[AU; 2022] The Walter Taylor Bridge

Located between Indooroopilly and Chelmer in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia - you will be able to find this heritage-listed suspension bridge - The Walter Taylor Bridge. It is one of the few bridges in the world that has a residence built inside, and of course only bridge in Australia!

Firstly, kudos to Brisbane Greeters for the free guided walking tour to such an amazing historical bridge!

The meetup point for the guided walk was this gum tree next to the Indooroopilly Station:

If you are feeling adventurous, there is a Indooroopilly walk trail that also starts from here. 2.8km wasn't that bad!

I was the only person that signed up for the tour that day - so I get a lot time to ask plenty of questions. There are some red-brick houses that are also building with some history behind it - it feels like this whole area is filled with stories!

We walked along the Albert Bridge - which is a heritage-listed railway bridge of steel truss design. Right now with all the modernisation, there is a pedestrian bridge next to it that has bicycle crossing.

Indooroopilly has quite a fair bit of flood history, the guide will point out to you which areas were affected by the floods and how things has changed.

It takes around 15 minutes to walk to the highlight - Walter Taylor Bridge.

I'm sure google can tell you lots of stories about this bridge - so let's just focus on the inner structure and bridge views!

This is a rather old tower - they called it "bridge pylon", so there isn't any lift available, if it is not convenient for you or your travel partner(s) to climb stairs, I would suggest to avoid this tour.

There are two towers on the bridge which were built for residential accommodation. The only tower that is opened for viewing in the tour was occupied by the tollmaster's family. The interior design of the pylon is really a livable space - you have kitchen, bedrooms and even washroom. 

What surprised me was - the pylon was rather sound proof! I don't get to hear loud cars zooming although there were plenty of cars crossing the bridge.

Imagine your balcony has this view everyday - there is a balcony and I took this there:

The cables that are supporting the bridge were actually surplus support cables from the Sydney Harbour Bridge - loved how things are interconnected!

My guide told me that there has been some discussion of what to do with this livable space - some ideas floating around were things like converting it to airbnb or cafe. Which I think will be really amazing place - I don't mind paying a bit for a cup of tea watching cars in the balcony.

The tower has 2 entrances - so we entered from the right and exited from the left. It was a very short walking tour - approx more than an hour. But I will still recommend for the interesting stories and good view along the river!.

After the tour if you need some shopping fix - there is a big mall - Indooroopilly Shopping Centre which I have covered over in my shopping guide post: [AU] Shopping Guide at Brisbane City