Clandestine Climb into a Cult College

Believe it or not, there's this whole suburb in a New Zealand town that belongs to a religious cult. Thinking society was too corrupt for their members, this cult built an entire suburb in the 1950's. Flourishing in the 60-80's this cult town has now become an ghost-ish town.

We are the first people to explore the college. Unlike most other NZ high schools, but designed like an American high school - where the cult originated from. 

First we hit the dorms, it was a boarding school due to its secluded location.

Propaganda magazines from 1965 lie in the stripped rooms

Most things were removed from the dorms, corridors were filled with mirrors, tiles and useless things

Door-less showers: "Haha you're fat"

The plumbing of the old laundry room, minus the actual machines

After trying 100's of windows, Tansix found one loose and here lies the main building of the college.

And we landed in the music block- which is severely infested with mold after years of no sunlight. But this place must have been grand. Came with a few recording studios, vintage vinyls and still usable music equipment. 

That mold on the floor doesn't look too great in my lungs... had to run away when I couldn't hold my breath any longer than a few lo-fi shots. (Brand of piano was Hilton & Hilton (American)) 

And while walking in pitch black, I tripped over this sad double bass lying in the corridor. 

Only rich cults can afford such luxury, standard sized indoor swimming pool... 

When was the last time the clock arms spun?

Where did all the diving boards go? 

Main auditorium. Why did they just remove all chairs from one side?

Wow! A legit organ.. But too bad all the pipes have been removed

A totally American style gymnasium with bleachers and all! Note the hoops retracted on the roof. Under the plastic sheets, lie the cult's logo, members trying to protected from upcoming decay I guess. 

OMG! Under the white sheet, lay a Steinway and Sons... I wanna take it home...

(Note the blue carpet.. This cult has its own logo-ed carpets)

Cafeteria with the ghost lines, lining up for ghost chips

Witches' cauldrons. This is seriously the biggest commercial kitchen I have seen in an urbex.

Who dares to climb in this deadly looking contraption of the 50's 

(Someone actually did, it lead to the basement which was a giant freezer) 

Funny, the school slogan was "build now for the future" the only future it looks to be having is one of decay

hidden house

Despite it's haunted house look, I wouldn't mind living here

Why?

Because in the 70-80's it was a luxury lifestyle farm block. Now with the land subdivided for more houses, it's only a wreck hidden in a forest inside a newly developed suburb.

It comes complete with a mini bar set up in a what is possibly a pool room.

Up the dodgy staircase

Mediterranean themed kitchen 

Room complete with the ghostly curtains

Ghostly lampshade - so 70's

Grass swimming in the pool

A swedish sauna wing

Last but not least, a tennis court, with a mini kitchen.

Mission Impossible, like literally

Everyone has watched on of those movies where the ninjas/thieves/charlie's angels break into a highly secured complex, with cameras, infra-red sensors, patrolling security in the middle of the night. But how many of us can actually say we've done it?

Getting told a list of all the people getting arrested having unsuccessfully tried to break into this gigantic power plant did not convince me to go in. However a bunch of seals did. The only way into this highly secured complex was through the back. And how? We had to walk through a go-cart track, push our way through half an hour of dark forest, climb some rocks by the sea then VOILA. That was the easy part. 

We had to teamwork our way through the barbed wire fence, tore a hole in my pants and sustained a few cuts. At that point I stayed and pondered if I wanted to get arrested, just having paid for my tickets to Taiwan the next week, whilst my urbex team left me by some seals and went to figure out how to enter the tightly secured building. Half an hour later, the seals seemed to have screamed YOLO at me so I got up asked Tansix for directions via text message and I was off. 

This was a thermal power station built in the 1970's to meet the increasing power demand of NZ. But because of more recent, more efficient plants being built recently, this one was officially shut down in 2007. Especially because much of the machinery was cladded with asbestos. And YES that's a 200m tall tower with more than a million bricks!

There is still multimillion dollars of machinery in there, so the owners employ security to patrol the grounds and they keep the facility brightly lit to keep robbers and trespassers (like us) away.  

What I saw before I decided to take a risk and ninja in. So I had to tiptoe behind shadows of various warehouses, avoid sensors/cameras, crawl across a rusty bridge, climb off a platform, sprint across an exposed spot and climb three ladders climb through a fire exit (all in silence) before I found my team. Should have recorded it, it would've looked like a mission impossible movie!

The inside consisted of four parts:

1. The City of Metal. The vibes I got from this was a mix of some Studio Ghibli fantasyland, the inside of a submarine and kowloon walled city. 

I call it "city" because of the 7 levels of maze like pathways that were lit at regular intervals by street lamp looking lights.

Lost myself in this almost beautiful metallic labyrinth.

Imagine this but a hundred times bigger

Wish we could stay longer, but every second we were in here was a second that security could run into us.

2. The locker room

A whole floor dedicated to metal cabinets filled with a collection of different valves, meters and other curious devices. With an equally curiously Swedish sauna wooden theme!

At least 50 of these metal beings

I was tempted to turn it on, to see if something would explode.

An engineer/physicist can explain this to me, other wise to me it's a giant xylophone!

3. Ze Control Room

We were crazily flicking the switches, trying to see if anything did anything! 

This is just a third of the control room! There must be 10 of these Star Trek looking stations around!

Wonder what these TV looking things are!

I thought only nuclear power plants would have this, but even thermal energy plants may explode!

Me and my iPhone 5 camera taking a picture of what looks like a seismograph.

4. The almighty GENERATORS

They look like giant minions off Despicable Me!

Need I say more? 

And then we quietly (but extremely hyped) tiptoed over the way we ninja-ed in. 

Carbonisation Plant VS Zombies

First leg of this urbex roadtrip and I'm blown away already, shows how we all need to get our of Auckland once in a while!

This place was so worth getting stabbed by overgrown gorse bushes, we practically cried our way through five minutes of those evil thorns to get to this amazing location

This place used to be a small coal mining town in the early 1900's but now all that remains is this coal processing carbonisation plant, which has operated to the 1985.

This plant was the first of it's kind in the Southern Hemisphere, super high tech for 1930. But it heavily polluted the surroundings, so by 1985 when there was a big explosion this place was closed for good. It remain super hazardously toxic and the government only decided to clean it up in 2006, by flooding it. (Hence the submersion, we had to ninja ourselves up a balcony to avoid this noxious slump)

Literally EVERYTHING was rusted. Even the floor we stood on, so we had to float like a butterfly in hope we don't fall into the toxic pool. I guess they didn't have stainless steel in the 1930's did they?

What a smashing view from the top floor. Was even better in real life, have to see it for yourself!

Anybody keen for a rollercoaster ride?

Hi rusted wardrobe box thing!

Giant incinerator, I'd make my pizza here if it wasn't going to poison me!

360 degrees of picture-perfect views from this less than perfect building, how ironic!