Derelict decayed buildings
This old bathouse situated in a tourist town of the North Island of New Zealand have been closed down since 2021 after seismic assessment found structural integrity concerns in the building.
These beautiful old baths must have been such an amazing thing for tourists to see and it’s so sad to see them in this state, seemingly being left abandoned til something is hopefully done to fix them up one day.
Once a mental asylum with a chequered past, then turned polytech – this land is now up for development into housing in Auckland, NZ.
Here’s hoping it gets looked after before it falls into the hands of more vandals it is such a beautiful building, nothing as grand as this really left in New Zealand sadly.
Join us on this explore of the old abandoned neighbours set film set situated in Melbourne, Australia.
We just so happened to find ourselves in Melbourne when we got lucky to find a way into the old set of the decommissioned tv show. It turns out there was plenty to see here as everything was pretty much left as is once filming had wrapped up, now awaiting a swift demolition, we hope you enjoy the pictures!
This abandoned hospital in the South Island was on our radar for quite a few years until actually cracking it. It was quite an exciting rush to finally see inside after peering inside the windows for so long!
A lot was left inside amongst a large amount of natural decay, it was clear this hospital was once a good place for many being where children were born but now looking fairly creepy.
The Dunedin Cadbury factory closed in 2018 after 88 years of operation, it was a very controversial shut down with the factory recently being sold to mondalez. This sale was often linked to the factory’s demise, it was a very sad end to the cadbury saga in New Zealand.
I had dreamt of this explore for years before actually doing it, imagining going back through the ‘cadbury world’ exhibition I went through as a youngster and to see the infamous chocolate fountain in its full abandoned glory. This was however, not quite how I imagined as demolition was quite far through by the time we managed access. Enjoy the pics!
This old abandoned factory once produced the chemicals used in ‘agent orange’ by the US military in South Vietnam. Since then, and despite the controversy, the factory continued to operate under several different names from the 70s till now where it meets it’s demise through demolition.
What a lot of fun this explore was, jumping between buildings we got to see a range of old equipment and science lab stuff. Reminiscing on what used to be produced in this factory was kind of scary really, there is still ongoing investigations into the damage caused by the chemical produced in ‘clean green New Zealand’ to this day.
Late last year we explored the abandoned waterpark “Ho Thuy Tien” near Hue, Vietnam. This place has been fairly well documented by UE and backpackers before, so to mix things up a bit we decided to predominately explore the park via bicycle- and we’re talking about the old school one speed bicycle variety with a basket on the handle bars.
It took 30-40 minutes in the heat & humidity to bike there from Hue city, courtesy of Google Maps. At the main gate we were surprisingly waved through by a guard. We were expecting a “fee” like all other locals and visitors alike. Perhaps he felt because we’d biked all the way out there we deserved the “free” entry- what ever the case it was good karma. Locals we spoke to later just could not believe we’d been given “free” entry.
Closed a decade ago- probably because of the high priced tickets and lack of attractions- the park has over the years become a hang out for local youth, urban explorers, backpackers, and on weekends (in this case) a bus load of students. Apart from getting the neck slit gesture after outstaying our welcome at some local lads bbq on top of the waterslide section- it was a safe and surreal experience- and then we had to bike all the way back to town…
Tongui town – This abandoned street was built in 2011 as a ‘bar street’ development.
Six years later and the place is a ghost town, abandoned in central Beijing, there was a mixture of themes used in this European style town including Italian and Swiss. It is unknown whether this site will ever be used as its intended purpose and what a strange sight to see in Central Beijing.
As you can see none of the internal parts of the building were completed and they were all joined together through a tunnel underneath the street, we hope you enjoy the pics, UC.
Erskine college built in 1905 is due for demolition this year and any day now the demolition crews will move in. Urbex Central decided to take one more visit back before it is gone forever, come say goodbye to one of Wellington’s most famous abandoned, ‘haunted’ whatever you want to call it, buildings.
“Black Palace” (Damnak Sla Khmao) was a little summer palace of King Sihanouk, abandoned sometime in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s. It’s located on Bokor Hill Station in southern Cambodia. The “Palace” itself is not on a grand scale, but the overall spectacular location and many outer buildings must have been fairly impressive in its day.
The hill station was built as a resort by colonial French settlers as an escape from the heat, humidity and general insalubrity of Phnom Penh. Nine hundred lives were lost in the nine months during the construction of the resort in this remote mountain location.
The centrepiece of the resort was the grand Bokor Palace Hotel (which has never been a casino) inaugurated in 1925. See previous video- “Casino Rouge”. It was used as the location for the final showdown of the excellent Matt Dillon 2002 movie, “City Of Ghosts”.
Bokor Hill was abandoned first by the French in late 1940s, during the First Indochina War, because of local insurrections guided by the Khmer Issarak. It was only in 1962, for the reopening of the “Cité du Bokor”, that a casino was established in the new hotels near the lake, (Hotels Sangkum and Kiri). Some buildings were added at this time: an annex for the palace, the mayor’s office and a strange mushroomed concrete parasol.
The Bokor mountain was abandoned again in 1972, as Khmer Rouge took over the area. During the Vietnamese invasion in 1979, Khmer Rouge entrenched themselves and held on tightly for months. In the 1990s Bokor Hill was still one of the last strongholds of Khmer Rouge.
