Follow My Tracks

Basisschool

It had not been a comfortable night in the Basisschool. The wind had howled and caught every loose door and window and threw them back and fourth on our hinges. The dust of the floor covered everything. No one could say they slept well. The building roared of our trespass, calling out in the hope that someone would come and oust us. But no one came. The morning was a calm and overcast.

We walked through the building in the milky morning glow.What had appeared to be sheets hanging in the dark were in fact the paper peeling from the ceiling in single pieces. Old notes, letters, and papers lay in mouldy boxes and strange shades of green, blue and pink covered the walls. A room’s floor was covered in sinks, dusty and covered in the webs of unseen spiders.

As it grew lighter we worked toward the ground floor and we started to hear the sounds of people moving around the site. Laughs, shouts, the rumble of conversations. We should be thinking about leaving.

Three girls appeared at the front door and let out a scream as they saw us. They had not expected us. We packed up our things and strode out across the back field towards the fence, the car and the next site.

ECVB

Which way in? We walked along the railway line, a much more open affair out in rural Belgium than the railways in the UK. We drew along the huge building and the chain link fence. We scaled it and landed the other side. A metal cover lay ajar exposing steps into the ground. A potential tunnel access? We nipped down quickly and had a look. Dead end. Back on the surface the only other way in was a broken window. About 9 inches wide we could just squeeze through head first and onto the dirty floor.

We were all in and then we heard the voices. Everyone else dashed for a side room and I stood there, not seeing what the others had seen. I see them wave to me. Come. I went and crouched with them. The decision was made to retreat and we escaped the way we had come.

Back to the car. A drive round, and a chat about the plan. Do we leave it for another day? Sundays are always quiet days? It was decided we would go and get some food and have another go. We drove round the front of the station, main gates to the side buildings wide open. We discovered an alternative approach. Similar but with less walking. As we crossed the fence, I was caught by my trousers. Could I life myself off the spike? No. Was I running the risk of skewering my balls on the spike? Yes. I pulled down hard on my trousers and they ripped all the way up the central seam. It would be a well ventilated explore.

A stop in Carrefour later and we were back and inside. We worked our way up a sawn off ladder and through more holes and into what turned out to be a large workshop. Tools lay scattered everywhere, but no way through into the main building. Back track a little and a mad dash across open ground and we were in.

It was stunning. A thick layer of dirt and dust covered the floor and we walked into the cavernous space. Large pipes covered the walls and a web of stair cases hung above us. It was like a giants music box that might at any moment spring into life and start to pipe a tune, waiting for its great maker to strike the button or wind the crank and allow it to splutter into life again.

This site is set apart because of its completeness. As we climbed, crawled, photographed and explored the site, I was taken by echoes of Battersea. The huge turbines lay silent and so little had been broken or damaged. We spent hours here, examining cogs, dials and switches, most of which were made in Britain and eventually we had to tear ourselves away. We could have spent an entire day here but there were other sites calling. We slipped out the way we had come. Time to change my trousers. Winch took the old pair and with great pride strung them up on the gate.

Eylenbosch

I have never been glared at as much as we were when we pulled up outside the Eylenbosch Brewery. It sits in the middle of a residential district and you can tell that it’s obviously a cause of problems to the locals. We drove round the other side of the building if only to park out of sight. We had sussed the way in and hoped into the small yard with minimal difficulty.

At first we thought this would be a dull explore. We found empty room after empty room and a small row of crumbling barrels, but we persevered and were rewarded. As we moved towards the roof space we found bottles in boxes, strewn across the floor, labels and scraps of what had once been a major industry. It is the little things that amaze as well as the big spaces. A once grand house at the front of the site now lay in ruins and small pieces of the lives of the people who had lived there lay scattered across the floor, books still in book cases going mouldy with time. Again time to move on.

Zonienbos Hippodrome

The Hippodrome looms out of the dusk as we take our stroll through the woods. The light was fading fast and we wouldn’t have long until it was dark. From a distance it looks as if it might still be in use. The modern built stand is not crumbling or really a ruin, but it lays there empty. On closer inspection you see the tall glass doors have been smashed and the inside of the building has started to be tagged. There is no sound other than the distant noises of the road.

To one side stands a tall red brick building. Narrow, with curved stone stairs to its front door and a balcony from which there would be an unrivalled view across the course. A box for commentators or some local dignitary. The place has a sad feel of grand days out that will never come again. The hippodrome is not far from anywhere, tucked slightly off one of the major roads.

We walked back across the fields and into the woods. The path was covered in frogs making their way towards the water and there was the dampened thud of golf balls that were hit towards the far bank.

Stella (Part I)

We arrived in Luven. We had been here before and failed. This time we were determined to succeed. Also we had planned to sleep here. It would be a very long and uncomfortable night if we didnt. We had to succeed. Do we walk the site? No – we did the obvious and it paid off.

Getting in nearly cost me a second pair of trousers. Luckily it would seem I escaped with a few holes and nothing else, though I managed to spear my thigh on a spike on the way in. We crept into the first building with an open door and started to have a look around. Nowhere really here that was suitable to sleep. There was a period where we ended up being separated into two groups. The dark plays tricks on you. Where have they gone, have they been caught? This was compounded by an epic mobile phone fail.

Once reunited we made our way slightly further into the site. An open door led us into a 1920s Art Deco building. It’s signs and posters told us that this must have been one of the last parts of this site to close. It was almost as if security should be patrolling, but there was no one there. The rain had started. We walked ourselves into a small office tucked out of the way and bedded down for the night.

