mattandcess.com

Today we had a private tour at National Trust’s Orford Ness National Nature Reserve site. There were nine people in our group. Everyone else who participated was from Europe. The three of us had travelled the furthest to attend. Our private tour started with a short boat ride to the facility. We had a brief meeting, complete with hot beverages, to discuss the ground rules. It turns out many locals are unaware of this site’s former military history. Afterwards, we all clambered into a large covered trailer that contained benches and we were on our way. We toured and photographed approximately 10 different buildings. Since they were former military buildings, almost everything was stripped out of the buildings. Several hours into our tour, it started drizzling. And then it started pouring. We ended our tour a little earlier than scheduled and returned to the mainland. The majority of our group stayed together and we went off to grab some dinner together at the same pub that we ate at on Day 10. We talked about our previous experiences with urban exploration. We talked about the challenges of driving in foreign countries. We all had a good time. After dinner, Matt and Bart dropped me off at the Ipswich train station and I made my way back to London on my own.

Since I had already done some quick internet research the night before, returning to London by train was the easy part. The challenging part was navigating London’s Underground stations with a large suitcase and no escalators. Wow. Lucky for me, I was rescued several times by sympathetic gentlemen who helped me move my giant suitcase up several sets of stairs. The walk to the hotel was quite painless and took under 5 minutes. And then once again, I faced more stairs. Four sets of stairs. By the time I finished dragging the suitcase to the door of our room, I was practically hyperventilating and ready to pass out! After a few minutes of rest, I unpacked a few things, and then stepped out to a local grocery store to pick up a few things for breakfast. When I got back, I put on the kettle to make myself some tea. Just my luck: it seemed the kettle was out of order. Oh well. I will settle for microwaved water in the morning. I took a bit of time to clean my camera and tripod and then took a nice long hot shower. What luxury! In the morning, I will probably head to a nearby Starbucks to plan out my day and see if I can get any updates regarding Matt and Bart’s evening adventures without me. Good night!

Update on Sunday, October 21, 2012 at 5:16AM by

Cess

Day 11b: Would you like another slice of “pye”? No thanks!

I got an email from Bart, sent around 10:30am: “We’ll be dropping the car off far earlier, leaving now.” I had expected them to leave around 2pm, arriving around 5pm after returning the rental car by 4pm. Hmm ...

Matt and Bart’s adventure at Pye was less than ideal. It seems that my decision to forego this site was the happier one. Entering the site was time consuming, complicated, a very dirty business, and extremely stressful. It involved hiding in the woods, lots of corridors that were flooded with dirty water, noisy catwalks and ladders, and a lot of waiting around for vigilant security patrols to pass by. They were not alone: not only were there other explorers on site, but also a group of scrappers who had cut their way into Pye through some fencing. Dave and Lucy had spoken about how the security patrols had been stepped up recently due to people cutting the fences and stealing building materials. Understandably, the owner of the site was concerned and the additional security was put in place to prevent further thefts from happening.

Although they had arrived at Pye around midnight, they did not get to the pre-determined “sleeping quarters” until close to 3:30am. Trying to fall asleep with soaking wet feet is not an easy task, even if the room is warm. But sleep did not visit them for long. At around 5am, they all woke up, freezing cold. During the night, the temperature had dropped rather drastically. Luckily, Matt had the foresight to pack some additional layers and put them on. It wasn’t much, but it helped a bit.

When there was enough light, they started their exploration and photography. They watched as one of the security patrols burst through a door to the area they were exploring. Everyone scattered like cockroaches. The other group of explorers were dragged out of the room and removed from the premises. Matt and Bart along with the others were eventually discovered as well: another patrol had followed their footprints to where they were. It was actually a relief to be discovered. Not only was the patrol extremely cordial, friendly, and understanding, this allowed them to leave the premises without having to try and sneak out again. You can imagine my surprise when I got an email from Bart telling me that they would be back in London early. Well, now you know why.

Oh right. And as a tribute to Dave and Lucy, I should mention the three zombie guard dogs and the toad with rockets in the one very wet tunnel. No one was dressed as a Nazi, but there was one gentleman in a 50's pilot outfit, complete with aviator glasses. Strange but true.