Bridge Climb

On Friday we had booked tickets to go on the bridge climb in the afternoon, so the morning took on a very leisurely lazy atmosphere at Kay's, heading off towards the ferry into the city at about midday. We had lunch on the move, filo pies from the local deli and enjoyed the ferry ride into the city. Once there we made our way to 5 Cumberland Street, where the Bridge Climb offices are. Only Kay and I were to climb the bridge as Luke is too young and Claire really didn't want to anyway. Claire and Luke said farewell and we headed into the experience.





The first hour of Bridge Climb is to fill out the indemnity paperwork which basically says that if you fall off Bridge Climb are not responsible, getting into the 'jelly baby' style suit and getting harnessed up ready for the climb. You have a harness which attaches you to the bridge at all times called the latch so that no-one can fall off!! Next you go on a bridge simulator to show how the latch works and what the ladders are going to be like, simulation not terribly real as it's only a gantry 10 feet off the ground and there's no cars, trains or boats going past below.





Next is the most terrifying part of the whole experience - in your jelly baby suits you have to walk 100 metres down the public street to get to the start of the climb. A very inconspicuous looking door takes you up some steps into the rock that supports the start of the bridge where, once inside, you are attached to the bridge for the next two hours.





The climb begins with a long walk across a gantry above the road and park below to get to the first pylon (the stone bit that looks as if it holds the bridge up but which actually serves no purpose at all). Inside the pylon there are some squeeze points where you are clambering around the steel of the bridge. Next come the dreaded ladders where one climber at a time you ascend four ladders which take you up to the upper arch of the bridge. On the way up these ladders you appear through the roadway between lanes 7 and 8 of the highway that crosses the bridge (on the way down you disappear between the north and southbound train lines). Once on the upper arch the climb is gentle, nothing more than a stairway to the summit which is 134 metres above the water and 75 metres above the road deck. Photos are taken as you cross to the other side of the bridge for the descent and at various points on the arches. Everyone is then charged a small fortune for these photos at the end of the experience.





I would thoroughly recommend the Bridge Climb experience, while relatively expensive it is well worth the investment of time and money.

We had dinner in a nice little Italian in the Rocks area of Sydney and headed home on the ferry, today the plan is to go to the dragon boat racing at Darling Harbour.......