As I was rattling by on the train I noticed this small train boneyard in the middle of the countryside – and we decided that it deserved an inspection!
Surrounded by a high electrified perimeter fence and with dogs baying nearby, we couldn’t hang around but managed to snap these shots.
Category: Wellington
Bad Education
This former highschool was closed about 15 years ago. The decay and vandalism that has occurred in the interim is astounding. It’s finally due for demolition soon and the land it occupies is to be developed into a retirement village.
Trig or Track
“Don’t play on the tracks- head for the high ground”. Why not do both? Part II of Escarpment…
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.
Ammo
Exploring what we think were former ammuntion stores- though from the ouside they look more like hobbit holes…
Escuela Mala
“I had a terrible education. I attended a school for emotionally disturbed teachers.”
Woody Allen
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.
Seahouse
There are people who, like houses, are beautiful in dilapidation. Logan P. Smith
Departures
“This is the final call for flight UC101. Departing at 1300 hours from Gate 9 for Space Station X…” With a bit of imagination, this abandoned airport boarding bridge could be a gateway to another reality…
Drainspotting
“Never play on the train tracks”- but no one said anything about playing under the tracks…
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.
In Vivo
In vivo (Latin for “within the living”) is experimentation using a whole, living organism as opposed to a partial or dead organism. Animal testing and clinical trials are two forms of in vivo research. On average around 300,000 animals per year are used in experimentation, testing and teaching in New Zealand – from cats and dogs to rabbits, deer, mice, rats, fish, birds, pigs, cows and guinea pigs. This particular former testing facility has been irresponsibly left to the ravages of time and vandalism, a haunting reminder of what we commit in the name of science.
The Convent
This former Catholic girls boarding school and convent was closed in the mid 1980′s. The buildings have been used for a variety of purposes over the years (including featuring in a couple of Peter Jackson films), but it has now been deemed unsafe and closed indefinately. Although carrying the Historic Places Trust’s highest heritage protection status, the closure due to being “Earthquake prone” has left it in a strange kind of limbo. The future looks very bleak indeed for this Historic landmark.
Parkview
A retired Abortion Clinic known as Parkview, part of Ewart Hospital and the Wellington Hospital.
Opened in 1980 and short lived until it was forgone in 2000.
While it has been the subject of a lot of scrutiny and protest, it has been untouched and, ironically, resides next to a children’s kindergarten.
Bad Science
Some more Chemistry experiments from a former tertiary institution… This is both a sequel and companion to Gunner’s Big Science.
Pioneer Cottage
This abandoned house is trapped in time, there are numerous reminders of the history of this building scattered throughout. It is as if the occupants simply walked out 50 years ago, with dishes still drying in the kitchen…
Animal Testing Centre & Incinerator
This abandoned animal testing facility has been abandoned for about 20 years apparently, despite that there are no signs of graffiti. Syringes and other detritus still litter the site and the bones & feathers of the test subjects still sit in the now rusted incinerators.
“Twelve five- to seven-day-old calves from a commercial dairy herd
were used in the trial. The herd had no contact with goats. The
calves had been fed pooled bovine colostrum that tested negative
for MmmLC. They were then transported to the Isolation Unit where they were housed indoors in two pens.
Six of the calves were dosed orally with MmmLC (5.4×1011 colony
forming units or cfu) and the following day four control calves
were placed with them in the same pen.
Six days later the two remaining calves were inoculated
intravenously (IV) with MmmLC (7×1010 cfu) and placed with the
other calves. The calves were monitored for clinical signs and their
temperatures were measured daily for the first 14 days.
Nasal swabs and blood samples were collected from the day of oral
inoculation (day 0) until the day each calf was euthanased (the last
ones on day 43). Nasal swabs were collected on days 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 and
at necropsy; blood samples weekly and at necropsy. Necropsies
were carried out at regular intervals during the trial (see table) and
samples taken from tonsil, retropharyngeal and mesenteric lymph
nodes, trachea, lung, spleen, pericardial fluid and joint fluid (stifle,
carpal and hip). Both fresh and fixed samples were collected.
The nasal swabs and tissues were cultured for MmmLC. The same
samples plus bloods were tested in the CAP-21 polymerase chain
reaction (PCR)(3) for Mycoplasma mycoides cluster. The nasal swabs
were also tested in a generic PCR for mycoplasma(4) on days 0 and 2.
Serum samples were tested in the M mycoides complement fixation
test (CFT) using whole cell antigen(6). Histopathology was carried
out on the formalin fixed tissues
Light Painting
Some light painting up at an old WWII bunker.
