predator/aquacave.txt

File: aquacave.txt
Cont: Description of Aquacave, a recently discovered big drain in 
      Bowen Hills, Brisbane, Queensland, by <predator>. December 1999

Finally I had my motorbike back from the motorbike shop in Kew NSW (which had
the approrpiate name of "Far Kew") and could hit Brisbane again. I met Ogre
in his luxury Brisbane apartment an hour earlier than he expected because I
forgot to wind my watch back one hour when I crossed the QLD/NSW border, duh,
so he was still half-asleep when he opened the door. I said hello to Dirge
while I got the blood circulating in my legs again after sitting on the 400cc
Predabike for the last four hours... those gloves I found in Charity Creek 
room (under Victoria Road, Ryde) made excellent motorbikin' gauntlets. 

Brisbane had turned it on for me again. Rain, that is. I was itching to do 
this new drain that I'd heard Ogre and Trioxide raving about on the web ring,
but it was pissing rain. Dirge hadn't done the power station yet and was 
headding back to Sydney the following day and wanted value for her Brisbane 
Railpass dollar. We decided to have another look at the Tennyson Power 
station. We got off at Milli-Vanilli-Silly-Billy-Yeerongpilly station and 
trudged out to the powerhouse.

We scanned the perimeter for a secluded site where we could enter. Ogre, being
the big beast he is, couldn't fit through the tight squeeze which permitted 
Dirge and I into the sub-basement, and he pulled off a heroic climb up the 
bars and through a gap four metres off the ground, and also disposed of some
chicken wire, before getting in.

The place hasn't changed much since I was last there (see: Tennyson.txt) and
this time we went all the way to the very top of the roof, in the freezing 
rain and wind. There was an amusing situation where, at one end of the 
plant, we looked down at the dwelling where the security guard lives, to
determine the whereabouts of the guard dog which was responsible for the dog
shit distributed throughout the place. There it was, being fed its bowl of 
dinner, by none other than the security guard wearing only his black hipster
underpants and a wristwatch. Well, there's no likelihood of being busted here,  
we grinned, and kept exploring until we ran out of light.

                                    **

Dirge and Ogre went home to their rooftop party and I got the train to Bowen 
Hills Station, which is about 250m from the entrance of Aquacave. The entrance
is at the corner of Sneyd St and Campbell St, Bowen Hills (Gregorys: 250-F1)
down a steep embankment near a Queensland Rail depot. I got there in the dark
and it had stopped raining, but the tunnel spewed a torrent down the canal. I 
weighed it up: it's an unfamiliar drain, probably with a big catchment (turns 
out it services most of Fortitude Valley so the floating payloads could be 
unpleasant too) it's night time, the clouds are threatening, and if I go in 
there and it rains, I'll probably die. Aw, shit. 

Yes, the threat of death keeps <predator> out of drains, but only so he can 
come back the next day - which, fortunately, was on a bright sunny morning 
while the tide was out. It made the whole journey worthwhile.
 
Aquacave is the best drain I have explored in Brisbane. It is better than
Batcave, better than Brisbane Darkie and One Hundredth, all of which are quite
worthwhile drains. Aquacave is long, has lots of interesting rooms, ancient 
sections and shape changes, a nice loop, and is vertically user-friendly for 
almost all of its length.

The first part, up to the junction, is roughly hacked in a straight line 
under Sneyd St, straight out of the tuff, with cement-bevelled sloped 
bottom edges. At other points the tuff has been hewn into large blocks and 
these make up the walls. 

At the junction these bevels become too steep to walk on. You have to 
negotiate a large step to take the right hand fork, and it's loud due to all 
the water flowing over it. This fork takes you up the 2m concrete rectangular 
section to a large (6m tall, 20m long, 10m wide) arched red brick room beyond
which is another 2m concrete section, which promptly takes you to the grilles, 
which are probably in Victoria Park someplace and from which I have not heard 
any reports of an exit without two people to lift them.
 
I went back to the junction and took the left fork. The shape changes to 3m
high, moulded concrete with a sloping invert and concreted-in beams in the  
roof every couple of metres. This converts into a 2.5m old round pipe, which 
is soon replaced by a welcoming, much older and larger section with its
own natural lighting, and what appears to be bluestone block flooring and 
walls, about 2.5m high by 3m wide. This comes quickly to another junction, 
the right continuing on as is, the left is a debris-strewn 2m round concrete 
pipe, similarly well lit. 

I followed this round one through several small corner rooms, via a room 
which has a weird pointy-edge-upstream, wedge-shaped steel plate conduit 
duct, with lifting bolts on top, across the middle of the drain at about 
waist height. The round tunnel section then comes to a concrete room which 
connects with the old bluestone conduit section, and also connects to an
even older bluestone section 1m wide, 2.5m high (finally they got the height 
and width the *right* way around!) with eroded bluestone or brick floors,
and beveled top shoulders. I frequently placed my foot where I expected floor
to be, and only ended up landing at the bottom of a half-metre deep puddle, 
awkwardly loading my foot or bruising my ankle. 

This is a old, long, serpentine section, interrupted periodically by 2 x 1 x 3 
concrete rooms with new (1990s) manholes and stepirons. It is also interrupted 
by a strange concrete section 4m high, 1m wide at the bottom half, and 2m 
wide at the top half. Shape changes galore, and they don't stop there. Some 
of the bluestone wall sections slope gently outwards, and have these annoying 
iron cross-bars at chest height every few metres. Once the bluestone-upright 
segment ends, it is replaced with another shape change, first of the permanent 
shrinkers - a kind of dished bowl shape with vertical walls and a shallow 
domed roof. 
 
I was conscious of the time and the tide, and after a couple of hours up this
excellent tunnel I tagged up on some PVC conduit and headded home via the 
other side of the bluestone loop. On the way out I noticed the shape of the 
exit had changed - the dished bottom had been replaced by a flat horizontal 
line, which means one thing - tide waters... so *that* was where the name 
came from! I made it to the exit with water almost up to the crease of my 
butt cheeks, and I was standing on tip-toe for much of the wade out. With wet 
shoes it is a bit of a scramble to climb up and out of the trench, use the 
right hand side as you face downstream, and leave happy wet footprints up 
Campbell St as you return to the rail station.

G@tew@y Bridge will need nothing less than a battery powered angle grinder.
The bolts are about 12mm dia SS round rod, the site is very exposed and lit at
night.


<predator>, Cave Clan Sydney Branch, 22/12/1999