Princes Bridge

You are crossing one of the oldest river crossing points in Melbourne. When the first European settlers arrived in eighteen thirty-five, there was no way across the Yarra here except by punt or ferry. The first timber bridge went up in eighteen forty-four, a toll bridge named in honour of Albert, Prince of Wales. That bridge was replaced by a grand single-arched stone bridge in eighteen fifty, and then by the current structure, opened on the fourth of October, eighteen eighty-eight, just in time for Melbourne's second International Exhibition.

This bridge was designed to impress. It is thirty metres wide and a hundred and twenty metres long, with squat Harcourt granite columns resting on bluestone piers supporting three iron girder arches. The design bears a deliberate resemblance to Blackfriars Bridge over the Thames in London, a fact noted and celebrated at the opening ceremony. Melbourne in the eighteen eighties was one of the richest cities in the world, thanks to the gold rush, and it wanted everyone to know it looked just as grand as London.

The Yarra River flowing beneath you has a complicated reputation. Melburnians love to joke about it flowing upside down because it is so murky, but that brown colour is natural tannins from the vegetation upstream, not pollution. The Wurundjeri people called it Birrarung, meaning river of mists, and for thousands of years it was a rich source of eels, fish, and freshwater mussels. Stand here at dawn and you might see a cormorant diving for fish, completely unbothered by the trams rattling overhead. Because of its position connecting the city to St Kilda Road, Princes Bridge is the gateway to everything south: the arts precinct, the Botanic Gardens, and the Shrine.