunnel that runs from Old Parliament House under the lake to Russel? Got any pictures of it?

Hang on . . . there’s a suburb called Beard?!

puppyfat67 said :

Today we found a largish abandoned concrete bunker. It is just to the North of the quarry off the airport road. It is in excellent condition, to get there we parked in the new suburb of Beard, walked across the railway lines and over the concrete bridge (which has no handrails) over the Queanbeyan River, up along the side of the pines that surround the quarry and around to the north side of the quarry.
There is a farm dam just on the north border of the quarry, the bunker is just 100m up the hill from here

It is one of four (or five, can’t remember) scattered around that area. Here we’re bomb storage during World War Two. One is in use (I think by the AFP?), but the others are only in use by sheep and are quite interesting to wander through.

Today we found a largish abandoned concrete bunker. It is just to the North of the quarry off the airport road. It is in excellent condition, to get there we parked in the new suburb of Beard, walked across the railway lines and over the concrete bridge (which has no handrails) over the Queanbeyan River, up along the side of the pines that surround the quarry and around to the north side of the quarry.
There is a farm dam just on the north border of the quarry, the bunker is just 100m up the hill from here

This all sounds really interesting – I tried to do some more research via urbantwilight.net and caveclan.org but am having some weird issues – neither loads except for a blank page.

Has anyone else tried accessing those websites? Is it a ‘you have to be “in” with the group’ to access the websites or something?

ant said :

Those threads about “unknown Canberra” etc here are excellent, and we can always come back to them, unlike a newspaper story which dies and is used to line the compost bucket.

The one about the caverns under NPH, and the one about secret facility under the JG Gort. wiht the ramp and disco foyer were fascinating.

I agree. I never get sick of reading about the underground explorations of Canberra. Would be good to have a proper document of all these locations on Google Earth/Maps.

But the first time that CT ran a story on it they used local sources, people and pics. And the Police never asked the journo involved who was involved because she can always deny her sources. And something like that would never get to the stage (Unless someone died) where the courts would order them to reveal their sources, just not worth the effort.

Cayla Dengate should have known that if you are going to do a follow up story to the Sydney drain drownings with the local version, then she should have sourced local information and not cut and paste from another states website.

Plagiarised Armchair Journalism.

shady.underwold.solace6:55 pm 15 May 09

Cayla Dengate is a good caver, we used to go about every month. She didn’t interview us locally because this shit is illegal. If she interviewed us, the cops could ask her to name them. I put her in touch with the Syd website because we used to do some caving with them.
She lives in Ecuador now, so I don’t imagine she’ll read this.

I’d be up for it, but I will be out of town this weekend. Ice-blocking is another good activity of parliament house…

massive game of British Bulldog on Parliament hill,

I would so be in that 😉

Well, we could organise a massive random gathering of people just show up on the North west grass slope one saturday. It would be hilarious if we could have a thousand strong group of people playing this.

Oh that would make the papers and it would be fun.

ban not band

Just another nail in the coffin of fun in canberra.

This is the main reason that a prominent world wide urban exploration group has a total media band and non disclosure clause of its locations in its code of ethics.

Ahh well, I prefer old buildings to concrete pipes any day

I am inclined to believe that the future of urbexing in Canberra will be a bit more difficult now that the ACT government has wind of peoples activities. I would not be surprised if a bunch of entrances were blocked off. Just like when we were all talking about Mugga Lane Zoo. As soon as it was brought up and people were interested in having a look ( I did that saturday ), They fenced off the whole area!

Maybe St Tropez Spas were unhappy that we found their dumping area? Who knows?

If we all started to discuss something stupid like street luging down Black Mountain or a massive game of British Bulldog on Parliament hill, The Fun killing flat earth society would be all over it like Dennis Ferguson at a kids party.

The Canberra times has to realise that if they are going to do a story on something like this then they should at least look at some local reference points rather than copy what some guy has written about his visit to Canberra in the past.

Cayla Dengate should be given a chance to respond and we should not tear her to pieces at first (it probably will happen though). we should also give her a chance to come under with some of us and we can give her a great story.

at least it wasn’t like the FOI balls up that saw the entire floor plan for the defence HQ get published – it was up there on the aph site for a couple of weeks – till someone noticed and pulled it down. The tunnel architecture was pretty interesting. for somewhere we will never get to see inside…

bigfeet said :

PBO, whatever happened with the possible bunker you were talking about in this post?

http://the-riotact.com/?p=8672

Did it actually turn out to be something interesting?

