Some Interesting Geelong Bridges 1 The Aqueduct
by John
Depending on the reactions to this post, I have several more Geelong bridges in mind, including one which was designed and built by an engineer who became Australia’s most renowned general, another named after the Geelong person who build the world’s first commercial refrigerator, and another which was designed by, arguably, the most famous British engineer of the nineteenth century.
My interest in bridges is long standing, and received a recent boost when I purchased a drone with an excellent camera. It is 5 years old, but in pristine condition. It was so unmarked that I suspected that it had never been flown.

The video about the aqueduct is the second one I have shot with the Mavic 2P. It is far from perfect, but is significantly better than the first one. I will reshoot the first one and post it later.
The video lasts 7-8 minutes. There is no narration, because I have not yet worked out how that is done. So read the captions.
The subject is not for everyone. But let me know whether it and the proposed successors would be of any interest.
You can click on the arrow in the pic, or go to YouTube to see it as full screen.

I would love to see more of your interesting videos John. Always nice to see a country and its beauty, which is so far away from us, in a different way than the commercial films you can find about Australia, especially if it is also filmed in your living environment. And filming with a drone is the specialty of a YouTuber nowadays, I don’t know if you have ever seen the drone images of “Martijn Doolaard” how he makes breath-taking images in the Italian Alps. So I’d say bring it on.
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Thanks. I will follow up those suggestions.
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Great footage John.
Have you considered posting to one of the Geelong Heritage / Geelong in History sites ?
Also, the Scots built a copy, across the Fire of Forth, but theirs only carries traffic, not the important stuff this one carried.
Cheers
Ian
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Ha! (yes, copied to Geelong History on FB)
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Definitely love to see more of our local bridges and engineering features recorded for history. Unfortunately too late for some. There are so many that we now look back on, some we are lucky enough to find a old grainy photo stored away in some archive. Pity Drone Technology was not available in the days of buildings like the Bow Truss Building.down by the waterfront.
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Thank you for the feedback.
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Even if sufficient waterproofing had been use the structure may have been doomed from the start, just because of where it is located and the material used.
That was a good video and I wondered why it was abandoned after only 57 years of service, and a minute later you showed the concrete cancer.
Good job, I’m looking forward to another one of your videos.
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Thankyou for the kind feedback. From my amateur observation the concrete cancer is mainly in the thin reinforced struts rather than the thick structures in the towers. So maybe they just needed a thicker layer of water proof concrete over the reinforcing steel components. A pity. But it is an interesting structure and should be more tourist friendly, even if only with some explanatory signs, access paths from both ends, and viewing areas.
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