River Ravensbourne, November 2007

Following on from some indepth recce's of this river, I arranged to finally crack it with a friend. We planned our exploration with the weather in mind and picked a real nice day. "You sure you want to do it?" I asked him, as we climbed into the outflow. Once we were in we set up our tripods and started taking a few photos immediately. Despite this bit just being a concrete pipe - it was rather nice looking in places.

Soon we were by the railway bridge, Here we had to be careful due to the playground next door. Even though I had my hi-viz on (Which later proofed to be a good decision), I didn't really want to be seen.

We used this time to stretch our backs as we had been walking in a tunnel that was below our shoulder height up until now. Plus, Wearing a rucksack meant our backs had to be even lower!
Soon we were off again and walking towards the junction. Once we got here we decided to put all our camera equipment back into my rucksack inside a few bags. We where going to take a "short cut" through a 2 foot tunnel.

Unfortunately, this 2 foot tunnel merely aggravated our hands and knees and was actually LONGER then the other route. Plus, The other route was pretty much dry aswell! Still - It all adds to the fun.. :P

Once here we laid up for a while, had some sweets and then moved on. We moved off to where we had known there was a large brickwork section. This section was truly awe-inspiring. No photo will do it justice. The excitement that I felt when I turned the corner and saw it was immense!

Unfortunately this only went on for about 50 meters or so before the river became exposed by an office block. We heard voices there, so once again - we laid up for a while and gave them time to go.

When we got out of the brickwork section we were greeted by the most calm looking pool of water that I've ever seen. This was the deepest bit of the river - even this was only about a foot deep.

Once in here we where met by a dividing wall, Which I am pretty sure didn't actually take a different path but was just there to support the tunnel. These where around every 100 meters or so.

From here we put our camera equipment away again and moved up. This involved alot of crawling - Which I am thankful for my maglite about. I had submerged it in water, dropped it on the concrete, banged it on the floor as I crawled about - and it still worked flawlessly.

In the end we seemed to have been moving for ages in the same old square pipe, so rather depressingly we decided to move back.

Retracing our steps and stopping to take photos every few meters, eventually we got close to the calm pool of water. We stopped to sit on a wooden barrier [Wood in a river? I must be mistaken] - This also allowed us to rest our backs which were now aching really badly from the torture we had put them through!

Eventually we reached the calm pool of water. This was also overlooked by a walkway from a nearby rail station which added to difficulties getting out. When it seemed suitable, I got out of the pool and up the side to take some photos.

As I took a photo of a nearby CCTV camera my attention was drawn to a parking attendant at th other side of the car park who had just looked over. Quickly we jumped back down, grabbed our stuff and made for the brickwork section again.

Here we had yet another break before re-tracing our steps too the 2 foot tunnel. Stopping for numerace "M&M breaks" and photo breaks. This had to be the driest bit of the river.

Instead of taking our 2 foot tunnel "short-cut" back, we decided to walk the "long way". [Which, Looking at a map is roughly the same distance.. maybe shorter. Oh, and it was dry.] When we got back onto the main branch of the river we were at another rising, where the river became ground level. Except here it ran through peoples gardens! People had put little bridges up over the river so they could access the end of their gardens. This all looked very.. erm.. "Pretty"!

From there we walked a little distance back down to the railway bridge, had our last break - then walked the final 150ish meters to the outflow.

When we got there we patted ourselves on the back for a job well done!

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