Draining – U R B E X C E N T R A L

Psychedelic Underground

July 4, 2021July 26, 2021 by urbexcentral

New Zealand’s Island Fortress

Another victim of the earthquakes, this historic wartime island was once used as a quarantine station, Maori fortification and a defence against Russian attacks.

On arrival and after a short swim across to the island we navigated our way up the steep barbed wire bank. Once inside the fort we were met by a beautifully designed historic fort which included a labyrinth of tunnels with torpedo and mine stores. The two disappearing guns on the fort were completed in 1895 and were never actually used to fire a shot in their years as part of the island fortification.

We hope they can restore this unique part of New Zealand’s history once again for visitors to appreciate it.

Fort Island

Torpedo store

Fort Island underground tunnel

Fort Island

Fort Island, revolving gun

Fort Island, disappearing gun

Fort Island

Fort Island, bunker

Fort Island

Fort Island, bed

Fort Island

January 27, 2016January 30, 2016 by urbexcentral

Conduits

Chilling out on a hot summers day (today) in some favorite UC tunnels/conduits…

January 8, 2015 by urbexcentral

Gravity fed

Just beneath the top of one of Wellington city’s highest peaks there is a peculiar little tunnel, originally built to service a now defunct reservoir this tunnel is now bricked up part way along. Judging by the foot traffic in here it seems to be a popular detour from the nearby walking track.

July 2, 2014July 2, 2014 by urbexcentral

Rivers of the Damned

We explored a drain that runs underneath the edge of a cemetery, this video documents our journey into hell and back.

February 9, 2014February 9, 2014 by urbexcentral

Portals

This series of abandoned railway tunnels, almost look like portals to another dimension…

January 22, 2014January 22, 2014 by urbexcentral

2013 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for Urbex Central. Thanks for watching and stay tuned for 2014…

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 25,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 9 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

January 7, 2014January 25, 2016 by urbexcentral

Tunnelvision

November 10, 2013January 25, 2016 by urbexcentral

Portal

This 253 meter long former railway tunnel- constructed in the 1870′s- came to the end of it’s working life in 1955 when a replacement tunnel was opened. Apart from a bit of water seeping in through the cracks, it still seems in pretty sound order after all these years.

November 9, 2013 by urbexcentral

4 Drains + Eels

With the beginning of summer we cracked 4 new drains in one day, and met plenty of friendly eels along the way.

November 6, 2013November 6, 2013 by urbexcentral

Drainy Season

Now that Wellington’s violent (some reaching 200km/hr winds) spring storms are finally ebbing away we can get back down into the slippery drains running through the city.

We recently explored an urban stream running through an industrial area – and found a drain, complete with concrete slipways in the process.
After traveling down the long tunnel we reached an impasse, a slippery slope into a deep pool of turbulent water – this is definitely a drain we will check out at the end of summer when we can progress further.

The entrance to the tunnel looking out, here the walls have been light-painted green.

The stream passes right underneath many commercial properties.

Looking down the long tunnel to the black abyss at the end.

Lightpainting the long tunnel with a 2 minute exposure.

Some rusty steel girders above the concrete slipway.

Examining the rusty girders.

The entrance to the tunnel (white balance adjusted).

An entrance to one of our old haunts nearby.

October 30, 2013October 30, 2013 by urbexcentral

Cockatoo Island 2 – Tunnels

Underneath the Island, in the areas not hewn away to make room for heavy industry, Cockatoo island is criss-crossed with a myriad of tunnels, facilitating the movement of people, materials and equipment across the island. These also served a dual purpose as an air-raid shelter for use in the Second World War: one was even kitted out with an infirmary located in an annex to the main tunnel. Another tunnel has an elevator running right down into it from the buildings atop the island, down through the rock.

July 14, 2013July 15, 2013 by urbexcentral

Drainspotting

“Never play on the train tracks”- but no one said anything about playing under the tracks…

May 29, 2013May 29, 2013 by urbexcentral

Subterranean

We returned to an old haunt, some tunnels hewn through the Wellington hills, to find that some visitors from the Cave Clan had been through since our last visit. These tunnels run right through the hills carrying sewage in an enclosed pipe, the tunnels themselves have been hewn from the rock and the bare rocks are visible throughout. It was rumored that a large amount of money was hidden in these tunnels after a notorious Wellington bank robbery, council workers were sent in to investigate and the money was never found.