I have a couple of weeks easier and then the rest of the month full on so I am going with the theme Things Aussie for this month - that way I can draw on images that I have when times get tough!
This week - Bridges
The Ryde Lift Bridge is a road bridge across Parramatta River with three warren truss spans, the central span of which is able to be raised. Adjoining spans to the river banks are supported on circular steel pylons.
The Ryde Lift Bridge is of historical significance as the largest work of its kind undertaken by any municipal body in NSW up till 1935, for its importance as a depression-era construction utilising unemployment relief labour, and as a transport link which revived the Ryde district, influencing later development including road development and the expansion of the area both north and south of the Parramatta River. The high clearance of the lift is evidence of the importance of the river traffic on the Parramatta River in the 1930s.
I had no idea there were so many rivers in Australia. You seem to be surrounded by water and dependent on bridges to get anywhere you need to go! Great silhouette of this bridge, unusual type of bridge really!
I'm very drawn to the appearance of this bridge, and even more so by the historical background you've outlines. Over 20 years I spent some time in Sydney at conferences and on research leave but am still hazy about the location of lots of places, ie the ones I've never needed to know where they are. Back in the 1990s I spent a month saying with my livetime friends in Sydney while I travelled every day (by train) to Parramatta to trawl some archives so have a fair idea of the suburbs on that train-line. Maybe get back to see my friends sometime before the next Ice Age.
