Urban Adventure - Behind the Keep Out sign
New
to this site? Check out the Newbies
page, the Site Highlights, the Search
Engine and the Site Map
22nd
November
Well I've not been
doing much exploring simply because I've about explored everything there is
to explore around where I am now. I've also been working pretty hard. So I
don't have much spare time. I am also saving my funds to pay off student loans,
do car repairs and other mundane things. Most of all I'm also saving for a
much needed holiday.
But there's some
new things to the site. Wav files! Here are
some really old wav files that I created way back in 1996 when I first got
into drain exploring. Some of them sound really cool.
I also added about
20 videos I took in UA City drains earlier this year.
8th
September.
I am still suffering
from a really bad bout of the flu which has lasted 6 days so far. It's really
giving me the irrits. It's really bad, sore throat, head and my nose feels
like it was on fire. My throat is so bad I've been coughing up blood for a
couple of days. My doctor thinks it will eventually go away. I hope it will.
I feel like crap.
I'm also very bored
so I did some work on the web site in between coughing up my lungs and sneezing
my way through 3 boxes of tissues so far. The UA
City Hotel, Art School 1 and
2, and the Action House are online.
There are still several sites on their way. Previews!
Important!
I have noticed many images on this site were damaged when uploading. Please
email the file name of any images that don't load
or that don't load properly and I will fix them. Thanks, Panic!
17th
August.
The site has been
off line for over a month due to financial constraints and harassment. Expect
a few changes and updates to the site over the following month. Most noticeably,
any ISP or IP address that downloads excessive bandwidth from this site or
who uses site grabbing software will be banned permanently from accessing
the site. It's harsh, but excessive bandwidth usage closed this site in the
first place. If you like the site, you can now buy it on CD.
31st
May
Added another page
on UA City's Subway, accessible only to people who help fix errors on the
site. Also, remember the new Paris Catacombs section is still only accessible
by people who help fix errors on the site.
11th
May.
Been updating my
links. I'm a lazy bastard when it comes to
updating links. So I'm taking a long time to do it. It means revisiting sooooooo
many sites.
Many thanks to
the people sending in spelling and other errors to me. Much appreciated.
I have been doing
a bit of basic exploring. Finances are tight so exploring is only local. I'm
trying to save money for a new car.... Or a holiday....Or to pay off my student
debt.
4th
May 2003.
A friend and I
made a brilliant discovery almost by accident on the week end. I knew that
this thing I discovered existed, though I had been told it did not exist.
I had discovered it mostly by rumor. But even the rumors did not prepare me
for the sheer size of the thing. It was MASSIVE. More news after I have explored
it, if I get to explore it. In discovering it, I also found out another thing
I have long thought to exist does in fact exist. Though it is not really as
good as it used to be. Sorry for the mystery, all will be revealed in due
course.
Meanwhile, many
thanks to those people who have been pointing out errors on the web site.
All new content on the web site will now be available only to people who help
contribute towards this site's quality control by pointing out errors that
need fixing. I lost some of my email so some of the people who pointed out
errors may have missed out on access. If so, please email me back. Please
keep sending in errors, as I miss a lot of my own mistakes.
The latest site
content is the huge new Paris Catacombs section here:
http://www.urbanadventure.org/main/2002trip/france/paris1.htm
13th
April 2002
And now for some
good news! At Last :)
I have discovered
that almost all of the virus attacks on this web site are coming from servers,
not individuals. After spending a day with Sam Spade's tools and a nice big
guide to server IP addresses a friend in Telstra (Australian national phone
carrier) lent me, I have tracked down about 90% of the sources of these attacks.
Of the attacks I tracked down, more than 31% came from Road Runner and 27%
came from AT&T with AOL accounting for 14% and Sympatico in Canada accounting
for 4%. In addition, there were unnamed sources coming from China and Brazil.
I have come up
with a new method of dealing with these attacks which should dramatically
reduce the amount of bandwidth they were consuming. This means that many people
who were formally blocked from accessing this site now can access this site.
I really do sincerely apologize from blocking your IP addresses or ISP access
to the site, and causing you inconvenience. I hope that the new strategy for
handling this will work and reduce my bandwidth. I still expect the site to
run out of bandwidth at the end of the month though.
Due to the bandwidth
problem, all new sections of the site will be accessible by password only.
The Paris Catacombs section below is the first of these. The passwords will
only be obtainable via email. For now they will only be given to people who
help contribute to improving the quality of this web site by pointing out
errors. I hope people don't mind this too much. It seems fair, you do something
for me, I'll do something for you. :)
Big
Paris Catacombs update.
In other news I
was working on a big upgrade to the web site this weekend. 270 new pictures
of my travels in the Paris Catacombs and about 50 videos. Admittedly the videos
are not always brilliant quality. This will only be accessible by password.
I am going to make a concerted effort to do some quality control on this site,
prior to making it available on CD. So if you would like to see the new Paris
section please email me with the following information:
1. Information
about at least one thing that needs fixing on this web site. Things like spelling
errors, missing pictures and broken internal links is what I am looking to
fix. Please include the URL of the page with
the error and a brief description of the error.
2. Your web host and IP address (as
well as password access will be limited to hosts and IPs to prevent password
sharing)
If you want an
idea of what the Paris Catacombs page covers...take a look at this map: Pictures
and video of all of the major rooms and bunkers of the 13th Eme Catacombs
in Paris apart from Val De Grace. Plus video of the Offical Catacomb tour.
