A Different Kind of Bridge leads to a Discovery!

Summer seems to be back, with not a cloud in sight today, and warm balmy air. The end of September no longer seems like autumn if it's like this: much more summery than most of August. It was obviously time for another canal walk!

Our picture shows a different kind of bridge from the ones I have photographed on the Oxford Canal recently: it's a footbridge rather than one carrying a road or track. It's number 229, for the record, and here is a small plaque showing where it was made.

But where does such a footbridge go? Naturally, we had to have a look! And it took us from the canal into a lovely piece of ancient woodland, with lakes, and apparently much wild flora and fauna. The quite extensive area was given to the Woodland Trust to mark the Millennium. The amazing part is that this lovely place must be less than 2 km from our home where we have been for five years, and today is the very first time we have found out what is where we hitherto thought was wasteland. A wonderful discovery!

We came on to the canal at Bridge Number 228. And this second photograph shows the bridge from the other side.

This is a very peaceful stretch of canal.

Between Bridge 228 and Bridge 229, we find a lock ("Lock 43"), which has a swan as assistant lock-keeper. Here, the swan looks at us disdainfully...

Before I forget, and while we have a Blipfoto entry about the canal, here is a useful link to a list of nice pubs near the canal. I can vouch for quite a few of them. It complements the web page about the canal bridges that I mentioned on Saturday 24 September.