with dicky21, analepsis, oliverGT
The last time I was in Belgium, our man Illogical took us down to a big cooling tower in the south of the country on our way to an old theatre we were up for having a look at. Upon exiting, I was up for a wonder, and after walking a few meters across a neighbouring field, I spied a phat building with a massive chimney. "That", I said to our little group, "is probably the power station, and its looking rather un-demolished."
We slipped under the fence and skirted the building a few times looking for a way in, and by the time we found something, it was already getting dark and some workers had turned up at the gates of the yard. We figured we'd head off to have a look at this theatre and come back for a quick reccie at night. With said theatre nicely in the bag, we snuck into the beast and landed in epic. I only got 2 awful reccie shots before we bailed to chateu noisey to get some night shots and get some kip - our plan being to hit the power station first thing.
Unfortunately for us, when we showed up at 6am, the yards around the power plant was crawling with workers and diggers loading the barges on the ship canal. There was no way we'd be getting in through our access point. We bailed, and I was heart broken, although I managed to save the coordinates and vowed to return next time I was in the country.
Fast forward to February 2012 and I find myself back in Europe's most popular UE theme park for some drainy shin-dig in Antrewp. After getting a couple of hours sleep in the Chambre du Commerce, we left early (sorry to anyone we woke when we were pissing about leaving) and hit the road.
Within an hour or two, we were in, and it was just as mint as I was hoping
A bit like Inverkip, the plant was on 'mothball' status until relatively recently when the Electrbel electricity company decided it was outdated and took it offline permanently.
Mercury arc rectifier
inside one of the boilers
We ran out of time before we could get round the whole place and after having a quick look at the
cooling tower, shot up the road and made the ferry with roomy 60 seconds to spare (still sporting my tux from the night previous). Proper weekend.
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