Queensferry Crossing Walk

Cast your mind back to March this year when I posted a blog about the construction of the latest bridge across the River Forth, called the Queensferry Crossing. Well, as you have probably heard in the news recently, this new bridge is finally open........... and I was lucky enough to be allowed to walk across it before the Queen performed the official opening ceremony.
I was part of a group of volunteers from Echline Community Woodland who (together with thousands of other groups and individuals) were given the 'once in a lifetime' opportunity to walk over this new bridge.
Unlike the original Forth Road Bridge, there are no pedestrians or cyclists allowed on the new bridge so this meant the traffic used the old bridge whilst we did our walk.
This is a brief story in pictures and video of our walk across the Queensferry Crossing:

Huw, Keith, John and Janet at the start

 

Huw and Janet

John raring to go

There were five of the ECW volunteers (me, Huw, John, Keith and Geoff) to start with and we met up with Huw's wife Janet and Geoff's wife Brenda, who had come with another group.
We were given an hour to cross the 1.7 mile long bridge, but we weren't in a hurry so took our time and enjoyed the experience. Some of our group wanted to cross a bit quicker so we were happy for them to go ahead.

Plenty of people were crossing the bridge

We took plenty of snaps

I was there as well

The views from the bridge were pretty good as well, considering it was a bit of a grey day:

The Inner Forth Estuary

Rosyth from Queensferry Crossing

The views of the bridge were pretty spectacular, and as we approached the first tower you really got a feel for the scale of this engineering marvel:

Web of cables on first tower

Information Board at first tower

The cable work looked like the strings on a giant harp.............. however there was no giant there to play a tune............... that would have been impressive!!
The sign says 'you should be 20 minutes into your Queensferry Crossing' but in reality it took us 40 minutes to get there............... nobody was chasing us along so we were not bothered.
At the mid point between first and second tower, the cables for these two towers crossed over and resembled some sort of giant fishing net:

Criss-cross of Cables

Towards the second tower

Can you spot the Storm Troopers

I meant to say that as we crossed from South to North there were also people crossing North to South on the opposite carriageway, including a small band of Star Wars fans dressed as Storm Troopers.
We stopped for a short break at this point so I took the opportunity to take some photos and videos of the surroundings:

Midway between Tower 1 and Tower 2

John calls time-out

As well as enjoying the scenery and the bridge construction, there was also plenty happening down on the water............... we saw a Police Rib (rigid inflatable boat) milling around under the bridge and a cargo ship leaving Rosyth dockyard....................... it was all going down as they say:

As we approached the second or central tower you got a real feel for how high this bridge is.......... and the stats confirm that at 210 metres it is the highest bridge tower in the UK:

Approaching the Central Tower

Heading in the right direction......North

Central Tower.........pretty high

More useful information

I can't understand why they use London buses to represent the height of the tower on this bridge??
Buses are not allowed on this bridge, they are supposed to use the original Forth Road Bridge.............doh!
I also can't remember them lifting elephants during construction?
Meanwhile we carried on with our walk:

John and Huw forge ahead

We might not have had Storm Troopers to accompany us on our walk across the bridge but we did have Supermen (no I don't mean Huw and John):

Superman and Superboy

As we approached the third tower I noticed that the Fred Olsen cruise ship that was docked at Rosyth was on its way out:

Cruise Ship leaves Rosyth

Cruise Ship steams towards bridge

 

There are several cruises that leave from Rosyth, I think this was one which visits various Norwegian Fjords, so anoraks and warm clothing required.
After we passed the third tower we were on the home stretch, in fact we stopped for a little break with only about two hundred yards to go:

Only Two Hundred Yards to go!

As well as this sign and several huge information screens there was also some very useful Health and Safety signage on the bridge:

Useful to know

We refrained from any of these activities, including the walking hand-in-hand.
At this pit-stop we noticed that the Fred Olsen cruise ship 'Black Watch' had sailed right up to the bridge.......... and that all the passengers were on deck waving to us (and others on the bridge). They even blew the ship's horn as they passed under the bridge, how cool is that!:

Buoyed with our reception from the cruise ship we pushed on with the final leg of our journey, crossing the finish line in a record breaking 2 hours ..........................We were so pleased with ourselves:

Huw and John at the finish line

A look back along the bridge showed that we were not the last to finish:

Looking back, but not in anger.

OK they might have started later then us, but we did it!!
Who knows the next time they will close the bridge for people to walk across, so I am glad I was given the opportunity to do this 'once in a lifetime' walk.

Take Care,

Teddyedward