The Camden Catacombs 17/06/1872

[rookinella]

Fifteen men on a dead man's chest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

At high tea on the seventeeth of this fair month, three intrepids set sail on a bonny boat named "The Orange Pearl" for a voyage fraught with danger of every kind. Wild water beasties (woodlice), busking frenchmen, hidden ducks and a bunch of scallies moored up outside the shelter for waifs and strays.

The Orange Pearl
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The crew was made up of Captain Marmite who they say smells and tastes of twiglets and arrrr this is how he got his name. He was a man of many morals although fell by the wayside when it came to selling drawings of one particular famous pirate known as First Maid Brittania Spearsbeard. He was a bit of a loose canon, so he was, but full of spirit and a grand leader. Owner of The Orange Pearl and in charge of Roger the Cabin Boy who was a master at controlling the high seas with green river snakes to guide the ladyship.

Snaaaaake!!! Snaaaakeee!!!
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Lastly was First Mate Nelly Rookinellaaarrrrrrr who was a brave young thing who couldn't swim but they brought her along to carry the sweets. Folklore says that having a woman aboard was bad luck.....even a miniature one..arrrrr!

First Mate Nelly Rookinellaarrrrr
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Roger the Cabin Boy was the first to test the waters paddling with a tupperware lid (or the 1800s equivalent). Captain Marmite fed the green river snakes out to Roger to test the length of battle-approximately two hours/knots/logs. Roger gave a tug on the rope and indicated that treasure lay beyond the arched caverns.

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Ahoy!! It was Nelly Rookinellaarrr's turn next who had taken extra precautions with bouyancy aids to ensure that she would not fall into the water and get eaten by the Dreaded Kraken....

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Last of all to cross was the Captain who the devious cabin crew left without a paddle and a headlight so he had to sail in darkness with crocodiles snapping at his tail.

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Captain Marmite preferred a ye olde approach to lighting and navigated his way through the tunnels with just a candle. It had absolutely nothing to do with him forgetting to bringing his own pirate lighting source.

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Inside the trio of pirates discovered caverns of treasure that extended far beyond what they had expected. They ran around pilfering gold, drinking rum and taking advantage of young ladies. Nelly Rookinellarrr managed to capture these images on her magical pirate camera that was stolen off some poor soul.

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Fifteen men of the whole ship's list
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Dead and bedamned and the rest gone whist!
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

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Fifteen men of 'em stiff and stark
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Ten of the crew had the murder mark!
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

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Amongst the rum and plunder, Captain Marmite and Roger the Cabin Boy were having a disagreement. Roger had stolen the Captain's parrot and stuck a candle inside it for he hadn't quite worked out that as well as light coming from fire, heat was another side-effect. The parrot exploded and Captain Marmite let off one of his canons!

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However it soon became clear that Roger the Cabin Boy was a lot stronger the Captain Marmite and he soon overpowered him, tied him up and took a photo to put on facebook.

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Nelly Rookinelllaaar, always mutinous and never one to miss a fight, joined in with her trusty sword and held the Captain in her vice like grip. With their plan to overthrow the feudal dynamics of The Orange Pearl's crew, they gathered up the rest of the treasure and bundled the captain into the boat to sell him to the seagulls.

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The three tired pirates sailed off under the bridge and into the sunset to meet crowds of rowdy supporters welcoming them home on their victorius voyage.

Arrrrghhh mission accomplished!
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[wilshure]

whats the bit at the end that looks to be being renovated?

[rigsby]

Cool. How much did you get off the seagulls for Captain Marmite?

[Winchester]

Can your reports get ANY wierder?

[God]

Thats quality!! :thumb

[rookinella]

Cool. How much did you get off the seagulls for Captain Marmite?

30 pieces of silver!...and some sheep :)

Can your reports get ANY wierder?

I'm just getting warmed up!!

[LiamCH]

ARGH! I don't believe it. I've been planning to do this one for several months, only to be thawted by the arrival of a new member who told me that she'd tried to get in, only to find it'd been sealed. Back to the drawing board, I suppose.

Is something happening to these now? I know some of the other tunnels that were in use as shops and such are now being demolished. I hope these aren't suffering the same fate? It's an incredible place.

