# A game of cat & mouse.....and fox



## Zero (May 24, 2008)

Being in England, clear night skies are a gift rarely bestowed upon us by the gods. So when one does roll along you'd be a fool not to snap up the chance to do something.

Since we've already visited a large majority of the "good" towers in London, we decided to go back to the Bishopsgate development. Since the last time we visited was over a year ago the building had come along way. Only one final crane remained all the main construction work had been finished and they look almost ready to decorate.

Access hadn't changed a great deal apart from a few new cameras forcing us to make a few "detours". We were thwarted by cars several time before we made our way into the side hiding in the darkness before we began our accent. Well that was the plan , just as we were about to move on we heard some talking followed by a worker/security guard? coming out from a door no more then 4 meters away. We sunk back down praying we weren't seen.

We waited several minutes before we deemed it safe to move off. We headed up around the corner and were just about to enter the stairwell when we came across a baby fox, who upon seeing up disappeared up the stairs.

We finally reached th 36th level and found ourselves on top of the air con fans. The view was amazing as ever, coupled with the perfect weather, it was a sight to be seen. I split off from the other two to photograph the east side of the building, but 5 minutes later i noticed Loops and Random sneaking around, and waving frantically at me.

"We've been seen!!!!!"
"What?, by who"
"A worker or something, there looking for us now!"​
Bugger i packed away my stuff an got a further explanation of the events. Workers in the building at 12pm, come on. We headed into the nearby stairwell and suddenly heard a door creek open 2 levels above us. We booted it down several floors looking for a place to hide. It was clear they were onto us. We managed to find cover on one of the floor with a view of the elevators which were descending down each floor with someone walking down the stairs....crap.

PING. The elevator reached our floor and the workers stepped out meeting up with those from the stairs. At this point there were no more the a couple of meters from us and needless to say i was sweating buckets. As we listened in on their conversations of broken English we realized if they looked in the windows they would see our reflections....

"Look over there, they came down here".​
I didn't even breath due to fear of revealing myself...

"They've gone" , "No a few more floors"​
The lift went down and the remaining workers continued down the stairs...phew. We kept down for another 15 minutes just to be sure and just as we let our guard down and started speaking we heard a mobile phone ring. Sh**, we must be done for now, no way in hell he couldn't have heard us. We prayed as the person spoke on his mobile phone. Time seemed to stand still until we finally heard the clunking of stairs as he continued down.

20 minutes past, the lifts finally stopped there movements, and we presumed it was safe to move. So up we went back to the roof. We split up with loops who decided to climb the crane. We were busy taking pictures for at least an hour and we were in the clear. We headed up to the highest point which involved a bit of a climb and took a few candids of loops.

Well i was cold and wanted some food so we decided to head down. Random was first to jump down and just as it was my turn he looked at me and said.

"A workers coming"​he smiled and then said 
"I'm only joking"​
Well thats what i thought he said anyway. I looked right to see a worker walk round the corner and into the lift machinery room. Turns out he was saying "I'm not joking". Amazingly just nodding at Random, i just down and we made off quickly passing another worker who did the same!. What the hell was going on. Once out of view we charged down the stairs and then thought. Fu** loops is still on the damn crane.

We couldn't go back up or wed be seen again, we frantically search the building for any bars of signal. Finally managing a "Get the fu** down now" call. We regrouped and headed straight for the stairwell, coming out at the 27th floor to check the lifts, only to see our dear friend Mr fox walking around before he ran crashing into a toolbox after a failed jump.

We continued progressing down, passing several floors with work going on before vaulting the perimeter fence and charging off into the night.

All i can say it was an eventful trip, one that i do not wish to experience again!!!!!.

a few pics


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## Pegasus2 (May 24, 2008)

wow, what a story 

That was easily novel quality.

And I can see the pics were really worth it, nice one 


Really good report!


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## NobodyGirl (May 24, 2008)

Fantastic report! Sounded really exciting  Great work! Love your photos!!!


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## Kaputnik (May 24, 2008)

love the write up! sounds like a thrilling night out was had
great pics too. hope the clumsy fox was ok!
really like the 4th pic down, with the curved reflections in the windows.


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## BigLoada (May 24, 2008)

Brilliant write up as usual Zero. I know that feeling of being trapped, that tension in the gut, its not nice. Class photos though, and the crane picture is very cool.


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## MD (May 24, 2008)

thats a great write up with good pics too


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## *MrB* (May 24, 2008)

Excellent work buddy, great report.. what a read!


