It wasn't just by coincidence that we met in the first place! We were as a matter of fact working for one and the same company, although not at the same office and only 65 kilometers away we did got to know each other after all.

It was because of the internal magazine from ENGIE Axima that brought me to him. I mentioned my love for urban exploration and this meant that I had another friend to explore abandoned places with. Yay! 😃

He, the person in question, wrote me an email with subject: Vu dans le Blablaxi, date: 19 September 2011, and even pictures from his favourite explores.

Quote: "Salut collègue.

Désolé mais je ne parle pas un mot de flamand, mais si tu veux que je te parle en anglais, je devrais pouvoir me débrouiller.

Tout ça pour te dire que une de mes passions c’est la photo industrielle (genre site derelicta ou forbidden places) et aussi la photo nocturne en pose (de sites abandonnés ou d’industries métallurgiques).

Une autre c’est la visite de mines souterraines (avec mon appareil photo bien sûr).

Je ne faits quasi plus de varappe mais j’aime encore bien faire une belle descente en rappel ou une via ferrata et bien sûr de la randonnée à la journée.

Bien a toi et serai heureux de te rencontrer à la remise des vœux de Pissens au mois de janvier."

He became my tutor when it came down to knowledge, he knew so much about all these derelict places. Places like military bunkers from WOI and WOII, as well as industrial plants like steel manufacturing sites.

Really! Thank you! I mean, I felt so honored that someone out there at the other side of Belgium read my short interview presenting myself in the internal magazine of the company. It was crazy and I was so psyched. And that even in another language!

My hobby wasn't so famous as it later became and photography isn't a practice that gets a lot of attention as well. Although it should get more rewarded and respected because to me a photo isn't just a photo. It is a moment or object or anything really captured on camera which could potentially freeze time forever.

Photography is magical as these captured photos can be picked up again from the (dusty) shelve or from your hard drive on the PC and you can look at them for hours to come where beautiful memories can be brought back to life once again.

One can make a photo album or print a picture and hang it on the wall or even use it as your favourite background on your PC or smartphone.

To me taking photos means protecting any kind of memory in time stored forever in the palm of your hands.

It can perfectly being said that we humans have built many things on our planet, both above ground and underground. For all sorts of reasons we have considerably altered the face of our surface, be it in a good or bad way, we changed it according to our needs, experiments, unfortunate events or bad habbits. You name it, we changed it and it can't always be undone.

Above ground it's easy, we only need to keep in mind that gravity is a real thing.

Underground there's also gravity, but also other things to keep in mind. The soil can be wet, cold, hot, muddy, dry, it can even shake and collapse which could leave huge sinkholes all the way to the surface.

This time I will talk more in depth about underground activities and why they can be very beneficial to us.

Resources

Mother Earth is a resource-rich planet which could serve our needs for many years to come, although sometimes these vulnerable resources are rather hard to reach or difficult to extract and process.

Today, I will bring you only a handful of meters below the surface where massive mazes of human activity carved their memories in the ground for a lifetime to come.

Belgium is rich in chalk, clay, pig iron and many more resources from the underground world. We explored just a small fraction of what once was a very big booming industry of mining.

Although I do am very satisfied with the chance of being stood there, under the surface away from the sun, for just a couple of hours. This experience was already enough to fulfil my dreams as an urban  explorer.

Industrialization brouth people to the cities where work was and where people could earn enough to support their hungry families in the countryside. Today isn't any different. We have our cities and farmlands and for some it is a beautiful sanctuary somewhere in a hot place where they work an online job and can relax at the same time. Today and in the future we're growing towards a digital online world, but for most of our products we still need agricultural and industrial factories. Aren't we right?

Meanwhile underground everything was empty and excavated by many men. Rock formations were split open by either dynamite, immense machinery or hand-crafted tools and these tunnels formed huge underground galleries which eventually could still be used as a second purpose.

And so these quarries were also considered practical for growing mushrooms. Rows of mushroom beds were made with the help of horse poo or compost as a fertiliser and in the picture below this practice can still be found today.