On Sunday, we set out to go canoing again at the same place that we went to before in St. Benoit (about an hour’s walk away). The canoe place turned out to be closed, so we had a picnic instead since it was a nice spot.
Beautiful along the river, eh?
After getting there, we ate our sandwiches that we bought from a Patisserie down the street from my house. After they were gone, Ben, Leanne, Brian and I got bored. So we walked around the area a bit. We saw this bridge and a path leading up it. There was some signs along the pathway that said “Danger”, but the rest was in French, so we assumed they only apply to French citizens. We proceed upwards along an old staircase in the woods with burned out candles along the way.
We reached the top just before the entrance to the bridge, which must have been for the railroad or something at some point. There were more of the signs blocking the way to the bridge. How annoying.
The fence beside the signs was just the right height for climbing, as demonstrated here.
We reached the other side safely. Danger must mean something different in French. The sign says “Danger – For safety reasons, viaduct access is prohibited to everyone”. Since there was two of these signs with two fences, I assumed it was just a joke.
We crossed the Danger bridge safely. It was still in good shape for the most part, and we stuck to walking along the rivets and holding onto the railings. Suddenly, in the centre of the bridge, we heard a train coming. We all kinda freaked out a bit, until we noticed there was no longer any train tracks on the bridge, and you know, two fences blocking the way.
We got out of the restricted area safely. Just before we came out, we encountered a local person approaching the bridge to cross it with a fishing rod, doing the same thing as we did. There was also houses under parts of the bridges (yes, there was actually two “dangerous” bridges closed off), so they must been in good enough condition to keep standing. We returned to the picnic area by the river.
Lazing by the river playing cards and catching sun.
After a few hours, we walked the long way back to Poitiers, returning to my house for spaghetti dinner. Check out my gallery for more photos, including various photos taken by Brian, Katy and others playing with the zoom on my camera.