Steel high span

To round off our adventurous day out on Tuesday, we stopped on our way home to take a look at the Walkway Over the Hudson, New York's newest State Park, near Poughkeepsie.

Unusually for a park, it's actually a bridge, and a magnificent one at that. A steel cantilever structure, when it opened to trains in 1889 it was the longest bridge in the world. It was badly damaged by fire in 1974 and stood abandoned and crumbling from then-on until a group of volunteers got together to save it and convert it into the world's highest footbridge. The fundraising and renovation took about seventeen years, and the Walkway was opened to the public in October last year. Yay for those volunteers - that must have been a proud day for them.

Although once on the bridge its architectural structure and railroad past aren't very evident, it's still a splendid sight, and it's clearly very popular with walkers, cyclists, roller-bladers etc. We'd already had some serious exercise that day, so decided not to walk the full 1.28 mile span, but enjoyed the fine views of mountains, boats, trains and nearby road-bridge from 200 feet above the Hudson.