To the Connel Bridge

The 6^th August dawned in a rather skyless manner – but it was not raining.

After the previous day’s long walk, we had decided on a short driving tour to points mostly north of Loch Etive. This would take us to an area we didn’t know. We had no real idea what we would see, except that my nerdish desire was to see the Connel Bridge which crosses the loch.

So Dunstaffnage Castle was not on our agenda. We just found it. Well, the organisation, Historic Scotland did already know about it. It wasn’t, of course, a brand new discovery by us. In fact they had provided a car park, a ticket booth and a high price. But the outside was lovely.

Clearly there could have been plenty of yachtsmen about. Maybe divers do use the boat at the little jetty.

Aha. There is a castle up a little slope of well manicured grassland.

The castle is impressive.

The views were good too.

We moved on the short distance to Connel Bridge.

Now that’s an impressive structure in my eyes. It’s a cantilever bridge, like the Forth Railway Bridge.

It was built for a little branch railway from Connel to Ballachulish. The line opened in 1903 and fell to Doctor Beeching’s axe in the 1960s. The bridge had always had both road and a railway – but it had only the width for one thing at a time so trains certainly stopped the road traffic. Now with no railway, it is part of the main road to the North – but still is only wide enough for a single lane so traffic lights control crossings.

The water underneath the Bridge is Loch Etive at its narrowest, but also must dangerous. The name Connel evidently means rough water and these days the area underneath is called the Falls of Borra. There’s no spectacular waterfall, but incredible turbulence.. It seems the bridge had to be a single span because no pier could have been built in the midstream.