Truly An Arc de Triomphe

The Brisbane River was a notorious flood risk, for a number of reasons, and this is obvious when we get periods of serious rain (not so often I must admit) as my picture viewing numbers escalate as people search for anything relating to floods.

In the middle of the city, one of the main bridges is the Victoria Bridge, and it is No 4 in that spot and the history is

No1 Timber, built of wood in 1865 and collapsed from woodworm damage in 1867
No2 Iron, built in 1874 and washed away in the flood of 1893
No3 built in 1897 and replaced in 1969 by the current No4

The only remnant of No3 is shown here and is basically a square elevated section with the stone abutment between which you can see the modern City Council highrise offices.

In this link, it is described as "a portion of the southern abutment of the previous bridge remains adjacent to the new bridge, carrying a pedestrian arch, a short remnant of tram track and a memorial to Hector Vasyli, a young boy who was killed in a traffic accident at that point when waving to servicemen returning from the First World War."

The Wivenhoe Dam was built about 1980 and is now the primary water source for Brisbane and when full (which it isn't at the moment) can hold about 2.5 times the water in Sydney Harbour, which if you haven't been to Sydney is meaningless anyway, BUT the local authorities now say that the flood problems are a thing of the past. Let's just say again though, that locals get nervous when we get heavy rain. The last devastating flood in Brisbane was in 1974. Fingers crossed, as I live near the river.

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