Abaddon

Seeing Nicholas always cheers me up, even if I’m not feeling bad to begin with. He’s, rare, I guess is the term. I don’t know anyone who is as open minded as he is, he listens and asks questions before approaching an opinion, honestly nobody I know is as patient as he is in that sense, he’s the last person to be righteous and god I admire that, I like people who are better than I am, it’s nice to have something to aspire to, not in a competitive way, I find competitive people exhausting and they find me deplorably lazy, so not the best mix, it’s more admiration and hope, seeing someone approach things with such sense and clarity, especially since he’s from the same sort of background as I am and he is the same age and gender, gives me hope for myself and others, it’s inspiring to look at someone in the same situation as I am thriving. Which is basically how I feel about Jeremy, I can’t fault either of them in any way whatsoever, which is great for me because I become depressed when I find people disappointing, golly that sounds bad so let me put it this way, it’s disappointing when the person you admire and like starts doing things that you find disappointing, I don’t mean it in a haughty way, it’s genuinely sad I think. Thankfully it doesn’t happen often.

We sit on benches and talk nonsense, which is nice, we’ve begun doing underground urban exploration again, I’ve even started bringing a bag with a change of shoes and tools when we go out, my mobile works as a torch, and I have some gloves for climbing if necessary, what we really need are bolt cutters and a car jack but they’re big, heavy and it’s one thing to get caught on abandoned/disused property but it’s another if you have a bolt cutters/pliers. It’s very rare we damage anything by the way, we’re always careful and try to get in without disturbing anything. 

We aren’t there to vandalise or even take anything from the site we just find those places interesting, there’s so much in Sydney that isn’t used or known about, great technical and engineering feats, war tunnels along the coast, giant maze-line drain system that are big enough to walk through which measure in the multiple kilometres if you laid them out in a line, underground oil storage/filling tanks for the old naval warships that are so big you can float around on in a little blow up boat, bunkers, gun forts and gun emplacements, even in the heart of the city there are train platforms and tunnels in disuse, plenty above ground too, tram depots, disused signal boxes, commercial train lines and freight train lines that aren’t in use anymore which go for kilometres even across bridges, manufacturing plants, power stations, telephone stations, ship wrecks that you can get to if you cross some bushland or private property, hidden parks, beaches that can only be reached through difficult bushland or by boat, railway construction yards, there’s just so much that goes unseen.

At the moment we have a bit of a problem as Nicholas has started working fulltime, he did a couple of days as a casual substitute teacher and they liked him so much they offered him his own full time class, but that means we can’t stay out till 3am on weeknights exploring since he always has to be at work before 8am, so we have to plan ahead, so we’re compensating by aiming for bigger targets.

We’re planning a trip soon but we can’t decide whether to visit Port Kembla down south to go into Hill 60 which is the largest underground tunnel/bunker maze in the state, it’s quite spectacular, people have been mapping it out for years and still nobody has completed it. Or whether to go to Leura in the Blue Mountains to try a little tea shop he found that serves what he says are the best scones he’s ever had, Nicholas and I love scones, and this place he found has a unique way of making scones, they’re baked in little terracotta flower pots, he says the top of the scone flows over and is crispy on the outside whilst the middle of the scone is doughy.

So we have to pick, scones or tunnels, it’ll probably depend on how hungry we are on the day.