I picked my way carefully through this rough broken ground. It looked like those old pictures from the First World War: I’m sure you know the sort of thing I mean .. the Somme and Passchendaele with its torn and ruptured landscape.

I managed to find the river, though everything looked very different from how I remembered it. The builders, I presume had changed the course of the river or something like that.

Of my bridge and the old railway track there was no sign.  I was on the point of giving up the search thinking that perhaps the whole shebang was just bulldozed out of existence.

I looked over to my right hand side and I thought that there was something very familiar looking about a little copse of trees off to one side.

I realised that the best way to find the bridge, if it was still there, was to simply walk along the river in the direction of its flow, and this I did.  As I came to the end of the torn up and bulldozed area things began to look a little better.  I was entering the area of the copse of trees. It was very dense and strewn with thorn bushes.  The only way to make any progress was to take to the water. Thankfully the river was low and was strewn with large stones so I was able to make my way downstream and avoid most of the clutching thorn bushes.

.... more later ....