Platinum Tabulam Bridge - Northern NSW, Australia

Fishman Dan · Oct 19, 2020

I recently took my drone to the nearby small town of Tabulam, about 50 km's west of my town of Casino. There was an official opening of a bridge, replacing a 120 year old wooden, one lane bridge that was used up until weeks ago by everything from person vehicles to large semi-trailers.

I took a photo that day that was used on the front page of the local paper, now a portion of this video will feature in the local regional news.

Back story: The locals are fighting to save the bridge from destruction, as the council and state government want to destroy it. It remains the longest single-span wooden deck bridge in the Southern Hemisphere, built with manual labour only, powered by horse and bullock - no machines. There is significant cultural heritage too, including ties to champion Australian Boxer Anthony Mundine.

Enjoy the video.

Geofff · Aug 17, 2021

Hope you are successful in protecting the bridge.. Usual government strategy is to let it deteriorate to a point where it becomes a safety issue and then demolish it.

Prop Wash · Aug 17, 2021

@Fishman Dan - Great video.
If they can, ask the governing body to make it a foot traffic/bicycle only bridge. This would be a way to keep the bridge and be a safety factor keeping foot traffic / bicyclists off the road bridge.

A neighboring community in here in Northern California did that very thing. They actually restored an original Truss bridge for those purposes as the road bridge (Rainbow Bridge) was narrow. Rainbow Bridge itself was built in 1919 but still provides a route into town. They've since put in a larger 4-lane road bridge down stream a bit to handle the increased vehicular traffic in the area. Both the truss bridge and narrow road bridge are historical to the area.
Rainbow Bridge is the concrete bridge, the truss bridge is behind it in this picture. These are in Folsom, California. (Not my picture, I borrowed it from the internet)