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Sacred
We returned for another look at this location: urbexcentral.com/2013/02/03/e-college/
A lot of vandalism occured here last year, graffiti and general destruction. Thankfully the landlord and the new tenants have been taking great care of the place in the past few months and the vandalism doesn’t appear to have gotten much worse. Unfortunately the pigeons didn’t get the memo and have made parts of the college their home (and toilet).
We’ll Take Care Of Your Children
This old building was once a nursery which helped to raise numerous children in the Wellington region. The building’s future is now questionable as it sits right in the path of a new roading project. It will probably either be moved or demolished, and Wellington may lose yet another historic building.
Don’t Be In The Dark
A night visit to our favourite local factory… Documenting its history & decline- was interrupted by Gunner’s insistence on throwing a bit of light on the subject…
Tanked
A small fleet of abandoned flammable goods tanker wagons provided us with an adventure playground.
Lighthouse Keepers’ Houses
With the automation of lighthouses the job of lighthouse keeper and its associated chattels and residences soon became a thing of the past. Here we see the remaining lighthouse keepers’ houses at a lighthouse standing vigil near the entrance to Cook Strait.
Liebster Award
One of our Urbex Central followers has nominated us for the Liebster Award – which is like a chain letter of affection from one blogger to the next, but without the spurious claims of profound loss of luck if the chain is broken. Thank you Tina of Everyday life in Vienna (aka tinasrabbithole). Tina’s faithful ‘likes’ regularly skew the fragile ecosystem of our blog’s statistics, conveying the impression that we’ve established a hardcore following of Austrians. In fact, we have found a hardcore following in one Norwegian ex-Wellingtonian residing in Vienna. But who’s counting anyway? Check out Tina’s observations from a land where lovers lock themselves to bridges, and toilet patrons make use of a handy little porcelain shelf upon which to inspect their own (and conceivably, one another’s?) stools for ‘health reasons’.
Apparently the Liebster guidelines require us to say a little about ourselves, and suggest some blogs worth checking out.
Righto. Well Urbex Central is playground to a group of charming subversives who unite under the nom de plume The Inspectres. We delight in going places that get our hearts racing, our senses maxing-out, our limbs aching and our imaginations whirring. We are really just finding our feet as a collective, discovering through trial and error what each of us can do: find, scout, film, shoot, edit, write, act, climb, sneak, slither, haul, impersonate, improvise, infiltrate. Wellington, New Zealand feels right now like it is opening in our hands like some kind of exotic stone fruit. We’re savoring it.
As far as blogs we follow, they are as diverse as we are.
We certainly love the photography of Fergus Cunningham.
We contribute to the work of Wellingtonia.
It’s always interesting to see what thecoffeeimp has been doing the morning after what we’ve been doing the night before.
iambidong has been generous with what he knows and what he shoots. He has released a free ebook (for people new to the idea of urban exploration) here
That’s plenty. Liebster Awards for them all!
Thanks for following us, and happy exploration to you, in whatever way that manifests in your own life.
Warmly,
Gunner
The Bunker
An abandoned former harbour defence gun battery, up above the Wellington Harbour. Someone else thought it was a great location- for a party- a rave we heard…
Copshop
A former police station in the suburbs. Prior to being a copshop, it was the other arm of the law- a court house…
Chinese Mission
This tiny old church is soon to be demolished, it is juxtaposed with the city high rises around it.
Sacrilegious
This iconic church has been abandoned due to earthquake risk, since the photos were taken the organ has been stripped out.
Aparmentalised
Recently abandoned in central wellington (to much dismay) these flats are apparently so earthquake prone that a large man falling over in one of the rooms could have initiated a serious structural failure.
Year of the snake
Fireworks celebrating the year of the snake and the climbing of various structures to view them.
Rooftopping
A pic from the field 🙂
Skate Park
An abandoned skate park in Wellington. These series of images were featured on the exellent Weburbanist last year, in a feature called “Boarded Up: 15 Rad & Gnarly Abandoned Skate Parks”. Check the article out here…
The Chapel – Photographs
Some photographs of this pristine gothic chapel hidden away in an abandoned building.
[Updated 2014]
The Fort
An old fort that once protected Wellington harbour from attack.
Prison/Military buildings
These structures have long been forgotten.
Underground Structures
These underground rooms are part of an old defence installation in Wellington and now seem to be mainly used as a rubbish dumping site.
Underground Bunker
Once part of Wellington’s WWII defence network, this bunker now lies neglected and half buried.
Aviation Building
This relocated building has been sitting dormant for quite some time.
The College
This school was closed in the 1980s and has been mostly left to ruin. The main building was “red stickered” last year, and like many buildings in Wellington declared “earthquake prone”. It’s more than likely the buildings will now be demolished- all the more reason to explore the site while it still remains…
U R B E X C E N T R A L 
