Tales of the Urban Explorer: The Old Power Station
Look hard and you shall see. This is a great proverb when it comes to looking for Urbex access points. I should use it as my mantra.
It is so easy to miss something that is right in front of your nose and by doing so things become a lot harder than they ought to be.
While roaming around a suburb of Manchester unsuccessfully looking for a ropey looking DERP I had pinned via a postcode, @dizzydiscovery frantically jammed on his horn which generally means, ‘I found something that looks interesting’
At the time we were taking separate cars due to COVID-19, the slightly relaxed rules and I was in front with him tailing me in his oversized van.
After some reversing and parking up, we took in something that looked lost in time.
Next to this obviously abandoned set of buildings sat a fully functional power station. So the question was, was this the original one or had part of it been discarded?
The answers would not be forthcoming as I can’t track any information about even the name of this one.
We checked the fencing and found no weak links (or so we thought) and so made our way up a steep hill looking for some way in.
I brainlessly forgot my phone and so after finding a section of wall with a mere 10-foot drop on the other side, @dizzydiscovery volunteered to check out this jungle location and let me know if I should break my legs jumping the 10 feet as well as him.
I spotted him through the jungle infested trees on the way back up and decided to yell loudly, 'HOYYYY' in my best busybody voice.
It seemed to work and I had him panicking for a few seconds. He then went and told me to follow as there was something worth looking at.
How we were going to get back over this fucking wall was something to contemplate later.
How got I over this without spraining, cutting, bruising anything was quite remarkable. I hung on to a tree branch that fortunately didn't break while bearing my weight, grunting, groaning, and hoping it would not snap.
The wire fencing helped somewhat but the barbed wire was hindering me. This better be worth it!
After a few minutes of hacking my way through dense jungle that had seen little of mankind in recent times, I reached the first building and rekindled with @dizzydiscovery.
I was not expecting anything other than a shell, or shells as there were in two separate areas.
In every little section, there was an octagon-shaped stone.
This was an old power station of some sort once, there were many of these old electrical boxes knocking around attached to the walls.
There is lots of COVID propaganda about, not just here... I see it at many of these places.
Moving on to the other building we heard noises and figured someone was in there.
@dizzydiscovery spotted a couple of teenagers setting up a tripod for some photography. GoonTubers!
After a brief conversation and me pointedly asking them how they got it, the answer was thankfully not the same way we did.
They were new to all this Urbex stuff and warned us that cops drive by all the time and to watch out when exiting via the break in the Pallaside fencing around the front.
One of them was cool enough to show me. It just shows you need to use your eyes more when looking for weak spots.
So the Abandoned Power Station was not super exciting and had been a shell far too long to house any goodies.
This is what you get quite often when you stop at these ad-hoc ones. It is always worthwhile having a look, sometimes you can find a gem.
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It can be so easy to miss stuff. That's funny about the young YouTubers, the last time I was out with my mates we were at an outside pub thing and I was amazed because we saw a gaggle of teen dudes walking through the square we were in with a camera on a gimbal thing and they were live streaming and some girls shouted something at them and they were like join us at blah blah blah.
A mere half an hour later it happened again with a different bunch of teens , one of my mates was like We are getting too old for this world lol!
Once, I would never meet anyone but I generally assume its other explorers now. This pastime seems to be exploding and every bastard is doing it now..., girls too!
To be fair, they have always been OK when we do and usually helpful. In this case, it got me out without having to deal with that fucking wall again!
It's always handy when they save you a broken limb or two :O)
I know it's been bubbling away for some time. My brother in law has been doing a bit of it. At least before the COVID he was.
That's a cool one. Obviously popular with the graffiti mob. I do have to point out that the slabs are octagons, not hexagons. I wonder what as on them.
Thanks and changed, geometry was not my strong point at school. There were 6 or 7 all in these little concrete cubicles. The graffiti lads have been here en-masse but the location is not known within the Urbex communities as far as I can see.
Some great photos there! Looked like an interesting place.
I was hoping there might be some troves of gold bullion stacked away, but once again.. nothing but grafetti.. sigh.
I tried to imagine you climbing that fence. Almost like an Indiana Jones moment lol. You are so adventurous! You know, this building has a happy vibe to it. It might be due to the colorful graffiti or just because at every picture you can see the green foliage through the windows. So much green! I like this one!
From the roadside, it was a wall of around 5 feet. It was on the side you can see which was the problem. The drop was a little too far for my liking! I was most relieved to find that was not the only way out.
Hahah.. Quite an adventure. It is almost remarkable that you make it safe and sound after visiting these places. Some of them at the point of collapse lol
It's cool that you were able to run into some helpful people. I know in the past you have run into some more unsavory characters in places like that. The pictures are pretty cool. I would have expected to find the octagon stones covered in blood with some sacrifice having happened recently ;)
Its being with someone else that makes you forget the fear. I would have avoided them alone, no matter who they are.
Now that's drama, we need some of that!
Did you not venture up to the top by the coal conveyor? Few more bits up there
Have you been here before? it sounds like it. Missed the coal conveyor.
Yeah did it last year hartshead it’s posted somewhere
I saw it and remember now, the one with 'big dogs inside'. We must have missed quite a lot.
Yeah that’s it, there’s a few bits n pieces
Reminds me of the guy that climbed over the fence instead of using the gate hahaha.
So you risk life and limb to jump over a barb wire fenced wall and swinging on branches like Tarzan and two teenagers carry a tripod through a break in the fennce at the front??? Sorry but this is so funny!
Yeah, it's all part of the learning curve. Those spiky fences looking impenetrable until you look a little closer.
Agreed my friend, they say that where there is a will, there is a a way.
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Not super exciting but kind of beautiful. But I hate these thickets, have got a few ticks climbing on my skin some of these times