It was a cold and miserable day. It was a day that you just wanted to take a book and curl up in bed. But we were out and about, because we were travelling, and some bad weather would not bother us.

Close by to where we stayed, was the iconic Storms River Bridge at the Tsitsikamma Petroport Station. My then fiance now wife have never been to the lookout point, nor had she walked across the bridge.

For some reason, I always thought this was the bridge where they did Bungy jumping but I was mistaken. Nonetheless, the bridge has some incredible views, and what better way to spend a really miserable day than walking across a dangerous bridge?

In the end, we made a cat and bird friend! So, join me on this virtual journey and yet another spectacular South African place.

Walking Across and Under the Bridge

There are more than one way to tackle the bridge: one can walk across it, and one can walk underneath it. Both are incredible for two different reasons. Beneath the bridge, you appreciate modern construction; across it, you appreciate the fragility of life (when a car or truck rushes past you while the bridge under your feet move and shake).

Standing Under the Bridge

Standing underneath the bridge, you begin to appreciate modern construction. Life is made what it is by these mega structures. It is incredible when you stand there, realising just how small you are, and just how magical modern structures are.

Even though the photographs begin to slightly show the vast size of the structure, it is only when you stand there that you feel and realise the vast size. You can only experience it there. In that moment. As a body, such a small body.

Crossing and Walking Alongside the Bridge

You can walk to the side of the bridge, and for obvious reasons you meet the sign that warns you: do not cross the bridge. One realises that signs are only put up after someone got hurt... One can only wonder what happened.

When you stand here, you realise the pulling of gravity toward the road, but also toward the bottom of the river. Confronting your mortality through this is never nice, as you realise just how easily you can fall, that a truck can suck you in.

As you walk to the other side of the bridge, you can then walk directly next to the cars. We only made it halfway through the bridge, as the cars that kept driving past us felt too close for comfort, and the bridge, not a solid and rigid structure, shook under our feet. It was not the best feeling...

The Viewpoint, and the Views

After having felt that adrenaline rush, we walked to the viewpoint area. Here, we bought some food, and we made some friends. But while waiting for our food, we first enjoyed the view that lay at our feet.

From this point, you can then see the bridge in all of its iconic glory. It is some of the most beautiful views you can think of. Again, from here, the bridge looks contained, but standing there, in our embodied beings, the bridge was really massive.

The Walkways and the Beauty of the Gardens

The area is beautiful in its own right. From the semi-dry fynbos to the full on forest and the forest plants. This is truly one of the most interesting places where we stopped on our roadtrip. Here, we walked on the many different walkways that the place offered, sometimes feeling exactly like the forests that is more in North America than here in South Africa.

At this time, our food arrived. We already had some visitors lining up for a snack, mostly a hungry bird! Even though it was on the colder side, we had to take some ice-cream as well: we were on holiday after all!

Here was our cat friend:

And here was our bird friend, a hungry one that wanted a chip!

The Sad Reality of Human Nature: Leaving our Mark

Funny thing, we humans want to leave our mark on everything. There are few places where we have not yet been, where we have yet to inscribe our names on anything and everything. On the bridge, various places are marked by someone who felt the need to leave their mark.

At the lookout point, there are even more, even more visible ones, where people literally cross out other names to put their own there:

One can only wonder what happened to all of these names. Sometimes, we are only the names we inscribe, and nothing more.

Sad reality.

Either way, such is life.

I hope that you enjoyed this virtual journey. For now, happy travelling.

All of the musings and writings are my own, albeit inspired by the bridge. The photographs are my own, taken with my Nikon D300.