Who can pass by a bridge and not think of bridges to another world? I certainly can't. My earliest memories are bounded by bridges, the Birchenough bridge to the west on the road to Umtali and the Mozambique coast, the Otto Beit bridge to the North East over the Zambezi, the Victoria Falls bridge to the South West, again over the Zambezi and Beitbridge to the South over the Limpopo (great, grey-green, greasy and full of crocodiles).

This is a picture of the beautiful Tampa bay bridge, spanning the southern approaches to the bay.

It is like some great mythical beast rising up out of the sea. Unlike the bridges of my early memories, this one seems to me indifferent to the traffic it carries. It is not a bridge to another world, it is a bridge out of this world. I go to Tampa just for the experience of crossing it.

Of course, "the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River" (all set about with fever-trees), is where the Kolokolo Bird sent the elephant's child to find out what the Crocodile has for dinner. The discovery very nearly killed him.