Hot, High and Tipsy: May 21, 2014 Sydney Bridge Climb

The sun is shinning in Sydney in it is warm. We stay in the beautiful Marriott over looking the Opera House and Bridge. Our good buds the Aho's have set us up here with awesome rooms and we see why people say this a most beautiful city. But the scary time is almost here and we can see that Sydney Harbor Bridge where we are scheduled to climb today. There will be more on this adventure if we survive. Krimhilde and I were counting on some liquid courage to get us through the climb but no such luck. They test your breath to make sure you are not under the influence. We were hoping to be under the influence of courage but we will see how that all works out very soon.

Time to face the bridge and time is running out to run for safety. The people look nice and smile and we do not see any stretchers or discounted helicoper rescue packages so we go upstairs for briefing and instructions.

Out comes our leader and smiling and joking and 12 of us enter the back room. Now it would be hard to back out! It gets a bit serious as we are told to remove everything down to our undies and slip into a onezie and report out for training. On goes our safety belt and headlight and headphones and everthing is hooked to our suit. Instructions come fast and we are ushered into another room for practice on ladder climbing and rail holding and we are pronounced ready. We hook onto the safety cable and out the door - Ahhh!

First step is on a cat walk way up high above everything and I am not in favor of looking down, up, sideway or anything except straight ahead - yikes! Now come ladders and there are many, straight up and again, look straight ahead and do not think how far to go.

Whew! Now we hit the spine of the bridge and we are so high up our heads think this is to stupid to be scary. We walk and this part is very nice and full of wonderful views of the city in all directions and it is breath taking. At the very top pictures are taken and we marvel at the sights.

Time to circle round and head down the other side but not before we catch the sun setting over the harbor. It is simply stunning. Damn, here come the ladders and I must say leaning out to start down a series of ladders was, gulp, hard at first but it goes well and before we know it we are off the cable and into our changing room. Wow! We did it! Not that I am ready for a repeat but we are all glad we did this one. Sydney is a beautiful city and tomorrow we get a closer look as we have a guide picking us up to show us around.