The 32nd bridge carries the A6091 to Galasheils	The 27th bridge at Walkerburn which carries a minor road into the Elibank and Traquair Forrest	The 8th bridge follows the pattern of giving access to a farm, Hearthstanes, from the A701 Moffat Road

For no reason at all I decided to start from the mouth of the river and work to the source though I did not always photograph the bridges in sequence.  I did not set any time limit on the project and did a day 'on my bridges' whenever I had time and the weather was set fair,  The whole thing spread itself over some 18 months but I did nothing in the winter months.
My camera was my old, well used Canon FTB single lens reflex, with a 35-135 zoom lens, carried in a padded case.  This rather bulky item has done many miles on a variety of motorcycles and has never failed to produced photographs of places visited and people I have met.  Several times I have been on the point of getting rid of it for a new 'point and shoot' camera, my pictures might be better, then again they might not, my FTB does not need batteries to make it work and the money I would have to spend is better spent on film to give me more memories of places and people so I keep my old Canon

The 44th bridge is a seven arch design by John Smeaton which was built between 1763 and 1766. On the top left of the picture is an inset of the plaque commemorating the first crossing to England of Robert Burns in 1787. Click on the inset to enlarge the plaque and the bridge to see an enlarged picture of the Bridge.

My BMW is a 1982 R100RT which was purchased in rather poor condition (and that's another story) and has needed a fair amount of work to bring it to a reliable condition. I find it a comfortable machine to ride with capacity in its panniers to carry everything I need and as far as I can establish I get 45 miles to the gallon.  Despite being pre-1985 and therefore officially unsuitable for lead free petrol I use lead free all the time and a regular check of tappet settings shows no alteration in settings over 6000 miles which includes about 1000 miles of main road cruising at speeds 'within the spirit' of the speed limits.
I add a little 2-stroke oil to the petrol now and again with the idea that it may help to preserve the silencers but time will tell if this idea works.
The RT is a pleasure on Border roads and I have confidence in the way it handles on the twisty bits at my speeds but it is not ideal for some of the narrow, bumpy by-roads I had to use when seeking some of the Tweed bridges and at my age manoeuvring and manhandling it on doubtful surfaces and turning it on narrow paths was sometimes as much as I wanted.  But as always I managed and I never failed to complete the many journeys I made following the river.
Living in Berwick-upon-Tweed made the first six or seven bridges easy but after these the only method of finding my bridges was with the help of the 'Landranger' series of OS maps though these are not infallible as their revision seems to take years and new bridges are built and in use before they are added to the 'Landrangers'.  I found one bridge that had not yet been added to the map. 
In terms of 'work scheduling' activity the necessary steps were simple. (1) find where the bridge is situated (2) go there (3) photograph it.  For step (1) I made a list of about 10 bridges at a time using the appropriate 'Landranger' and from the map made a guess at how I would get to the bridges.  The main roads bridges were of course easy but in the case of old railway bridges access by the most suitable road was not always apparent. For step (2) I selected a day of dry, sunny weather, put camera and spare films plus sandwiches and a bottle of water in the panniers, filled the tank with lead free and set off. At first these journeys were only some 20-30 miles but as I worked my way up river they gradually became longer and it took a full day to photograph fewer bridges.  This was the best bit of the project and got me on roads and to places I do not think I would ever have visited otherwise.

Each bridge needed a 'recce' for step (3) and I did a fair amount of walking to ascertain background, position of the sun etc, and I also walked across each bridge looking for memorial and information plaques which were photographed to include interest.  For instance the bridge at Kelso is the work of John Rennie a well known engineer in Victorian days and is a 'model' for the Waterloo Bridge he designed for the Thames in London in 1817.  I took 4 - 6 photographs of each bridge and in several cases photographs of the River Tweed as seen from the bridge.  Wherever possible I included the RT in one of the photographs, not too prominently but discretely in the background as a memory of the bike in years to come.
At the start of the summer (!) of 2000 I decided the BMW needed new tyres.  When I carried out the rebuild after purchase to make the bike roadworthy and rideable I fitted Continental tyres, original equipment and all that, but for some reason I took against the Conti's.  I had great difficulty in getting the rear tyre to fit correctly and the inner tube had a slow leak from the day it was fitted so I took advice and subsequently fitted a set of Avons.  The tyre fitter remarked on my inner tubes and said he would never fit such 'thin things' himself so new, heavy inner tubes went on as well.
I suspect I do not ride anywhere near hard enough to notice significant changes between different tyres but I did notice an improvement with my new Avons.  After I had done a few miles I discovered they were inflated 4/5psi above BMW's recommended pressures and I have kept them like this.  I seem to remember reading something in the 'Journal' about the benefits of slightly higher tyre pressures but I can't remember the details. Tyre pressures stated by a manufacturer are perhaps a compromise to try and please everybody. It did cross my mind that if I had inflated the Conti's a bit harder I would have noticed an improvement but I will never know.