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## Dr Zoidberg (May 24, 2008)

An excellent writeup and some stunning photos there.

I'm not envious (of the view , not necessarily the brown trousers moments) at all


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## **Mudlark** (May 24, 2008)

nice report, sounds like a proper game of cat and mouse.... well worth it for the views you got, the pics are stunning!!!


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## enrashid (May 24, 2008)

And the ninja award goes to...

But seriously, great report and fantastic pictures!


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## kernowexpeditionary (May 24, 2008)

the crane pic is spot on!


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## Silverfox (May 24, 2008)

Awesome, enough said really!


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## bungle666 (May 25, 2008)

ha ha ha ha ha nice one!!! theres nowt like a game of cat and mouse to get the the old adrenaline flowing!!!

nice one zero, top stuff mate!!

B..


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## iwaniwan (May 25, 2008)

amazing shots and story, would it be possible to get a exiff info from 1st and 2nd photo ??? 
thanks in advance


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## no1rich (May 25, 2008)

Fantastic.... Sounds like you had fun

Some cracking shots there. Nice work fellas


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## DogRecon (Dec 30, 2008)

Its not all about exploring derelicts. This is urbex at its finest.
Good work guys


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## swanseamale47 (Jan 2, 2009)

Great pics, bet you needed a pint after that! Wayne


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## tims (Jan 3, 2009)

Pic 4 rocks mate and a great report  you can't beet the buzz of getting away with the security run ins but at the same time you can do without them!


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## smileysal (Jan 3, 2009)

Excellent pics and an excellent but funny write up. Hope the fox was ok?  Didn't see this the first time around as the pc was bust, but managed it in the end lol.

Cheers,

 Sal


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## HairyHaggis (Jan 9, 2009)

WOW from a newbie member ... WB is perfect .... what did you shoot this with ???


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## scrappy (Jan 9, 2009)

pic 4 is the best well done and good report


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## Bunk3r (Jan 9, 2009)

^looking at the exif:
Camera Make: Canon
Camera Model: Canon EOS 400D DIGITAL
Flash Used: No
Focal Length: 10.0mm
CCD Width: 2.50mm
Exposure Time: 30.000 s
Aperture: f/10.0
ISO equiv: 100
White Balance: Auto
Exposure: program (Auto)


-it says the WB was on auto, before seeing that i presumed it was shot in raw and set afterwards, maybe it was Raw+jpg and just the jpg was auto!?! 

but yes wow is certainly a description of Zeros work.


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## HairyHaggis (Jan 9, 2009)

It is indeed.... guess this is my evening sorted .....

I never thought to check EXIF.

Thanks though for clarification.

Time to trawl the forum tonight, this is fab ... so much to learn from you peeps in here.


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## RichardB (Jan 9, 2009)

How do you get the EXIF data from a photo on a web page?

I can do it by saving the picture to my hard drive then checking the properties from there but there must be an easier way.


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## Bunk3r (Jan 9, 2009)

i use the firefox browser, i installed a plugin (FxIF) so i can just do right click 'properties' and it lists it there! nice and easy.


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## lost (Jan 9, 2009)

If you have firefox look for the 'fxif' add-on


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## krela (Jan 9, 2009)

Bunk3r said:


> i use the firefox browser, i installed a plugin (FxIF) so i can just do right click 'properties' and it lists it there! nice and easy.



I use that too, just bare in mind that some photo hosts strip EXIF data so it might not be available either way.


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## RichardB (Jan 9, 2009)

Excellent! It didn't occur to me that there would be a Firefox add-on for that.


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## Robster (Feb 28, 2009)

Bunk3r said:


> i use the firefox browser, i installed a plugin (FxIF) so i can just do right click 'properties' and it lists it there! nice and easy.



Thanks for that tip. Very handy!


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## Zero (Feb 28, 2009)

Ha didnt need to answer anything in the end


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## Trudger (Mar 1, 2009)

WOW so that's what the top of the world looks like ! amazing pictures, I would buy one and frame it!


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## purple-liquid (Nov 24, 2009)

Genuinely inspiring


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## Home Guard (Nov 27, 2009)

Tis' like something out of a james bond film


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## Midnight (Dec 8, 2009)

HairyHaggis said:


> WOW from a newbie member ... WB is perfect .... what did you shoot this with ???



lol newbie... hahaha ... that made me piss myself literally


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