A new challenge

mrodoc

Well-known member
As the number of new concepts diminishes I did think of something somebody could try that would keep them occupied for a while. The idea is to get from Land's End to John o'Groats by as many underground routes as you can excluding currently active railway or traffic tunnels. You would have to divide the country into Km squares and research each one to find any underground sites. In some places it might be sea caves, in others disused mines  railway or canal tunnels and in others natural caves. Twould make an interesting excercise!
 

mikem

Well-known member
Starting with the equivalent of the Pennine Way (or Coast to Coast) would be sensible. Problem is that many of them aren't through trips.

(Only about 45% of the tube is actually undeground - & he did say avoiding such things)
 

JoshW

Well-known member
mikem said:
Starting with the equivalent of the Pennine Way (or Coast to Coast) would be sensible. Problem is that many of them aren't through trips.

(Only about 45% of the tube is actually undeground - & he did say avoiding such things)

I assumed he meant avoiding walking through train tunnels etc.. :confused:

I reckon you?d end up with a tiny proportion of the overall route actually being underground like <1%
 

mikem

Well-known member
In that case you probably want to take the Northern Line, as it has a tunnel of almost 28km. Unfortunately, many of the longer tunnels run across the country (the Mineral Transport Line will be 37km from Whitby to Teeside) & the longest canal tunnels don't usually have walkways or allow canoeing (& some have collapsed)...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tunnels_in_the_United_Kingdom

The usual cycling route is apparently 1,400km, so 1% would be 14km - what would be our longest through trip?
 

grahams

Well-known member
You can get all the way from Thirlmere and Haweswater to Manchester via the aqueducts but you'd have to do it North to South to go with the flow. Then it's off to Wales for the Vyrnwy aqueduct back to Manchester.

Don't forget to take a snorkel or wait for a maintenance period (the Haweswater aqueduct is currently being maintained/updated).

Considerable lengths of these aqueducts lie below ground.
 

mikem

Well-known member
Similar scheme along the north edge of Mendip to Bristol - going to be a lot of drains & culverts in this exercise!

The most fun(?): https://arcelormittalorbit.com/whats-on/the-slide/

Many disused railway tunnels have been blocked: http://www.forgottenrelics.co.uk/tunnels/long.html
 

Alex

Well-known member
You would have more look doing this either in a mining area such as the Lakes or a caving/mining area such as Derbyshire. I bet its possible to do it most of the way across Derbyshire and ending up at Aldererly edge mines.
 

mikem

Well-known member
May just have to borrow an artificial cave & get people to move the sections round in front of you  :-\
 
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