Seaham, Dalton, A19 Culverts, or I also could have entitled this report as “Two mentalists, a dinghy and a length of ropeâ€â€¦ this will become clearer as you read on.
First inspired by Horus/Renrutt/Bunk3r/Goan, this has been on my list to do for ages and was nice to finally visit these culverts in full, as previously Id only ever done small sections at a time on my own and also with Stranton and Sed.
Visited with Stranton – thanks for the help and especially with THAT waterfall (!)
Decided on starting off at the Seaham beach end of culverts and work inwards.
This comes out at Rockhouse Dene. The next section was at first a flat boring type of roofed culvert, but it was deep enough for me to paddle through in my dinghy, which was great fun and also probably to much bemusement of private landowners and locals who must have wondered about two people carrying a dinghy, oars and a spotlight across the road. I did try taking a photo, but its pretty hard to stabilise a tripod when your floating around underground .. anyway, the dinghy would certainly came in handy later on in the day.
That section done, it was time to head up the stream to the next part. It was interesting to see the difference between the old stone walled tunnel and the newer (not as pretty) concreted part.
Time now, to hop into the car and onto the final destination at Dalton, off the A19 road. Now this, was always going to be tricky.. as I knew from previous reports about an open-air section roofed with a metal grid, deep water and a waterfall. So, we had the idea of going across the top and tying a rope to push it down through the grid where we could catch it and climb up the waterfall.
First, a trek through the tunnel
Then daylight again as we reached the fast flowing waterfall bit. Stranton got absolutely drenched… but I took the more leisurely route across in the dinghy, as wading across and sinking into the silt.. it would have been hip height for me and no way of hoisting myself up the waterfall. General note-to-self: getting too close to a waterfall tends to fill up the dinghy with water and dinghys are precarious “stepping stones†to stand up in.
View from above the waterfall… and yes, Delbert the Dinghy had decided he was bored with waiting there and proceeded to float back to the other end…
Down this tunnel, same concrete type as before, but then we came across a huge ladder… which went up three sections to a manhole lid at the top. It was pretty difficult to perch on the slippery ledge so only got a shot of the ladder and the view down from the first section. On hearing a rather ominous rumbling sound, and realising we had to head ALL the way back, we decided it was time to leave.
All in all, I was really pleased I did this. It made a change from my usual haunts of asylums.. and I already have plans for “Delbert the dinghy†for the future.
First inspired by Horus/Renrutt/Bunk3r/Goan, this has been on my list to do for ages and was nice to finally visit these culverts in full, as previously Id only ever done small sections at a time on my own and also with Stranton and Sed.
Visited with Stranton – thanks for the help and especially with THAT waterfall (!)
Decided on starting off at the Seaham beach end of culverts and work inwards.
This comes out at Rockhouse Dene. The next section was at first a flat boring type of roofed culvert, but it was deep enough for me to paddle through in my dinghy, which was great fun and also probably to much bemusement of private landowners and locals who must have wondered about two people carrying a dinghy, oars and a spotlight across the road. I did try taking a photo, but its pretty hard to stabilise a tripod when your floating around underground .. anyway, the dinghy would certainly came in handy later on in the day.
That section done, it was time to head up the stream to the next part. It was interesting to see the difference between the old stone walled tunnel and the newer (not as pretty) concreted part.
Time now, to hop into the car and onto the final destination at Dalton, off the A19 road. Now this, was always going to be tricky.. as I knew from previous reports about an open-air section roofed with a metal grid, deep water and a waterfall. So, we had the idea of going across the top and tying a rope to push it down through the grid where we could catch it and climb up the waterfall.
First, a trek through the tunnel
Then daylight again as we reached the fast flowing waterfall bit. Stranton got absolutely drenched… but I took the more leisurely route across in the dinghy, as wading across and sinking into the silt.. it would have been hip height for me and no way of hoisting myself up the waterfall. General note-to-self: getting too close to a waterfall tends to fill up the dinghy with water and dinghys are precarious “stepping stones†to stand up in.
View from above the waterfall… and yes, Delbert the Dinghy had decided he was bored with waiting there and proceeded to float back to the other end…
Down this tunnel, same concrete type as before, but then we came across a huge ladder… which went up three sections to a manhole lid at the top. It was pretty difficult to perch on the slippery ledge so only got a shot of the ladder and the view down from the first section. On hearing a rather ominous rumbling sound, and realising we had to head ALL the way back, we decided it was time to leave.
All in all, I was really pleased I did this. It made a change from my usual haunts of asylums.. and I already have plans for “Delbert the dinghy†for the future.
Cat.
