First Impressions

Every now and again a miracle happens. At the end of August 2005, one of these occured. Camera in hand, Damian left Birmingham (shock!) and headed due south. A few days later he returned, with this report.

The first thing that stuck me as I first wandered round Torbay was 'where are all the bridges?' It was strange, and for a while I thought I'd had a wasted trip and we'd have to leave the area off The Map. But, after a slow start, things started to improve rapidly.

The House of Em

Emma lives in Torbay and was the person who was providing accommodation during my trip, so it seems only right can I begin with the bridges in the immediate vacinity to her house. First up, not too far from her house and on a popular dog walking route, there is this bridge:

I didn't personally try this bridge out but it seemed to be a fairly sturdy construction, although looking at the photo you can see that the bank to the left of the bridge has been worn to a slope, indicating that many people are ignoring the bridge and instead leaping over the stream.

This bridge is at the bottom of Emma's road. A common hazard with this bridge is for pedestrians, whilst walking under it, to be shoved into the wall or the vegetation on the far side.

Here's a close up of the bridge that Emma made me take so that you could see the video shop where she wants to work. She's under the impression the job is hers, despite being third on the list and insisting on calling the owner by the wrong name.

Torquay

Shortly before going on the Longest Walk in the World Ever ^TM, Emma and I were in Torquay. The Torquians are very proud in of this bridge and Emma made sure I got a photo of it. The sun was in a bit of an annoying position when I took the photo, hence it looking a lot more miserable and overcast than it actually was.

Round Robin

This is where I turn into an employee for the Devon tourist board. The 'Round Robin' is a circular tour going through Paignton, Dartmouth and Totnes via steam train, boat and bus. Tip: make sure you check the times for the final leg of the journey as flyers can lie and it can be very easy to find yourself stranded in the middle of no where.

(Depending on where you start the tour) this is probably the first bridge you'll see. It's in Dartmouth and allows access for boats to the harbour underneath and people & cars over the top.

This is a very special bridge. It's called a 'water bridge' and is made entirely out of water (and things that are not water). It is very delicate and has to have a fence round it to stop horrible little kids from breaking it.

At the end of a very, very long boat journey, during which it is highly likely that your travelling partner will get bored and decide to see how many bruises she can create on your body during the course of the trip, you end up in Totnes and face the above bridge. Which looks quite pretty.

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said about this bridge which is slightly further upstream than the first. As the song tells us, it ain't got no alibi, it's ugly.

Paignton Zoo

Last location on this mini-tour of Torbay is Paignton Zoo. While everyone else was taking photos like this:

I was busy with my camera getting the far more important bridge perspective.

If you ignore the man and the obvious 'newness' to this bridge, it would almost look like the photo had been taken in the amazon. I would post an authentic amazon picture for comparison, but that would require purchasing a very expensive plane ticket and taking a few days off work...and suddenly a trip to South America seems very appealing...

Apes use bridges too! These two bridges are in the orang utan enclosure in the zoo and are used by the monkeys apes to get around the little islands they live on. Whether it was the apes themselves who built these bridges is unknown. I have sent an email asking for clarification on this point to the zoo and will post the reply when it arrives.

Paignton Pier

'Why are you taking a picture of the pier?' Emma asked when I stopped to take this photo. Well, Emma and all those other people who have spent their lives wondering, 'what exactly are piers for anyway?' I shall explain.

Piers, what are they good for? Apart from sticking out into the sea and invariably having a pub and some kind of amusement arcade on, they don't appear to have much use. I ask you a question: what would a pier be if there was something on the far end? That's right - it'd be a bridge.

There are 3 types of pier: bridges where the other end has collapsed into the sea, bridges which have been started and then the builders have run out of money, and finally bridges where the builder has stopped part way though and thought 'why do we want to build a bridge to [insert place that no one wants to go to here] anyway?'

Paignton pier was originally constructed to connect the south coast to Ireland, until someone realised that that was a really stupid idea since Ireland is in the opposite direction. So the builders all went home early and watched TV, leaving the bridge unfinished, where it stands to this day awaiting and hoping for completion.

- Damian, August 2005

Addendum

These three photos were taken in a park in Paignton as we were doing the railway line bridges, so I suppose they should go in that section. However, they weren't located anywhere near the railway and are reasonably pretty, so would destroy my rant in that section if I put them there.

- Damian, September 2005

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