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NEAR the mouth of the Brisbane River is its most impressive bridge, a concrete structure spanning across between the very tight constraints of having to have at least 55 metres clearance above the high tide mark to let cruise ships through, but not be any more than 80 metres high due to the flight paths of the planes coming and going from the nearby runway of the airport.
The original bridge quickly reached capacity so the second almost identical bridge was constructed and opened in 2010 providing 6 traffic lanes in either direction. The bridges have been obscurely renamed the Sir Leo Hielscher Bridges, but almost everyone still knows them as the Gateway Bridge.
I hiked here from Bulimba to watch the sunset at this location, in full view of the 260 metre long spans, for a long time these were the largest pieces of pre-stressed concrete in the world. Coloured lights guide the ships passing underneath the bridge.
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