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[Jondoe-264]

Good evening all,

Well it’s been a while (significant understatement) so I thought I’d take a poke around a few old online haunts.

Unsurprisingly my original account wasn’t able to be resurrected after so long inactive. I was a relatively active member of the forum for some years, having joined in 2005 and previously having been on the Dark Places forum.

Although I long since checked out of all the online shenanigans I never checked out of exploring, who does?!

It’s good to see people are still enthusiastic about poking their noses in places of intrigue and abandon.

*tips hat*

JD

 

[BikinGlynn]

Welcome back though Im not sure its still "evening" yep there is still plenty going on!

 

[wolfism]

Hi Jondoe, good to hear you're still active, welcome back to the forum. I'm sure there are lots of us who don't post that much about the places we visit anymore…

Incidentally, Section 61/ Drainor was a great inspiration and I've hung onto my copies. I don't think people appreciated that while forums documented the exploring scene as well as the places visited in the first few years, threads and photos disappear from the net, whereas the physical magazine is a historical document in its own right.

 

[Cuban B.]

Welcome. I remember reading your reports and seeing your Flickr pictures back in the day, it partly started my interest in having a look down drains.

 

[Jondoe-264]

Hi Jondoe, good to hear you're still active, welcome back to the forum. I'm sure there are lots of us who don't post that much about the places we visit anymore…

Incidentally, Section 61/ Drainor was a great inspiration and I've hung onto my copies. I don't think people appreciated that while forums documented the exploring scene as well as the places visited in the first few years, threads and photos disappear from the net, whereas the physical magazine is a historical document in its own right.

Thanks for the welcome back. It was always a bit of a double edged sword the whole online exploring community, at least it was way back when. Things appear to have chilled out a little from what I can see?

Nice to hear you managed to hang on to copies of the zines. Until a while back I didn't actually have a copy of the 2nd issue of Drainor, which was by far my favourite. I sold through them all without keeping hold of a copy for myself. Then amazingly I found one for sale on eBay, LOL!!!! Won the auction, it still had the badge too. Although I have no shortage of those, still, somewhere?!

 

[Jondoe-264]

Welcome. I remember reading your reports and seeing your Flickr pictures back in the day, it partly started my interest in having a look down drains.

Ah. Great to see there's a good crop of folks still about from the pre-social media era. You've got some awesome stuff on your Flickr! I'm not entirely sure why I keep paying for a pro account on there as I haven't put anything up since 2014! LOL!!!

 

[HistoryBuff]

Welcome back!

 

[night crawler]

Hi and welcome back. There are quite a few people still poking around places though I'm afraid I do very little now if any I'm a little too old to be risking it

 

[wolfism]

Thanks for the welcome back. It was always a bit of a double edged sword the whole online exploring community, at least it was way back when. Things appear to have chilled out a little from what I can see?

Nice to hear you managed to hang on to copies of the zines. Until a while back I didn't actually have a copy of the 2nd issue of Drainor, which was by far my favourite. I sold through them all without keeping hold of a copy for myself. Then amazingly I found one for sale on eBay, LOL!!!! Won the auction, it still had the badge too. Although I have no shortage of those, still, somewhere?!

Great stuff re. winning back your own zine, must admit I'm a squirrel so I hang onto a copy of anything I contribute to.

Yes, things on the forums have calmed down compared to the Mail Rail psychodrama a few years back. I think there's still plenty of excitement on Facebook exploring groups, although most contributors there seem to be happy to explore empty houses…

 

[Scattergun]

Hello JD. Its been a long time since I saw that name about, good to see it again. Welcome back. Like a few of the folk here, I'm another to have clocked up a fair few miles sneaking about places I probably shouldn't be, partly as a result of veiwing your own exploits.

 

[Jondoe-264]

Hello JD. Its been a long time since I saw that name about, good to see it again. Welcome back. Like a few of the folk here, I'm another to have clocked up a fair few miles sneaking about places I probably shouldn't be, partly as a result of veiwing your own exploits.

Thanks. It’s funny looking back with some objectivity at those early days of the online exploration community in the U.K. I confess I was guilty of engaging in the odd exploration of a bedpost nature; going somewhere for the sake of having been, rather than purely out of interest.

Thankfully I didn’t get pulled into that pursuit and mostly visited places I desperately wanted to see. I think the later, the competitive oneupmanship, contributed massively to the bitterness and infighting that put so many people off remaining part of the online community. Great to see things are much more chill now.

I stay well clear of the exploits of any social media exploration groups. Keep myself to myself but it’s nice to be able have a place to share a little knowledge/experience and be the beneficiary of the same from others.

 

[mcspringzy]

Hi JD, I remember your user name! Welcome back! Didn’t you have a website called sub… something?

 

[Scattergun]

Thanks. It’s funny looking back with some objectivity at those early days of the online exploration community in the U.K. I confess I was guilty of engaging in the odd exploration of a bedpost nature; going somewhere for the sake of having been, rather than purely out of interest.