Having had this closed down and dilapidated cement works on the radar for a couple of years, the urbexcentral crew alongside wildboyzue (UK) finally got to take a visit!
As we drove the long drive to this location, we had mixed feelings of defeat and curiosity from earlier exploration attempts but we were determined to finally do something epic this road trip.
Now, with our target in sight we quickly worked out the best way to photograph the place and we were soon basking in an oasis of abandonment, from coming across remnants of a past busy workplace, to huge machinery and infrastructure, including a decommissioned coal run power plant!
Exploring the ruin of the French colonial era Bokor Casino Hotel in Cambodia recently. The Casino was fought over by the invading/liberating Vietnamese army and the murderous Khmer Rouge from 1979 onwards. Due to it’s strategic place and size on Bokor plateau it was invaluable to either side to gain an advantage over the other. In recent years it has been cleaned up and somewhat structurally improved- unfortunately removing most of its neglected charm, tragedy and history in the process.
Exploring the abandoned former French colonial era church on Bokor Mountain in Cambodia recently. In 1978 the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia, toppling the murderous Khmer Rouge in a matter of weeks. There was however a stalemate for a time on Bokor (and other locations) as the Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge battled it out- fighting between the church and nearby casino. In recent years the church has had occasional use- it’s first in nearly four decades. “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen…”
Images of the exterior of Christchurch Cathedral from a couple of months ago. The Cathedral was badly damaged in the February 22nd 2011 earthquake (and other aftershocks) that devastated New Zealand’s third largest city. It’s a surreal experience, the centre around Cathedral Square is mostly unrecognizable, apart from the iconic Christchurch Cathedral.
The Anglican Cathedral was built between 1864 and 1904 in the centre of the city, surrounded by Cathedral Square. It became the cathedral seat of the Bishop of Christchurch in the New Zealand tikanga of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia.
Repeated earthquakes have damaged the building (mostly the spire) in the course of its history: in 1881, 1888, 1901, 1922, and September 2010. The February 2011 Christchurch earthquake destroyed the spire and part of the tower, and severely damaged the structure of the remaining building. The remainder of the tower was demolished in March 2012. The west wall suffered collapses in the June 2011 earthquake and the December 2011 quake due to a steel structure – intended to stabilize the rose window – pushing it in.
The Anglican Church has decided to demolish the building and replace it with a new structure – a decision which has become controversial in post-quake Christchurch. Various groups have opposed the Church’s intentions, with actions including taking a case to court. As of January 2015 the judgements have mostly been in favour of the Church, with one more judgement pending. No demolition has occurred since the removal of the tower in early 2012.
There has been opposition to demolition, with heritage groups including the UNESCO World Heritage Centre opposing the action. A local character, the Wizard of New Zealand, made protests calling for the cathedral to be saved. Kit Miyamoto, an American-based structural engineer and expert in earthquake rebuilding, inspected the cathedral after the September 2010 quake. He cited his experience in stating that restoring and strengthening of the building was both “feasible and affordable”.
In April 2012, a group of engineers from the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering launched a petition seeking support of 100 colleagues to stop the demolition. They claimed that legal action was also a possibility. In the same month the Restore Christchurch Cathedral Group was formed and sought signatures for a petition to save the cathedral.
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.
October 2013: There was no point in trying to talk Gunner out of surmounting yet another obstacle- an historic abandoned suspension bridge.
The Cathedral is at the heart of the city, and this earthquake damaged building gets photographed by groups of ‘earthquake tourists’ constantly throughout the day. We had to be patient and wait for the perfect time to enter the Cathedral without being rudely interrupted- which ended up taking hours of standing around and waiting for crowds to disperse- for that perfect moment.
The Cathedral was built between 1864 and 1904 and has been abandoned since the February 2011 that devastated Christchurch with the loss of 185 lives. There is huge support in the city to see the Cathedral rebuilt and strengthened, yet the Anglican Church and the Cathedral’s bishop want to see this place demolished.
The damage to the Cathedral is fairly extensive, with the main tower already being demolished, we hope eventually it can be saved.
Explore completed alongside our friends, WildboyzUE from the U.K.
A video from a couple of years ago- wandering around the creepy ruins of an abandoned cool-stores facility in Taranaki. Happy Halloween folks 😉
This old college was a religious secondary school built in a religious “commune” solely by volunteer labour missionaries in the 1950’s who worked for the church. The school has a huge American influence as you can tell by the pictures, it is huge! The amount of things left behind is also astonishing, what a waste!
The school was closed when church leaders accepted that mainstream schools offered “quality education” and the school has started to be demolished to either be converted to farmland or some other future usage.
Our explore here began by cautiously entering a construction zone, in the past we had been greeted by angry residents who live on the commune and we were chased into a wet marsh behind the school, so this time we did our best to avoid that situation. After finding access presumably created by vandals, we were greeted by a huge American style school including full size swimming pool, gym and theatre, all without any signs of vandalism and the only graffiti being that of previous students to the school, making it the best abandoned school we have seen so far in New Zealand.
See our video too.
U R B E X C E N T R A L 