Hyde Falls & Myra Culvert - May 2010

[crippletron 3000]

Hyde Falls & Myra Culvert - visited by Ojay, Gone, Rookie, Jimmy Halfway & Nckt.

(Apologies for the POOR QUALITY, serious camera fail on this one sadly, as moisture and debris had affected my lens and my ability to properly manually focus!!!) - Perfect excuse to re-visit at some point in the future).

Discovered by Nckt & Dan Helsing a while back, we bumped into Nckt one night last month and it wasn't long before we all headed over to Hyde to check out his recent find.

Split into 2 parts we first headed for the Outfall in the Wilson Brook to check out 'Hyde Falls' which was down a rather steep embankment behind a building site, even getting into the the Brook provided a few grins.



(Piccy borrowed from Gone)

Once into the concrete box section, we headed up one by one, the roar was immense. Just to the left was the first of 3 falls, this was fed from a plughole above, which was impressive in it's own rights.



At the end of the concrete, the flow widened and picked up pace as we got nearer to the thundering sound of what we go on to find. This next stretch was rather rocky and difficult to pass (a real ankle breaker!). As I looked round Gone & Rookie were carrying a scaffold ladder that they managed to 'borrow' from the building site above... A bit later on this would prove very usefull

After one of the craziest routes I have ever encountered upstream it now opened up into this huge cavernous chamber, with 2 more 'Falls' a smaller one from the left and a GIANT one straight ahead. The noise was immense, we had to shout to be able to hear each other it was that loud. The view was amazing, and I stood still for quite a few minutes taking it all in as Nckt stood grinning whilst I was nodding with approval. This has to be one of the better drains I have visited recently.



Now then, wheres that ladder? Er, this was pure comedy trying to get up the 'Fall'. Slipping sliding, wader fails and breaches all in the mix as we managed to setup and send Gone up the ladder, quickly followed by myself and then Rookie taking his own FALL in the drink



(Again, piccy borrowed from Gone)

Anyway after several minutes of dicking around, or more like trying to cross the deep sump to get onto to the ladder which was no mean feat? we were all up.

We then decided to head upstream to check out the rest of the culverted Wilson Brook. Nckt named this next section 'MYRA', after Moors Murderer Myra Hindley, who once lived near to where the culvert is located.

The main chamber looks to be cut into sandstone, and covered with spray crete more recently to give it added strength, eventually it widens into a much more interesting stone tunnel, again fairly rocky and filled with assorted debris.



After around 400 yards it opens up into this much larger stone vaulted section,



with a smaller stone tunnel on the right



which shrinks into spray crete



before leading to 'Fall' No.2



It was very slippy here, and didn't help much with some serious flowage; I had to be careful as it was at least a 20ft drop down from the 'Fall'



Continuing upstream through this much larger brick tunnel,



which eventually brought us to this dressed stone Infall, near to where Myra Hindley once lived.



The journey through here was real tough, as it was littered with rocky debris, it was much worse in this section than the others.

After stopping for snacks and photos, we then decided to have a little mooch further upstream as it was now getting real late.

This next section was rather industrial AND stoopy to say the least, even bears a resemblance to 'Pipemare' in Halifax at times.








Another 200 yards in and we decided to call it a night and head back to the Outfall and fook off home (3am Eternal).

It's an amazing place and a nice little mooch. Props to Nckt for showing us around

[BB]

Even with camera probs, thats a nice set of piccys!

[crippletron 3000]

I'm gonna go back sometime within the next week or so and get a fresh set of decent piccy's