- Joined
- Jun 20, 2015
- Messages
- 36
- Reaction score
- 34
- Points
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Bank Bottom Culvert - Marsden
It's been a few frustrating days visiting many places, but failing for many reasons. Time to rethink the long drives and concentrate on some of my local venues I though. Like most I have a list, some places just to check to see if there is access, unfinished business at other venues and the odd place you keep on meaning to have a look at, but never do.
This place fell into the latter two categories; while looking at an old bugbear of mine I wandered past this culvert again. I remember seeing a report once and had thought about having a look myself, but got side tracked and it soon slipped down my list.
Roll on a few years, and after one fail under my belt today I decided to have a look at this as it was in the area. You can never tell what you'll find when you venture into a culvert, from stoopy crawls to huge passages, some just a concrete pipe, others fantastic brick or stone work. The depth of water is also unknown so I try and start at the downstream end as if I can get up something I should be able to get back down.
First impressions were good, just over 2 meters high and I see light about 120 meters away where there was a small open section as it passed under a road. The further you went in the more open it became, the roof was made up of the floor of the buildings above.
Looking back towards the downstream entrance, so far so good.
This is a 5 meter section which was open, the stream passes under a road at this point before being culverted for another 400 meters. Nice to have a bit of natural light to play with.
Time to continue upstream, the culvert remained about 3 meters high and 6 to 7 meters wide, plenty of additional strengthening pillars and beams were in place.
Picking your way up the stream was entertaining, sometimes the line to follow was obvious, but given the lovely tea coloured water once in the stream you couldn't be sure of the depth.
Large pools could be bypassed in the main, but the odd retreat to pick a better line sometimes made sense, up to now my feet had stayed dry and apart from the odd slip and slide things were looking good.
The next major feature was a light well which opened the roof again giving some natural light.
This also had a nice small waterfall and greenery.
Back into the culvert again and probably my favourite section, lots going on in here.
What I liked all the way along was the various pipes and troughs hung from the roof.
It was about here I had my first welly boot breach, shortly followed by a second one where I launched my camera and tripod onto dry land thinking I was getting a dunking!
Worth the wet feet for this part of the culvert.
This place just kept getting better, one of those places you smile at the start and finish with a huge grin.
Every few meters there was something of interest, a small feature or nice section of stream.
Things were going that well I thought I'd go for a selfie, at least the camera didn't get a dunking!
That was the first dunking in many a year, at least the water was warmish. The culvert just kept on being stunning, better still I wasn't too bothered about getting wet now.
All too quickly the light appeared again, that was the end of this trip. Just a small plastic pig was to be seen hiding from our PM, I wonder how many pigs will be found in dark places from now on?
Looking back down the 500 meters of fantastic culvert.
Well that's it. Lesson learnt is not to overlook stuff on your doorstep, this was one of the most enjoyable culverts I've done, surprised it hasn't ever had more traffic.
A cracking day out, making the most of a fail.
Cheers,
TLR.
It's been a few frustrating days visiting many places, but failing for many reasons. Time to rethink the long drives and concentrate on some of my local venues I though. Like most I have a list, some places just to check to see if there is access, unfinished business at other venues and the odd place you keep on meaning to have a look at, but never do.
This place fell into the latter two categories; while looking at an old bugbear of mine I wandered past this culvert again. I remember seeing a report once and had thought about having a look myself, but got side tracked and it soon slipped down my list.
Roll on a few years, and after one fail under my belt today I decided to have a look at this as it was in the area. You can never tell what you'll find when you venture into a culvert, from stoopy crawls to huge passages, some just a concrete pipe, others fantastic brick or stone work. The depth of water is also unknown so I try and start at the downstream end as if I can get up something I should be able to get back down.
First impressions were good, just over 2 meters high and I see light about 120 meters away where there was a small open section as it passed under a road. The further you went in the more open it became, the roof was made up of the floor of the buildings above.
Looking back towards the downstream entrance, so far so good.
This is a 5 meter section which was open, the stream passes under a road at this point before being culverted for another 400 meters. Nice to have a bit of natural light to play with.
Time to continue upstream, the culvert remained about 3 meters high and 6 to 7 meters wide, plenty of additional strengthening pillars and beams were in place.
Picking your way up the stream was entertaining, sometimes the line to follow was obvious, but given the lovely tea coloured water once in the stream you couldn't be sure of the depth.
Large pools could be bypassed in the main, but the odd retreat to pick a better line sometimes made sense, up to now my feet had stayed dry and apart from the odd slip and slide things were looking good.
The next major feature was a light well which opened the roof again giving some natural light.
This also had a nice small waterfall and greenery.
Back into the culvert again and probably my favourite section, lots going on in here.
What I liked all the way along was the various pipes and troughs hung from the roof.
It was about here I had my first welly boot breach, shortly followed by a second one where I launched my camera and tripod onto dry land thinking I was getting a dunking!
Worth the wet feet for this part of the culvert.
This place just kept getting better, one of those places you smile at the start and finish with a huge grin.
Every few meters there was something of interest, a small feature or nice section of stream.
Things were going that well I thought I'd go for a selfie, at least the camera didn't get a dunking!
That was the first dunking in many a year, at least the water was warmish. The culvert just kept on being stunning, better still I wasn't too bothered about getting wet now.
All too quickly the light appeared again, that was the end of this trip. Just a small plastic pig was to be seen hiding from our PM, I wonder how many pigs will be found in dark places from now on?
Looking back down the 500 meters of fantastic culvert.
Well that's it. Lesson learnt is not to overlook stuff on your doorstep, this was one of the most enjoyable culverts I've done, surprised it hasn't ever had more traffic.
A cracking day out, making the most of a fail.
Cheers,
TLR.
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