# On le road again, part deux. (metro, steel, trains, prohobo, no dead animals)



## dsankt (May 20, 2010)

The little-known, incomplete metro system of Dadizelle remains as such because Dadizelle, other than a pimping amusement park and a nice church has nothing to offer.





The citizens don't need mass transit as a) 20 residents does no constitute 'mass', and b) there's nowhere worth going other the aforementioned landmarks. We arrived at the enormous pit - near 20m across, dropping 30 odd meters into the earth. A pale glow in the bottom oulined the tunnel portals, wet succulent holes drawing us closer with the siren song of fat teselating concrete rings. Attentive readers will remember we left our SRT kit in paris. In fact we lacked all srt kit except for one carabiner ds clips to his packback for haulage (or he's just one of those cocks whose christmas tree of a backpack is covered in annoying, clinking biners, perhaps ready for emergency attachment of a colostemy bag to save the embarassment of soiled pantalons when ironically, security catch them because of clinking metal carabiners...). The tease, the promise, the chance for major league geiser inducing bustage was too great. Redundant SRT gear would be bought, credit card debt be damned. Motherfucking metro would be demolished. Aggregated Explore Count: 10.5

--- intermission of amsterdam, srt kit purchase, beaver dam exploration ---

It's known by various names, but to us the unfinished metro of Dadizelle always be the Pit of Sarlat, home of the great Bukkake Beast. It's pure metro filth. Drenched to the bone in the rain and cold we threw down a shitty old towel for edge prot and dropped in. I'll spare the words, the pictures (or it didn't happen, ha!) say it all.






photo: snaapppeeeeellllllll





















Around dawn we emerged from That Pit and drove wearily to Villa Josephine, some tipoff we'd pulled out of our ass or the ass of the internet, nobody knows. In short the building was squatted by a bearded hippy babbling in some language neither english, french nor dutch so we gave up and dropped the pedal towards t-fo. It was fucking failure on all sides. Access was found after a lengthy game of trial and error, by which time a group of schoolkids arrived with hardhats, backpacks (containing no more than 2 beers) and proceeded to climb 1/3 up the chimney to complete an aerial ropes course in full view of our access point. Congrats on reaching the top, currently awaiting report. Entrance pwned, we bailed, shit sucked. I don't even remember where we slept, if we did at all. Aggregated Explore Count: 25 (0.5 for the outter buildings of tranfo).









Unrefreshed from sleeping wherever the fuck we slept we took our first serious business tip from Slyv's tipjar and it sent us south to an active steel mill sitting on standby due to economic conditions and the reduced demand for steel. A long elevated daylight conveyor stroll above traffic had us rolling tensly, the dice teetering close as could be to the table's edge. At every opportunity we hid and assessed our position, peeking through holes in the sheet metal for indications we were safe. A 100m traverse took us nearly 30 minutes. Another hour passed to ensure the roaming security patrol and the nearby sirens weren't looking for us before venturing deeper into the warren of pipes and conveyors spanning the site.





Through the tangled mess we snaked in the dark, stopping at every junction to listen for signs of security or other activity. Hearing and seeing nothing we took nervous steps up the massive blast furnace. It's a surreal feeling to be in a space which is in full working condition, but deserted. The tools lay exactly where they workers had put them down, piles of raw materials and spare parts sat organised and sorted. With the flick of a few switches (and the presumably complex furnace ignition procedure) the entire plant could spring to live tomorrow were the demand for steel to boom overnight. This would of course take time but we entertained the thought of the whole plant firing up around us. That would have been fun.

Finally we spotted security in a large glowing hut way below us on the opposite side of the furnace. No sooner had we determined we were safe did a huge siren somewhere in the complex start wailing. We hauled ass, packing photogear as we ran down the stairs 2 at a time back into the dark maze.













That night, exhausted and covered in black steel mill dust we checked into a Formule 1 and processed to obliterate their bathroom, turned all the towels black then crashed out on a dinner of cheap wine and cider. Felt nice! Aggregated Explore Count: 149

The great thing about Belgium and europe in general is that nothing is too far apart. Driving 10 hours from sydney to brisbane for a weekend sounds perfectly reasonably in australia so crossing a european country for a powerstation (or two) in europe makes perfect sense.
































Don't smoke, shit explodes









Sleeping Arrangements. Aggregated Explore Count: 1,645





Photo: snaps

To those familiar with the abandoned delights of Belgium the following will provide nothing you've not seen before.

Stella - a fun explore. Clear evidence of scrapping.













Bonus brewery - surprise!





Hasard Cheratte - played the fuck out. Full of tourists including (best to worst) Large group of army camo clad explorers, german dereliction tourist, husband and wife combo shooting bad fashion photos of 2 girls, us. To make the location more exciting we had a beer fight and annoyed the hornets.





Chartreuse - got drunk, made the location no more interesting.

Pool - decent, had a penguin in a canoe.













We camped out again on the Slyv's roof for our last night, returned the hire car and reboarded the bus to Paris and à l'institut de BHV. The roadtrip was ending like it began, retarded and drinking cider on a bus. Belgium had confirmed its reputation to us and there's a good reason why so many explorers make Belgium a destination. There's a ton of decent but easy sites and security seem limited or non-existant, plus harder sites for those willing to risk a little more. I'm not sure I'll spend much more time there howerver the opportunity cost is just getting to high and the returns are diminishing. As always though, the continent delivers great exploring, great food, cheap wine and superior clunge. Typically in that order. 

Surely nobody is still reading rambling, oh talking to myself again ah ha! oooookay listen up geezers: explore is not a noun. Shouts to snaps, marc, slyv, Trains and hount, those who fed us kipsate until we burst, phenomenon for sick words.





ps. Aggregated Explore Count: 15,092 okay 15,091. That crypt doesn't count.


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## vwdirtboy (May 20, 2010)

Absolutely lush! top report fella


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## tommo (May 20, 2010)

sequal's normally fail but in this case i think u have broken the rule fella, loving the tunnel shots, another great account of some wicked exploring, the pics are fantastic


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## Foxylady (May 20, 2010)

Totally love the steel mill...brilliant! Lol at the pixilated penguin. 
Great stuff as always, Dsankt.


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## Deegee99 (May 21, 2010)

As said a cracking sequel, thanks for this


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## Derek (May 21, 2010)

OK, only one very simple, short question about the Dadizelle metro:

WHY?

I mean it must have been built with some idea in mind other than a desire to overcater in terms of transport? I suppose it might come in useful at some point in the future - or is it an extreme case of a dying town?

Derek


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## TK421 (May 22, 2010)

Really enjoyed reading your report, and your photos are stunning.


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## msmetalundead (May 22, 2010)

very cool, thanks for posting this.


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## Derek (May 23, 2010)

Hmmm.... I think the reason the metro of Dadizelle is so little known is because it's actually in Antwerp.

[ame="http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main/showthread.php?t=13442"]Clicky[/ame]




Derek


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## dsankt (May 24, 2010)

See a chiropractor man, super sleuthing like that's gonna ruin your back.


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## j-bird (May 24, 2010)

No, definitely Dadizelle...

http://pridian.net/p/208


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