16th
February 2003
Mostly working
on background stuff recently. Did a bit of exploring and shot some new videos
of drains but they will not be online for a while. Finally updated the videos
page. There is now some 338 videos on this web site, well over an hour's
worth of video. With more to come. I also updated the site
statistics. Notably there are many pictures on this site that you can
not yet view as they are part of the section on the Paris Catacombs that I
am working on. I am also working on preview pages for the videos, which will
show a preview image of each video. That takes a lot of time.
I also added a
mirror site to this web page;
This page links
to images on this site, but the HTML is on a separate site. Useful for times
when you have trouble loading this web site.
26th
January 2003
I have done a lot
of updating today. I added a page on the abandoned stations of the Paris
Metro. I also added a page about the catacombs
of Rome and a page on exploring
in Rotterdam. I also divided some of the larger pages from my trip up
for faster loading times. I updated my page on abandoned
London Underground stations to include comments on White City. I wrote
a page on safety when exploring active and
abandoned railways. Finally I added a page about a series of WW2
Bunkers in UA City. All other pages had copyright information updated.
Some pages were spell corrected. There were also updates to key pages and
the site map.
16th
January 2003
I have been looking
at the massive amount of material still not online and expect that with my
currently very busy life I may not get it all online till after Easter. I
wish I had a budget for this site. Anyone feel like sponsoring a professional
urban explorer? Or how about a professional idiot? I keep thinking, I have
to make dozens of pages about the Paris catacombs, and the Rome catacombs
and the abandoned Paris Metro stations..... And I get home exhausted from
work and doze off to sleep.
At least now I
have some more videos online.
Videos for; Los
Angeles, Gary,
PSU steam
tunnels, VT
steam tunnels, New
York, Glasgow,
Rotterdam,
Germany,
Belgium
Paris
abandoned Metro stations and Rome
Catacombs are available now.
I was recently
asked by someone what have I explored? Not just drains, but how many of each.
Well to the best of my recollection, here is what I have explored;
Abandoned
buildings; I'm not sure, but probably over 30. Most are displayed on this
site.
Abandoned stations; 26 in all; 9 Above
ground, 17 Underground. Plus 4 abandoned rail tunnels. 4 AG stations in Australia,
1 in London, 1 in Glasgow, 3 in Belgium. 4 UG stations in Cincinnati, 1 in
Newark, 4 in London, 3 in Glasgow, 4 in Paris and 1 in Charleroi. Plus several
others I visited but were either open to the public or were not really visited
or documented properly.
Abandoned shopping Malls;
2. One in LA, and 1 in Chicago / Harvey.
Abandoned brickworks; 4.
Abandoned hospitals; 1
Boats; 3. Including an aircraft carrier.
Bridges 9. Some were quite boring.
Bunkers; 21. 20 in Australia and 1 in the
United Kingdom.
Catacombs 3. One (very big system) in Paris,
2 in Rome. Plus a short visit to the Catacombs of Naples which I don't think
are really catacombs in the true sense of the word.
College Tunnels; 6. 3 in Australia,
3 in the United States.
Drains; About 90. I lost count after
50. I have been in drains well over 200 times though as some are worth visiting
many times.
Mines; 3 abandoned ones that I documented
plus countless others in my youth. I lived in mining country for 2 years.
Space shuttles; 1. They're hard to come by.
11th
January 2003
Videos
now on-line!
I've been working
on the videos for this web site and finally have 94 available for public viewing.
I am creating preview images and individual pages for these videos like this
and this. But for now you can preview them
on the following yet to be spell corrected pages. Quite a few more videos
are on their way, awaiting approval to be displayed by people in the videos.
I expect all videos to be online by Easter, but don't hold me to that.
Videos for; Gary,
New York,
Glasgow,
Rotterdam,
Germany,
Belgium
and Rome
are available now.
Remember, if you
only are able to play the sound, and have no video you will need the Div-X
codec. I hate having to make people download add ons but many people should
already have this. Using Div-X I can compress videos to about a quarter to
a fifth the size of MPEGs. This is important when you have limited server
space and bandwidth. Also, it means that even with downloading Div-X by the
time you have downloaded a couple of videos you have already started to save
on download time. Lastly, with 300 videos already on line, and more to come,
you might want to get the codec which is only 3mb in size. I recommend you
don't get the pro version as it has adware.
2003
World trip Planning.
Having enjoyed
myself so much on my 2002 world trip I am considering another one this year.
I am hoping to visit more of Canada, such as Calgary and Edmonton drains,
Roswell missile silos, The abandoned launch pads at Cape Canaveral, New York
again to look at the World's Fair site and Bannerman's Castle, The fortifications
at La Caruna in Spain, Fortifications along the Maginot Line, The Paris catacombs
again, Berlin and it's underground, Moscow and the tunnels there. I might
also like to go to Alexandra and look at it's catacombs. I think this trip
will have a greater focus on Europe.
If you know a bit
about these places, please email me. It is early days yet, so I have no firm
plans.
Site
on CD?
Considering that
this site has now grown to be quite large, would there be an interest in being
able to buy this site on CD? The price would be quite cheap, and the CD would
contain extra content such as extra videos, other sites not online such as
extra road tunnels explored. I The extra content would not make it online
otherwise. I was thinking of charging something like $15 US, £10, €12 or $15
Australian. Depending on where you come form in the world. I know those prices
are not even when you take in to exchange rates, but as people get paid different
wages in different countries, and the cost of postage to different parts of
the world varies they end up being fair. f you are interested, email me to
let me know.
Copyright
update.
Note that while
some web pages do not have the year 2003 included in the copyright warning,
copyright on these pages and content lasts for 50 years after first being
published.
News
for 2002 is here
