Category: Sport & Recreation

The Farm

Inside an abandoned former catholic girls school/farm/’rehabilitation unit’ we visited in mid 2013. Founded by a French sisterhood in 1953 -“the girls who came into the care of the sisters often had problems that could not be resolved in their normal environment and needed the loving care of others to restore their sense of self-worth.” The first residents stayed at the ’13’-room Manor built by its previous owner; and over the years the Catholic order embarked on a building program that included a 25-girl dormitory, two-story working/training block, visitor accommodation and sports facility. The last building was an expanded convent for the growing number of sisters at the facility. At it’s peak there were apparently up to 50 nuns in the house, and at least 70 girls. The farm/school/borstal/convent finally closed down in the early 1980’s.

by urbexcentral

Mind the (kina) gap.


Following on from the success of our last collaboration with these traceurs we tagged along with them for a day, this is the first video in a series displaying their unique ability to interact with and explore the urban environment via. parkour.Their philosophy revolves heavily around the concept: “Etre fort pour être utile” (Be strong to be useful) and as you will see in some of our other videos (some yet to come) they practice what they preach…

Much like urban exploration, our bread and butter, parkour is about interacting with our urban environment and experiencing it in new and different ways. Where we preserve it statically on film and in video, practitioners of parkour interact kinetically with the landscape.

Massive respect to the guys from Wellington Parkour and Freerunning for performing these feats.

by urbexcentral

Pyro

Pyromania is an impulse control disorder in which individuals repeatedly fail to resist impulses to deliberately start fires, in order to relieve tension, for gratification or for relief. The term pyromania comes from the Greek word πῦρ (‘pyr’, fire).

This was just one of a dozen buildings torched by a pyromaniac over a single weekend two years ago.  A Porirua man was eventually charged with 13 arsons that included setting fire to five churches, but was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

by urbexcentral

Racecourse Tower

In keeping with our recent racecourse posts, but this time from a different racecourse entirely, join us on a trip up to the top of an observation tower at a rural racecourse on the Kapiti coast. Taken just after a big storm had lashed the lower North island, thankfully the wind had dropped enough to make the climb.

by urbexcentral