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Sick Britain Interview: Gibbo from North-West Exploration

gibbo — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:13:16 +0000

[Sick Britain] I'd like to say thanks to Gibbo for the interview and wherever you live I definitely recommend you check out Northwest Exploration as it's probably the friendliest Urbex community out there.

Q1: Who are you?

Gibbo (real name Andy). A Yorkshire born but North-West based fella who now co-administers WWW.NWEX.CO.UK

Q2: Why do you do Urban Exploration?

Like every young lad, I was fascinated by empty and abandoned buildings, probably for the thrill / ghost aspect I was lucky enough to see the old Victoria Station, and parts of the old Orgreave Coking Plant (scene of the bloody miners battle on June 18th, 1984). The complex was huge and had it’s own sidings and an engine shed full of coal wagons and a couple of diesel engines. I just wish cameras weren’t so expensive to operate back then.

Q3: What's the best explore you've been on?

Without a doubt, St Joseph’s Seminary near Wigan.

Q4: What's worst explore you've been on?

Burtonwood Services. An interesting building, pretty much intact inside, but we stupidly lingered after the explore and got arrested in an extremely heavy-handed two police force operation.

Q5: If you could explore any site/facility in the world, what would it be?

It would be nice to see if Area 51 is actually everything it’s hyped up to be. In the UK it would have to be the Fun Ship the Duke of Lancaster over at Flint, North Wales.

Q6: Are there any pieces of kit that you'd recommend to others?

The trusty Maglite with an LED conversion. You lose the warm incandescence when light painting, but it gives an amazing throw. I’m also a big fan of clockwork torches. They’re cheap and always worth carrying as an emergency spare.

Q7: If you could give any tips to newbies or experienced explorers, what would they be?

For noobs: Don’t hang around a site after an explore!

For experienced explorers: Never forget your beginnings. You were a noob once and probably left in the cold and shunned by those more experienced. So give the noobs a chance. Over at NWEX that’s our philosophy and have certainly reaped the rewards – trips underground to some fantastic mines that you would never otherwise see, they’re not even listed on the internet and you’d never find the access! We even have a member who gives us trips in his plane!

Urbex isn’t a way of life, it’s a hobby – albeit a very unusual one. It’s also a hobby that is forever changing.

Q8: What would win in a fight: 1,000 chickens or 1 giant chicken the size of a thousand chickens?

1 giant chicken. It would just stand on the 1000 chickens.

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Urbex Community: Opacity

sickbritain — Fri, 08 May 2009 04:20:50 +0000

I heard about this site along time ago and despite the fact that we here at Sick Britain are meant to be all about UK Urbex I thought I’d break tradition from (a) posting articles about forums, and (b) post a quality site from the good old United States of America. Opacity has been around since 2002 and is a personal site detailing the urban exploration of one man – Tom Kirsch (or Mr. Motts), the site is beautifully put together (all hand-coded by the site’s owner) and contains an amazing amount of stunning photography, site reports and even a forum (though the emphasis of the site is clearly on the reports). I can’t stress more, if you’re into urbex you have to look at this site: http://www.opacity.us/.

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Urbex Community: urbexforums.co.uk

sickbritain — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:37:24 +0000

After a recommending a regionalised site last week I thought I ought to return to the national stage with a community spotlight on urbexforums.co.uk, another forum site focused more on site reports than general discussion but it’s quite active. There’s not a great deal to say because it does exactly what it says on the tin: it’s a forum about urbex in the UK and it’s called urbexforums.co.uk!

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Urbex Community: Mids Urbexing

sickbritain — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 03:50:42 +0000

Much more specific in targeting than many Urbex sites, the Mids Urbexing forum is aimed specfically at those of us from the UK’s ‘Midlands’ region generally referring to Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Derbyshire and the whole Birmingham metropolis. The area has a rich history of industrial activity and took centre stage in the industrial revolution from mills to factories, sadly these days the UK manufacturing industry is in decline and that leaves a lot of places empty and open for exploration. The forum here has a good little community going on, if you’re in the area or think that you might be able to make it over to the midlands for an explore then check out http://www.mids-urbexing.co.uk/.

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Urbex Community: Northwest Exploration

sickbritain — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:45:32 +0000

This time I’ve found a regionalised community site, Northwest Exploration, aimed at the North West of England the site specifically defines itself as covering North Wales, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, The Wirral, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cumbria (although I wouldn’t personally class Derbyshire as North-West). Compared to most sites NWEX is much more focused on site reports than general discussion but if you’re in the area and looking for inspiration be sure to check out http://nwex.co.uk/.

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Urbex Community: derelictplaces.co.uk

sickbritain — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 03:52:15 +0000

One of the first sites I came across when entering the murky world of Urban Exploration was Derelict Places, a UK Urbex forum. The forums are home to a great number of users who post site reports, general chat and other stuff and the atmosphere there is nice and friendly – I strongly encourage you to visit and meet the guys over there.

http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/

P.S. The eagle-eyed of you might spot that the Google ads in the top-right contain a link to this very site, that’s because Sick Britain contributor thirtyfootscrew was sent a free £50 Adwords voucher and valiantly used it to help promote this blog!

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Urbex Community: 28 Days Later

sickbritain — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:35:20 +0000

Named after the zombie movie of the same name, 28 Days Later is (as far as I know) the most active of all the UK urbex forums and is the ‘go to’ place to chat with other explorers, get ideas for locations, read other people’s site visits, etc. In a forum this prolific you can pretty much guarantee that what you want to know will either already be posted, or someone there will be able to help. I highly recommend that you register, make sure you read the rules and then start participating – this is the best place to build a real urbex community so if you’re interested in the hobby then get posting!

http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/

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