[concreteJungle]

Loving the old school commentary, mad hectors! Nice snaps too!

[Ogof]

Always a very entertaining read!

[styru]

Can your reports get ANY wierder?

Note to self: talk to some of the Brighton crew about supervising Rooks' medication time :p

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[Zero]

Proper gud is that.

[snappel]

You didn't find... road barriers... did you? :o

Looks fun, would like to jaipse on in there sometime...

[Alias]

was a seriously fun night had by all, and a decent location with a surprise at the end, not to be undertaken without a proper cheap inflatable raft and some rope (60m was just enough). AARRRGGGGG

P.S did not take a camera so no report from me ....yet

LiamCH seriously if you have been planning this for months why have you not been down to check yourself? we have been planning this for about a week lol, less talk more action.

[Joe]

That is epic rooks, Loved it!

[Steed]

Nelly's pirate outfit was sadly missing a nice pair of thigh high leather waders....arrrr.

[dsankt]

Decent, they look more fun than I expected they would. Were there, you know, bodies?

[LiamCH]

we have been planning this for about a week lol, less talk more action.

You should see the state of the garage I had to retrieve my boat from. And fix the holes...

[turkey]

Wicked report rooks...looks like a night of fun for all involved!!!

[Raddog]

Epic pirate fun! I demand more kraken pics!

[Oxygen Thief]

Proper good report and pics, well funny.

[rookinella]

Decent, they look more fun than I expected they would. Were there, you know, bodies?

Absolutely TONS of them, piles of bones all crawling over eachother :)

Nelly's pirate outfit was sadly missing a nice pair of thigh high leather waders....arrrr.

Steady :eek:

[Banner]

why are pirates called pirates .................................................. .... cuz the ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

:tumbleweed


cool pics :thumb loving the boat haha

[cat_bones]

Very odd :crazy But excellent! :thumb

[MOFO]

top stuff ,

[Conchords]

Shiver me timbers, that report was smashing :)

[cybergibbons]

Can't see the pics, but really good work! We got down here semi-officially a long time ago, but it sounds like you lot had about 18 million times fun.

[Downsy]

Great work! How much of this site did you manage to see? Do you think there's more to it than you saw?

[chauffeur]

That looks spot on!!

[rookinella]

Right, pics all sorted now :)

[modsman]

arrrrr .. great pirate report there rooks .. bet it was great fun tieing up the captain too ..lol .. should have made him walk the plank ... arrrr...

[Maniac]

Love it, cheered up an otherwise surprisingly dull day!

Looks massive down there!

[loops]

that were fun.

The rope is still in its bag behind me, I daresn't open it and smell just how skanky it got :o Leptospirosis-o-tastic.

The weirdest was coming around a bend in a far corner to find huge poured concrete stuff, piles of bricks, scaffolding and the base of a tower crane :crazy Worlds collide.

Yarrrrrrrrrrrrp!

[Brick_Man]

MINT!! brilliant write-up too, made me happy that did.

Dodgy £6 inflatables are defo the way forward

[remoteneeded]

Is it pantomime season?

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[Alias]

hell yeah that rules.

[rookinella]

Oh yes!! Excellent photoshopping :D Hooray for Ross Kemp!

[stepping lightly]

Boat adventures are for the win , the write up brings a smile on :)

[cybergibbons]

So does that mean you can climb down from the base of a tower crane and get down there now?

[loops]

The crane is only a tiddler and not tied to a building, so there's no way onto it. And where would be the fun in that? ;)

[yellowcommando]

in the early 90s i worked in a motorcycle shop in what is the stables market, in the back of our arch there was a bricked up door with a vent...so we removed it....as you do, saw there was a tunnel, and out came the hammers, very little had been developed then, there was a massive corporation of london store, all sorts of crap, mainly in the horse tunnel, we even managed to end up in the Round house prop store, all with relative ease, we thouroughly explored what we could, theres a lot of tunnels, one leads all the way down to Goodsway, can imagine a lot has gone with the Eurostar going on, there was a lot of tunnel entrances visible on Camley street during the building but that'll all be concrete now, theres plans to demolish the whole of the stables and turn it into a media centre of some kind, so a lot of concrete will be pumped into the subterranea, id say get in and have a look now, before it all goes...you can pick up some tie dye while your there