Tomorrow the hunt for the way into the brew hall would begin.

All our journeys seem to start and end on Portnalls Road and this was no exception. I rocked up in my little car. We all looked so fresh and ready for the next few days. We crammed our kit into my car. It’s small boot brimming with the bags and cameras. We would have this packing and unpacking routine down to a fine art by the end of the trip.

In Dover we boarded the ferry. Spirits were high and a filthy bottle of whiskey was purchased. It would end up being doomed to spending the trip in the boot, no more than the first swig being drunk, only proving that you get what you pay for and this was shit.

Winch and Stat had done this before. We had been packed into the same car and across the same country. But GM was missing. It would transpire that at a very similar time he was cuffed in a room under the care of the New York Police Department. But that’s his story. We had a new arrival. Gary. We had met before on Temple, but this would be our first exploring ‘together’.

We drove into the Belgium night and headed towards our first stop and sleeping place for the night, Basisschool. Not too far from ECVB, we felt it better to kip here and leave early to give us the maximum amount of time at what we knew would be one of the highlights of the trip.

We parked in the sleepy Belgium town and crept around the wire fence. The building loomed like some angry monster above the more modern buildings around it. Shutters half open, as if it were watching us, watching the children who would attend school here in the morning.

The front door was open and we crept it and upstairs, lookingofr a room which would provide us shelter from the night. On the top floor we found a dry room with a dusty floor and all its windows intact. This would do. Out with the tea lights and down with the sleeping bags. We had arrived.

In just over 24 hours, the car will be loaded with people and kit and we will be trundling our way towards the South Coast, the Port of Dover and the Channel. By tomorrow night, four of us will be snoozing in a ruin at an undisclosed location in deepest Europe. It will mark the start of another epic weekend. Be Warned. We Are Coming.

I’m having one of those days. One of I-need-a-change-right-now days. In part I think it’s the weather which has not helped me prevent the setting in of the procrastination and then with the pending house move I am left feeling stretched a little thin.

What has happened in recent months? Not a lot and yet an aweful lot. The Degree steams ahead, work is it’s usual mix of highs (a few) and lows (most days) and the spaces in between the working week are filled with travel and experience, but very little time has been left for standing still.

Now I am not a man who likes to do nothing. The idea terrifies me. But I am feeling a bit tired right now. Not sleep deprived, but that I need a shift, a change, a jack-in-the-crap-job-and-sign -on kind of by the seat of my pants, head first dive into something else. Alas responsibility prevents it. Rent to pay, photography to enjoy and I am not yet at the stage where it’s a supportive career. Maybe soon though.

If the far away is close to hand in the images of elsewhere then the distant past is ever accessible and ever documented, but the future is only hinted at and unseen. We all know where we’ve come from. But where are we going? More importantly, where am I going?

Things to look forward to:

- moving

The creation of a space that feels like home and can be open to friends, friends of friends and people who just breeze through

- the end of first year

This has been a great year and a great step into the world of learning. Westminster has taken me in and made me feel at home and supported but it has been a big struggle juggling work and study and next year there will need to be an adjustment to allow more time to work. To think. To take pictures.

- Belgium Pt II

Only a few weeks away and four of us will squeeze into my little car for aprox 12 sites, 1000 miles and 4 days. This may be the start of that needed adventure.

- summer
Oh let it get here soon.

The most important point to remember is that there are a lot of people who have helped me get here. Taken me beautiful places, up high things and deep into the city’s dark depths. There are people who have bailed me out when things have been tight and there are some who have just been there to let mr get drunk and rant.

To you all – I am eternally grateful and i don’t say it enough.

Ta-ra for now.

T

With a heave the lid was open. Both its layers stood upright on the street. The flat steel top cover and the bars below. We descended the ladder and into the dark. There are no pictures to accompany this post. It is simply here to document the raw, fresh experience of being underground in London for the first time.

The brick tunnel floor was mostly covered in a slippery slime. A combination of silt, water and years of shit that was slowly decomposing. The rats scurried away from our lights as we walked along the ledges along the narrow channel of the stream. Things would float past us in the water.

Eventually we came to the point where the ledges stopped and we had to step into the shallow flow. As we walked further forward, a large fountain of water flew out of one of the walls and flew into the stream with a roar. There were other noises in the dark. Rumbles, crashes and bangs. Each one familiar but impossible to place. Was that  a car going overhead or was it someone else popping a lid? The louder noises were enough to terrify.

We walked deeper into the dark. Past ways out that had been bricked up. From one section of tunnel into another, the brick work subtly changing and eventually we hit a large iron flap. The four of us stood and looked at it. It was huge and a small flap at the bottom of the main gate let the water of the stream flow through. We put out hands and our strength to it and it budged by only a few inches. We could crawl through the flap? No. No one wanted to get wet. We back tracked to the last lid and examined it. It was rusty and old. We tried to force it and found it didn’t budge. Back another, the same.

We would get no further tonight and headed back to where we had come it. The first of us went up and tried to pop the hatch. It didn’t move. Second try. Not an inch. Attempt with a tripod? The legs simply slip. It took an interesting rig of slings to allow one of us to hang from the ladder to be able to apply the amount of force required to budge the gate but it lifted and we stepped back onto the street, looking undoubtably odd appearing form the pavement in waders, or me in waterproof trousers taped into wellington boots.

We walked back to the car and called it a night. This is something that will have to be done from the source end towards the end of the stream and not the other way round. Next time…