Akashi-Kaikyō Bridge

This bridge is a sight to see and is part of the Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Project which is a group of bridges connecting the islands of Honshu and Shikoku. Many of the bridges in this group set various records for length and size and are also in the top lists for the same reasons.

Approaching it via train from Kobe you begin to see the 298m tall supporting towers over the hills, the closer you get the more you realise how damn big this bridge is. In reference to something local the bankwest tower antenna tip is 248m tall and these towers which hold the bridge up are over 50m higher.

Unfortunately we were unable to walk the bridge or even walk a part of it so we were only able to see it from below but it is still amazing at its size. The roadway above sits 50m above you which had a gallery/cafe but that was closed on the day we went.

Beneath the roadway was a museum dedicated to the bridge which showed you how it was build and all the engineering feats they had to overcome to build a bridge of that magnitude. They had two scale models of the bridge, a 1:40 scale which they used in wind tunnel testing and also a smaller 1:1000 scale showing its surroundings. Another scale model included all the other bridges in the Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Project.

Megan also got to build her own bridge in the special learning school :)

Some Statistics on the bridge which took 12 years to build.
Length: 3911 meters
Central Span: 1991 meters
Tower Height: 298 meters
More info at wikipedia.org

Shaun