Another beautiful day down under. Today, I took the "Bridge Climb" up the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I arrived at the bridge around 10:00 am and our group of 13 intrepid adventurers actually started the climb around an hour later, after a thorough safety briefing, the donning of lots of safety gear, and even a Breathalyzer test. The entire climb took about 2 1/2 hours from start to finish, with the summit of the bridge being about 440 feet above water level.
Unfortunately, they don't allow any loose articles to be carried on the bridge, including personal cameras. Also...that allows them to sell photos at about $30 each.
Fortunately, though, part of the package was a ticket to enter one of the four pylons that stand at the ends of the bridge, where we could take pictures at a height of just under 300 feet above the water. So, to give you an idea of how the view was from the bridge itself, here are some pics from the pylon. The first pic, of course is the Opera House:
This is a pic of the approach ramp looking south into downtown (Central Business District, or CBD) from the Pylon. The area to the left is called "The Rocks" and is the oldest part of the city of Sydney, having been built by convicts starting in 1788:
Here you can get some idea of the sheer mass of the bridge itself:
This is Sydney Harbour looking west from the bridge:
And this is looking south with The Rocks in the foreground and downtown Sydney in the background:
After the Bridge Climb, Pat and I met up and had lunch at The Rocks. It's been refurbished over the last 20 years ago, although it does still have one pub that dates from the 1820's. You can see from this that the streets are narrow and busy, the area is very neat, and it is covered with shops and restaurants:
While in The Rocks, we ran into one of these. This is Pat talking to "Doctor Who" who has also travelled through time:
Tomorrow, we're headed out around Sydney to the Maritime Museum, the Sea Life Aquarium and the Wildlife Park, part of Sydney's Zoo System.
