Tunnel Vision Tunnel Vision

It is 50 degrees, dusty and very cramped. We are in a service tunnel under Parkville's Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH) which supplies steam to the Children's Hospital nearby.

The tunnel is more than 400 metres long and can only be accessed by going deep into the hospital's basement and down a steep ladder.

It runs underneath Flemington Road and is just one of the hospital's eight service and logistics tunnels.

It is not for the claustrophobic, the fain of heart or the public, but it is an important part of Melbourne's underground.

Many myths surround the history and whereabouts of tunnels below Melbourne's surface, particularly in the area around Royal Park, which was a major American military camp during World War II.

RMH's facilities officer for the Royal Park campus, Jeff Whittington, says the tunnel under Flemington Road, built in 1942, was accidentally found in the 1960's and was used for steam pipes.

Whittington, a hospital employee of more than 30 years, was contacted five years ago by a state government historian who was interested in seeing plans of the RMH site dating back to the 1930's and 1940's.

"I said, "No, I don't have any", and he said they had all sort of mysteriously disappeared,"Whittington says.

"The historian said, "We have got reason to believe there is a tunnel system that fans out from the RMH tunnel.

"We know one goes to Victoria Barracks, another one goes up to Mt Alexander Road and we believe General MacArthur had a command post somewhere in the parkland opposite the zoo".

Whittington says the Government planned to find all the tunnels and open them up as a tourist attraction.

The hospitals have added to their 1942 tunnel system since the discovery, and the latest tunnel was built in 2001.

"We have nine buildings of multistory that we have linked up underground so you can move from one to the other without getting in the weather,"RMH manager of facilities development Michael McCambridge says.

"We have a service tunnel across the road to the dental, because they have no boilers, and another across to Melbourne University."

Another hospital with its own underground passage is the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital in East Melbourne which is linked by a tunnel to nearby St Vincent's Hospital. The tunnel between the hospitals stretches for 164 metres under Victoria Parade at a depth of 10 metres.

The colouring and design of the tunnel is similar to those in the city loop, which were built at the same time. Work on the tunnel began in 1978 and it was officially opened in 1983.

It was given the go-ahead because tunneling equipment used for the railway city loop was sitting idle and made the project more cost-effective.

Today the tunnel is used to transfer stable patients, food, pathology and radiology equipment and personnel.

The tunnel has also been used by film and television crews for music videos, TV shows and feature films.

Melbourne Tunnels

Other Melbourne tunnels include the one below Smith Street, Fitzroy/Collingwood that was used during the early 20th century to connect department store Foy and Gibson's west and east buildings.

It was built to enable customers to get from one store to the other without having to cross the road. The tunnel is rumoured to still exist, but one end is blocked.

There is also a tunnel under Parliament House which is now used as part of a ventilation system.

Other tunnels are a matter of pure speculation. They include an alleged tunnel near Dights Falls, Abbotsford, a bunker under Swanston and Spencer Streets and a tunnel leading from Melbourne High School to the Yarra.

Amateur archaeologist Mark Rawson firmly believes there is more below the surface than we know. The concept of "It's not on the record, it can't exist"is stupid,"Rawson says. There is an awful lot of stuff out there, but because there are no records people just go, "It doesn't exist.

Rawson believes an intricate tunnel system lies beneath Melbourne. He says in addition to the Royal Park network three is a series of tunnels underneath the Hoddle grid with street signs such as Collins Street and Bourke Street so people will know where they are relative to the surface. He says these were sealed off in the 1970's.

He also says there is a series of tunnels in Richmond and one particularly long tunnel running all the way up Church Street which may connect to one under Hoddle Street.

The tunnel network went all under Melbourne and there are reams of information about it, but there is not a lot of new information and a lot of it dates back to stories from the old people, Rawson says.

Merri Creek in Northcote

The reason he is so familiar with Melbourne's underground history is because for the past six years he has led his own private dig at an old World War II bunker on the banks of Merri Creek in Northcote. He and his crew of five dig with a jackhammer every second weekend.

So far the crew has managed to break through 121 metres of a military mason seal that lies beneath the surface. Rawson says military seals are usually 18 to 24 metres wide and believes that because this seal is more than four times as thick, something pretty interesting must be hidden in there. Read More..

But there is more going on beneath the streets than just tunnels.

Below Bistro 1, in the heart of the city, is a disused cellar that extends from Little Collins Street to Bourke Street. The cellar was used for storing wine until recently, but with increasing costs and on-demand delivery of wine there is now no need to keep stock below. It is also inconvenient to access.

Getting to it requires going through a trapdoor in the floor and descending a rickety wooden ladder about two metres. It is dark, dusty, surprisingly quiet and warm.

Piles of rubble litter the floor, giving the appearance of a party that ended 50 years ago that no one bothered to clean up. Empty bottles of Veuve Cliquot and broken chairs are strewn across the floor.

However, this is one of Melbourne's underground secrets that may not survive for much longer.

The cellar is part of the former Eastern Arcade building, which was built in 1872. A decision will be made this month by the Victorian Heritage Register on the historic merits of the building, including the cellar. If the Heritage Register does not protect the building, the cellar is likely to be turned into an underground car park for a hotel slated for the site.

While there may not be catacombs or the ruins of ancient civilisations below the crust of this great city, it seems Melbourne - despite its short history - is home to many sites of historical significance just waiting to be rediscovered.

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