I consider myself Net-savvy. Every now and then though, I discover a new web application through my network.

The latest: wikimapia – apparently based on Google Maps.

To my fascination, I could zoom up to 500 metres above my locality and pan around.
To my chagrin, crowd-sourced annotations cluttered up the view.

The valley near me is bounded by a hillock to one side – increasingly laid threadbare by tree felling.

Wikimapia sat images revealed a L-shaped structure at the top of the hill, with no path leading to it. L-Shape on wikimapia

Curiosity piqued and imagination racing, my buddy group outdid itself in offering outlandish conjectures. What could it be – a hidden government safehouse, alien landing site, drug dealer hideout…!

And so, me and a friend decided to set out on a trek through the hills in search of the ellusive ‘L’ – the mysterious construction in the middle of a jungle that captured our imagination.

Sunday came, and with it an uphill trek.
Steep climbs and some tumbles down the slope, and bruises and nagging gnats.

When we appared upon it – it was a huge concrete bunker-like structure in the middle of nowhere.

Turned out to be an abandoned water reservoir.

the tank

The satellite image must be a year old, cos’ the roof of the reservoir had caved – the reinforced TMT iron bars had corroded and appeared brittle as the bark of a tree.

rusted tmt bars

In the end, just a water reservoir that never came into use, or the result of poor planning.

But what the heck, we had our adventure!