This small village is named after it's railway bridge which crosses the old Kilmarnock to Troon line. The name apparently derives from that fact that the bridge was over railway whereas the nearby Laigh Milton viaduct (known as the Wet Bridge and claimed to be the oldest railway viaduct in the Scotland) was over the River Irvine. The bridge is still here and the line (The first in Scotland, and opened in 1812 to carry coal to Troon Harbour) is today part of the Glasgow South Western Line (or Burns Line) to Stranraer.
The instructions for this cache tell you to follow a path to the right of a seating area which was obvious to see, however reaching it was more difficult that you'd imagine. Over night the roads and pavements of North Ayrshire had become one huge ice rink and I could hardly move across the frozen ground. Once at the path there was more grip and I followed this wee path down past a bench with a beautiful view and arrived at another bridge (not the one after which the village is named) over the River Irvine. This wasn't just any old bridge however, it was a pipe, and at first I though I was going to have to either shimmy over it or scramble along the surrounding lattice work. Upon closer inspection I found there were metal walkways on either side and that there was a way to access these.
After a pause on the bridge to take some photos and enjoy both the view and the experience I continued along the route towards the GZ. The pipe itself at first seems out of place in a location like this but it has a certain magic of it's own. I'm not sure what it carries, where it starts or where it's going but it's certainly a striking feature in the landscape.
It was still really cold when I got to the cache site and after finding the it and signing the log I headed back to the car. On the way back the light was coming in the opposite direction and everything was casting long shadows in the low winter sun. Beautiful!
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