Beez Neez now Chy Whella

Batman Bridge

Big Bear and Pepe Millard

Wed 20 Jan 2016 23:17

The Batman Bridge Over the Tamar River

It’s funny how things happen when we are out and about in Mabel. We stopped at the Tamar Valley Lookout and there was a plaque showing the main features along the river. Number four made us laugh because it was the Batman Bridge, we had a giggle at the name and thought no more about it.

As we were driving along we saw the turnoff for the bridge and well, it wasn’t far so we had to.

For the benefit of our non-UK blog readers here is a picture of our very own Tamar Bridge, Plymouth, which spans the River Tamar.

On the left side of the bridge [Cornwall bound] is Isambard’s bridge, the only way in to the county for trains.

Anyhoo, we drove over the Batman Bridge and stopped to look at the plaques.

We took a picture of the map, uncanny to see names like Tamar Valley, Launceston, Devonport, Bridport, Exeter and the like – so familiar to us as residents in the West Country. Then we went down the hill to see the bridge from below.

Wiki Says: The Batman Bridge is a modern bridge spanning kanamaluka/Tamar River in the north of the Australian state of Tasmania. The bridge is on the Batman Highway connecting the West Tamar Highway (state route A7) to the East Tamar Highway (state route A8 – spooky - ours is the A38). The eastern end of the bridge is located at Whirlpool Reach, George Town and the western end is about halfway between Kayena and Deviot, Tasmania. The bridge overlooks the Deviot Sailing Club and is named after John Batman, Launceston businessman and co-founder of Melbourne.

Design Features: Built between 1966 and 1968, it was the first cable-stayed bridge in Australia and among the first such bridges in the world. The main span is 206 metres (676 feet) long, suspended from a 91-metre-high (299 feet) steel A-frame tower. The deck is 10.3 metres (34 feet) wide. The tower is on the west bank of the Tamar river, on a solid dolerite rock base which carries 78% of the weight of the main span. The length of the bridge is 432 metres between abutments. The east bank is soft clay not capable of supporting a bridge. A causeway carries the highway across this softer base, supported by four piers built on piles driven up to 18 metres (59 feet) into the clay. The bridge deck is constructed of steel which is lighter than concrete, but required much more welding on site during construction.

Back across we went on onward.

A few minutes on the road and we saw a turning to the right, might this get us a nice picture of the bridge. Yes, but the sky is pink and dull due to the number of out-of-control fires in the area. Better in black and white as the full-size end picture. We proceeded to Beaconsfield and did our mine tour. We had a few minutes to look around the displays upstairs and colour me happy, there was a film being shown on the construction of the Batman Bridge. We had been calling it the Bat-Man Bridge but the clipped English narrator pronounced the word “batmun”. OK, we sat to watch the whole film. The interviewer was called John and he spoke at length to Steve the Build Manager. We watched how the site was chosen, learned that materials came from England and the cost was about five million dollars. Most interesting was the choice of the load-bearing ‘A’ frame – no supports required in the middle of the river – this was for navigational and safety reasons as the current can run at eight knots and boats ran the risk of being slammed into supports. Enjoy the pictures.