Bridge Climb

What a fantastic few weeks I have had; Sydney - Brisbane - Sydney - Melbourne
My verdict? I prefer flying to driving!!

I have ticked many things off my 2010 list during this time including a horse drawn carriage ride through Melbourne with my hubby and taking a friend to Tepinyaki in Sydney. But the best by far was the Harbour Bridge Climb.

Fiona and I were dressed in very attractive overalls (yes that was sarcasm) and girded with a belt that had a coat and raincoat in pouches attached to it, headsets to hear the guide and really cute beanies. Everything was attached to us; sunglasses, handkerchiefs, beanies; so that we couldn't drop anything on the cars below. It took two hours in total to dress, reach the top and return. The view was spectacular and we learned some very interesting facts. Did you know the entire bridge was constructed by hand? At the time it was built there was no OHS so none of the workers wore any harnesses or safety equipment of any kind? The four large stone pillars of the Harbour Bridge are actually hollow and are purely there for decoration, NOT to make the bridge stronger, and actually counted as 20% of the overall cost. The road was the last thing built and when the arches were finished, before the road was added, people wrote letters of complaint asking how were they supposed to take their horse and carriages over the arches to get to the other side?

But my story doesn't end there. The highlight of the trip was just five minutes from the top when we were informed to put our raincoats on, just in time for the rain to bucket down. Our group of six stood in the rain to have our photos taken with smiles on our wet faces. Not quite what we thought our photo would look like. We then had the joy of walking all the way to the bottom again in the rain with heads down and frozen wet hands. While the raincoats kept the top half of us dry, the pants and shoes were soaked through like we'd been swimming. And of course the rain stopped just as we arrived back at the bottom.

Of course the rain just makes for a more entertaining story.
It was a fantastic experience. It was completely safe as we were harnessed to the bridge the entire time too!
I highly recommend it to anyone...of any age! Have a go!


www.bridgeclimb.com