Open and Closed!

Living only 10 minutes from Newport Transporter bridge, I thought I'd re-visit and walk across the top. The weather was good and there's only certain times you can do it. It's open Wednesday to Sunday, 2 April – 28 September 2014, and on Bank Holiday Mondays during Easter, May and August.

Well, I got there at 12.15pm only to be told that although they were open, I couldn't cross until 1.30pm, as they were under staffed and needed to have their breaks to conform with Health & Safety. So, I killed some time chatting to the lovely staff, did some shopping, and got back at 1.30pm. It was now open! Some more time chatting about what I did in my 'lunch hour', with the staff who were fascinated about what I was going to do with 5 lites of ionised water I'd bought. (It's to refloat my plastic fish in my 5' tube aquarium in my conservatory!)

I'm not going to bore you with the history of the Transporter Bridge as I've already done that when I blipped it before. From the facts, below, I climbed 177' high and walked 645' both ways across the structure.

The bridge opened on 12th September 1906
The height of the towers is 242 feet and the height of the horizontal beam above the road is 177 feet.
The transporter platform or gondola travels the 645 feet between the towers at ten feet per second, powered from the engine room.
This Transporter Bridge is the largest of the eight which remain worldwide, and the oldest of its type in Britain.

The blip photo is 180 degree view from near the top and shows the bend in the River usk. The Bridge in the left of the picture is Newport Distributor Bridge.