Thankfully I didn’t get pulled into that pursuit and mostly visited places I desperately wanted to see. I think the later, the competitive oneupmanship, contributed massively to the bitterness and infighting that put so many people off remaining part of the online community. Great to see things are much more chill now.

I stay well clear of the exploits of any social media exploration groups. Keep myself to myself but it’s nice to be able have a place to share a little knowledge/experience and be the beneficiary of the same from others.

Oh the onupmanship is definately still there. Perhaps not to the extremes it may have been in the past but it's still there. Though like yourself I tend to keep largely to my own devices so I don't see a lot of what goes on. I drop in to the community every now and again as an onlooker but to be honest I rarely engage, if at all. This is actually the most publicly proactive I've been in quite some time.

I think most of us have been guilty at some stage of doing places for the sake of calling it done. Not for me. I find time contributes to the mentality of sticking to places you have a genuine interest in, in my case at least. I'd rather spend my time in a place that intrigues me. It's a slower but more enjoyable affair.

But aye, experience shared is experience gained as they say. And I do enjoy a chinwag and a war story or two.

 

[Jondoe-264]

Hi JD, I remember your user name! Welcome back! Didn’t you have a website called sub… something?

Yeah. It still exists. Hasn't seen anything in the way of a significant update for about 10 years but I keep it online anyhow. I may publish an archived version of the original site which had a few years of general exploration content. It is an interesting little snapshot of that era of UE in the UK.

www.sub-urban.com

 

[Jondoe-264]

Oh the onupmanship is definately still there. Perhaps not to the extremes it may have been in the past but it's still there. Though like yourself I tend to keep largely to my own devices so I don't see a lot of what goes on. I drop in to the community every now and again as an onlooker but to be honest I rarely engage, if at all. This is actually the most publicly proactive I've been in quite some time.

I think most of us have been guilty at some stage of doing places for the sake of calling it done. Not for me. I find time contributes to the mentality of sticking to places you have a genuine interest in, in my case at least. I'd rather spend my time in a place that intrigues me. It's a slower but more enjoyable affair.

But aye, experience shared is experience gained as they say. And I do enjoy a chinwag and a war story or two.

Naive of me to imagine that the competitive side of things would have shrunk back completely. With new folks coming in regularly I guess you'll always have some of that. People I still know and explore with from way back have almost all taken a similar journey, spent a brief time finding their feet, figuring out why they enjoy doing what they do and who they're doing it for, then stepped back and continued with more of the same on their own terms.

 

[Scattergun]

Naive of me to imagine that the competitive side of things would have shrunk back completely. With new folks coming in regularly I guess you'll always have some of that. People I still know and explore with from way back have almost all taken a similar journey, spent a brief finding their feet, figuring out why they enjoy doing what they do and who they're doing it for, then stepped back and continued with more of the same on their own terms.

I think that's the best way. Away from the endless competition. I prefer it. I get more out of the hobby. I think that's why I disappeared from pretty much all online outlets and only really pop up here every now and again. Just went through the process of re-evaluating where I go and why. I'm all the better for it.

 

[wolfism]

Yeah. It still exists. Hasn't seen anything in the way of a significant update for about 10 years but I keep it online anyhow. I may publish an archived version of the original site which had a few years of general exploration content. It is an interesting little snapshot of that era of UE in the UK.

www.sub-urban.com

Credit to you for keeping Sub-Urban online, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd like to see your original site again. The charm of personal websites from the 2003-ish to 2008-ish era was one of many things killed by social media, thankfully a few have survived…

 

[Jondoe-264]

Credit to you for keeping Sub-Urban online, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd like to see your original site again. The charm of personal websites from the 2003-ish to 2008-ish era was one of many things killed by social media, thankfully a few have survived…

Yes, I will definitely get around to putting an archived version of the original site online. I really enjoyed chronicling our exploration in the early 2000s, it became a sort of 'de-brief' to edit pics, write up a bit of something, etc.

Attached a screen grab of the last updated homepage of the first version of the site. I still kinda like it, in a nostalgic tiny box of a website kinda way.

 

[wolfism]

Great stuff, will be interesting to revisit your early explorations once you upload the archive webpages for 2003 and onwards. Funnily enough I was chatting to someone a while back (perhaps Scattergun…) about abandoned sites from the early days which still cling on. St Peter's Cardross, Millennium Mills and Shoreham Cement sprang to mind, while more recent closures tend not have the same longevity.

 

[mcspringzy]

Yes, I will definitely get around to putting an archived version of the original site online. I really enjoyed chronicling our exploration in the early 2000s, it became a sort of 'de-brief' to edit pics, write up a bit of something, etc.

Attached a screen grab of the last updated homepage of the first version of the site. I still kinda like it, in a nostalgic tiny box of a website kinda way.

this is the version of the site that I remember! Thank you for that blast from the past. Was it you that had done the storm interceptor tunnels in Bristol?