Or was it an overly elaborate septic system as you feared?

We dug out most of the dirt surrounding the door and we found that it was a overly built basement of sorts for a building that was once there. We got to the door and when it was opened we found that there was not much left behind it. We did find the remains of what looked like a sluice in the ceiling made of iron bars, but their purpose is as long gone as the previous owner. The room would have measured about 3mtr X 4.5mtr and we still do not know why the door frame had a military marking (arrow), maybe it was recycled. A whole lotta work with questionable payoff however my mate now has small, structurally unsafe, dirty underground storage room.

I don’t know who reads teh CT. In a major gov’t dep’t in recent months, I was after a copy as someone in our area was allegedly photographed in teh party pages, and I hunted high and low, made phone calls, and NO ONE had it. No one got it. SMH, Australian, Straits Times, Financial Times. But no CT.

The CT does nothing well. It’s not national, it’s not local, it’s not nothing.

PBO, whatever happened with the possible bunker you were talking about in this post?

http://the-riotact.com/?p=8672

Did it actually turn out to be something interesting?

Or was it an overly elaborate septic system as you feared?

skid, I concur….

Personally though – in canberra at least, drains tend to be round concrete pipes for the most part – and to that end quite boring..

People should see whats above ground before they resort to underground…

Soo many better photos to be had..

Seems like there is a lot of curious rioters here…..

Part of me thinks its a little bit irresponsible to have the CT putting up a feature article about going exploring up storm drains when the weather is starting to turn wet.

But then again, with a readership demographic of zimmer frames, “is my photo in there” social types, government, business & advertising community, they’re not the most likely candidates for being sweapt away in flash flooding.

Next time I go running around underground, I’ll have to bring a cheap camera with me.

All the photos are off the urbantwilight.net website…and man are there some pix there!

indeed – and probably being used without permission – which I am following up..

A fine example of Armchair Journalism, The last time that the Canberra Times did a story on this was about 15 years ago. At least the particular journalist involved came down the tunnels with us instead of cutting and pasting other peoples websites into a story.

To top it off, those are all Sydney and Melbourne photos.

Just read that canberra times article and its a load of dog….

One way to make a lot of kids do things they are not meant to is to advertise it in the paper.

And one would be stupid to access sewers, because, unlike stormwater tunnels, sewers are a closed circuit, and besides the obvious biohazards, there is little to no air, and lets not forget that most noxious gasses are odourless.

I suggest if anyone is inclined to go places like this then you best read and memorise this file first.

And remember – #1 rule – when it rains – no drains…

Its no secret that I am affiliated with the Cave Clan, they take beautiful pictures, and to that end, thats is the nature of my involvement with them.

Just because I have not mentioned it does not mean it is a secret.

Its a pity that Canberra times did not get in contact with a more reliable source than the internet for their article. I for one could have anonymously submitted several photos of a better calibre of than what I have seen in this thread…

Those threads about “unknown Canberra” etc here are excellent, and we can always come back to them, unlike a newspaper story which dies and is used to line the compost bucket.

The one about the caverns under NPH, and the one about secret facility under the JG Gort. wiht the ramp and disco foyer were fascinating.

Not a freelancer or a wire, Cayla Dengate’s a regular writer for them.

It felt to me like a promising feature that had failed to come together by deadline but got thrown out the door anyway.

Wide Boy Jake3:50 pm 05 Oct 08

Yeah, I saw that article as well. Fairly hopeless with no local photos or interviews with local cavers. It seemed to be written by a freelancer or else snaffled off the wire services with an attempt to throw in a bit of local colour to make it relevant to locals. Fairly typical of the Sunday Canberra Times which is fast becoming a joke.

Sorry for that collection of typos and examples of poor grammar, I somehow posted it while still typing.

The Temple of Doom, in “Secret Squirrels” one of the drains mentioned in the CT article.

I have to wonder about the activities of some of riotact’s residents, after looking through some other photos. Care to comment, Danman 🙂

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