I slept very well and slept through most of the people in my dorm coming and going, but still felt a bit tired, even after a shower!
I had a cheapo breakfast of cereals and toast in the cafe next to the hostel and got the train to Circular Quay, from where I walked to the office for the bridge walk.
The office and organisation for this activity are a highly professional outfit. Having filled in the paperwork for liability and certificates, my group and I were fitted for the rather fetching jump suits they use, and shown how the safety harness and radio gear all works. We had a brief taster of the bridge ladders and steps on an indoor section and were made clear of their rules for the climb and then were off for the embarrasing part of the walk, along the street to the base of the bridge, all dressed like idiots... lol
The girl that led the walk was good fun and had plenty of info about the bridge and surrounding area and sights to pass on. The walk is not a particularly tough undertaking, although the ladder sections were slower for some people. It is all extremely safe, with an in genius harness system that you attach to, that you simply cannot get back off of until you come back down the other side of the bridge. All the way up the bridge are fitted stairs to make it easy for the climb up. The views from the top were fantastic, and the guide remarked that it was one of the clearest days of the year and that she had never been able to see the Blue Mountains in the distance before on a climb, awesome! They take lots of pictures of you, which they later try to sell to you at extortionate rates, so I played along mostly for my own amusement, knowing full well that the cost of the climb itself was already enough money thank you very much!
The whole thing, including 'training', takes about three and half hours and when you get back to the office you have to endure the cheesy, American style, round of applause for yourself on your special day... yee-fucking-haw! After getting back into our own gear, we each received a certificate and a complimentary group photo, and then went through to the shop to see the other photos at a stupid cost.
After the bridge walk I went up to the Tower museum for a look, as you can climb the stone tower at the end of the bridge and are allowed to take your camera and take some shots from there, which affords a pretty good view of the harbour.
I then went and had some lunch and then took a walk around the Royal Botanical Gardens behind the Opera house which were wuite nice and gave a superb view of the bridge and opera house from a different point in the harbour.
I then took a ferry to Manly beach for a quick look there, before heading back to take in the view of the city approach at night, which was very cool. It was a bit cold though, mornings and evenings are a bit windy at the moment, and on the section near the open sea, it was very windy on the ferry...
Off for more quality sleep as I'm getting up at 7am tomorrow for a day trip to the Blue Mountains... managed to doze off about midnight in the end...
Photos on photobucket
