When Melbourne was expanding in
its very early years, wealthier people moved out to the hills
of Kew. In 1848 John Hodgson commenced a punt service across
the Yarra River at the end of Clark St in Collingwood – the
two ends can easily be seen there today, a couple of hundred
metres upstream from the cache location.
In 1857, the punt was replaced by a substantial wooden bridge at
the northern end of Church St, Richmond. It was swept away in
floods in about 1891, and rebuilt, but closed down by 1905 and was
not replaced. Today no sign remains of it, and Church St still
comes to an abrupt end there, behind the green fence.
The bridge was called the Studley Park Bridge but was also known
as the Penny Bridge as that was the fee for foot passengers. (And
you thought toll bridges were recent?) There are also three
interesting houses just beside the old bridge site – probably the
closest houses to the river anywhere in Melbourne.
By a coincidence the cache is located right where the photograph
was taken from, and should be easy to find. It is a small clip-top
container in a typical caching hideout.