But for a long time, the Clapham Common bunker remained uncracked.

• +..Curish


• +..shamanic


• +.. hypnotic tekno

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We’d been there for perhaps forty minutes, and with a roar coming from the infeed on the right, the waters suddenly sped up. First they sloped up and over the edge of the walkway, then within thirty seconds they were flowing over the top and running down the walkways. With haste we packed up, and the others joined me from the platform on the right as the flow reached our calves and eventually our knees. We had two choices: either sit it out up high or aim to head down the 300 m or so we’d come up the tunnel and away. Neb’s bag was carried away, and we crossed the flow using slings wrapped round our wrists, the combined body weight of the group giving stability to the person deepest in the water. We shuffled down towards the exit with haste, the distance seeming far greater than on the journey up. Shadows and colours on the walls tricked us several times as we thought we had reached the exit but had only reached stained marks on the concrete wall. Eventually we reached the infeed tunnel and had to wade up through a waist-high flow, using an extended tripod to pull ourselves through to the ladders. We clambered up and out, grateful to be out of the sewer, as the thunder and lighting crashed around us. This hadn’t been in the weather forecast, and certainly not in our script.

The particular moment of action during an exploration when your feelings and emotions are overwhelmed by the potential for death – this is part of the addiction. The adrenaline rush of choosing the precise instant to tackle something unsafe, like climbing over razor wire, requires your entire body and mind, a complete engagement of the muscles, the viscera, the respiratory system, the skeleton. Blood pumps and pores sweat as you do everything possible not to be harmed. Often you realise you’re capable of far more than you thought you were, and the bar is raised. The necessity of action reinforces the power of the individual over the situation...
Bradley L. Garrett.