The First Bridge. From a trickle the Tweed starts to flow strongly and widens rapidly	Thus footbridge is in a park West of Peebles where the Tweed is used for bathing. This, the 20th bridge, is the last of the functional, steel foot bridges across The River.	The 12th bridge is near Wrae Hill and is built to carry only sheep.
The 22nd bridge. This footbridge is on the East side of Peebles and is the first of the suspension foot bridges. Suspension construction may have been required because of the length of span required.	This is the 24th bridge, which is a railway bridge at Cardrona.	The bridge carrying the B709 across The Tweed at Innerleithen is the 25th bridge. The construction is unusual and unattractive.

The route of the now disused railway line which followed the Tweed could clearly be seen and getting to some of these old railway bridges involved some pleasant walking.  It was interesting to see that some local authorities had seized the opportunities offered by the old railway route to create footpaths, walks and cycle paths while others had done nothing.
Access to most bridges was not difficult though I found several which appeared to have no rights of way on the river banks adjacent to them and if I was in doubt I tried to find someone to ask about this. Consequently I met a lot of people who were unfailingly helpful and pleasant.  There was the man who went back to his house to get me notes about the local footbridge; the several shepherd's wives who took time to explain paths to me and advise me of bridges I might miss; the shepherd who walked with me to show me a bridge for sheep to cross the river and on the way pointed out a Celtic burial cairn; the woman who lived in a cottage in a forest, told me living there was wonderful and she would not want to live anywhere else and the estate manager who stopped what he was doing and showed me the footbridge from the estate across the river.
Many men I spoke to commented on my motorcycle and were envious of the way I was riding about the Borders; some told me tales of their exploits on two wheels and others how they were going to buy a bike 'soon' sometimes with details of what they were going to buy; I thought of Thoreau's comment 'Most men lead lives of quiet desperation'.
On week days I saw very few other motorcyclists and most I did see were continentals on holiday.  At weekends groups of bikes were to be seen, obviously clubs or groups 'out for a run'.  These groups could usually be heard before they were seen.
When I got to the last ten bridges near the source of the river a fair amount of walking was needed and to give myself more time I decided I would stay overnight in Moffat.  With the help of two cyclists I found a first class B&B in Moffat and later ate my dinner in 'the narrowest hotel in the world'.  John Lourdon MacAdam the 19th century road builder is buried in Moffat cemetery and nearby there is a memorial to the driver and guard of a coach who perished in a great blizzard when they were trying to reach Edinburgh.

The 26th bridge is the railway bridge at Innerleithen. The construction of this bridge is similar to the railway bridge at Cardrona.	At Walkerburn this bridge carries a minor road into the Elibank and Traquair Forest. This is the 27th bridge.	The 28th bridge carries a minor road from the A707 to Peel Farm and beyond.
The 29th bridge carries the A707 over The Tweed at Fairnilee Farm. It is a good example of multi-arch stone construction.	This fine stone bridge is the 30th from the source of The River and carries a minor road between the B7060 and the A7 by Sunderland Hall.	The new A7 road crosses The Tweed by means of this standard steel and concrete bridge. This is the 31st bridge.

I have remarked that the RT never failed to do everything I asked of it but towards the end of 'doing the bridges' starting became irregular and erratic.  The battery, relay and wiring were all right so it had to be the starter and I fitted a reconditioned starter which restored the starting regularity.  One of the starter mounting bolts was missing and this may have had something to do with the trouble but again I will never know.
On some days I was doing a lot of stopping and starting and I found the awkward and clumsy side stand a nuisance.  I fitted a small extension to the footpeg of the side stand enabling me to put it down while sitting on the bike and this made life very much easier.  Why don't manufacturers attend to these points?

The source of the Tweed is a little disappointing being a marshy depression in the hills from which water trickles out eventually forming a burn over which you can step easily. There is a slightly confusing sculpture of it all in a lay-by on the A701, the road which runs from Moffat beside the Tweed for several miles.   The first bridge across the emerging river is a few old railway sleepers to give access to a shepherd's house from the main road.

So three or four photographs of these railway sleepers with the source in the background and the ground work of my river Tweed project was complete, 50 bridges in total.  It cost me about £250 for film, processing, petrol and my night away at Moffat. Spread out over about 18 months the costs were hardly noticed. It all could have been done in much less time or as Parkinson said it could have been expanded to fill all the time available!  It never was a bridge too far and I am glad I did it.

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