Ten Meters in diameter, red brick lined, 100 years old and a mission I'll never forget.

The decision was made, we were going to hit up the Rankine Hydro Power Station tailrace tunnel. So Nel58, Micro, Controlman and myself packed our cameras, waterproof gear, passports and headed for the bright lights of Niagara Falls.

Rankine is not disused like two other hydro power stations in the area, it is actually on standby. Which means at any time millions of liters of water could once again come crashing through the wheel pit and into the tailrace, sending anyone in the tunnels to an unpleasant death by pounding against the massive boulders at the exit of the tailrace. But standing at the entrance of this amazing place, being pounded by spray from one of the seven wonders of the natural worlds, this seemed like a minor consideration.

UPDATE APRIL 2008: The station is now offically offline, so now there is one less way you will die while exploring this place. Thanks Air33.

Micro later described the access as "grueling"… well put. But after three hours of hiking in some seriously adverse conditions we were pretty happy to be standing in the massive red brick tunnels looking up into the wheel pit, just trying to take it all in. This is one of those places that makes you pinch yourself and think 'I can't believe I'm actually here'.

It is a surreal 800m walk through the massive tunnels from the outfall to the wheel pit. As you can see it is a fairly inhospitable place, water pours from everywhere. The thought of what it would be like down here when the plant is in operation makes this a very daunting place. At one stage an unpleasant thought entered my mind - the valves holding back 480 cubic kilometers of water in lake Eire were pushing 110 years old…

So once we had taken in as much as we could, we reluctantly began the trek back to the Niagara Falls circus.

One final memory comes to mind when I think of this trip. On our way back through US border control I had to choke back laughter as the officer demanded "why is everything wet?".

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