We Go to a Land Down Under -- XII

A brief walkabout in Sydney

Thursday, Oct. 13

This will be our last full day in Australia. Like any good trip, I've loved every minute of the time we spent here, but I'm also ready to go home and resume my regular life. Sharon and I have not signed up for anything special, so we sleep in, take breakfast at our leisure – at last – and head out on our own to explore.

Click to enlarge and then notice the three groups of
people along the sides of the bridge.

The boys, on the other hand, have signed up for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, the Harbor Bridge climb. The Harbor Bridge is one of the largest single-arch bridges in the world, and a company conducts climbs to the top of the arch, pretty much every day of the week, no matter the weather. The day starts out a bit cool and windy, with a slight threat of rain, which is only mildly fulfilled later in the day.

Sharon and I don’t think we can handle the climb physically,-- you have to climb a ladder and although the steps on the bridge aren't supposed to be that taxing, the whole experience takes three hours.

Instead we plan to walk to the bridge and climb up in one of the pylons that’s been converted to a museum about the bridge. Four pylons flank the bridge, two on each side of the bay. They serve no structural purpose; they are “decoration,” which given their plainness doesn't really fit my idea of decoration.

After breakfast we break out the instructions Tony’s provided for getting to the bridge and strike out. We'll be traveling along a major street in the Central Business District that is being ripped up. Sydney once had a tramway like Melbourne's, but they did away with. Now the plan is to rebuild it. People throng the sidewalks.

The biggest downtown I ever worked in was in Abilene, and the only times you could talk about throngs in downtown were for art walks and the Christmas parade. Certain “throngs” was not a term to apply to normal business hours. This reminds me more of the foot traffic you see in New York as portrayed in the movies and TV.

Two of the bridge pylons. The one on the right houses
the museum, and the entrance is on the other side of that
right front leg. The walkway is on that next to top section,
about 80 feet above the roadway.

Along the way we drop in on a couple of shops, and I find the last of the travel pins I’ll buy on this trip. We miss a turn without knowing it and wind up near the entrance for the bridge climb, which we figure has to be near the pylon. Nope. We ask a nice woman at the counter, and she gives us instructions on reaching our destination. We have to backtrack a bit before finding the spot where we should have turned.

The entrance to the pylon climb could be easily missed – the sign for it is small and not in a prominent position. We climb some stairs to a landing where we buy our tickets. I notice that they have a senior rate and ask the woman how old you have to be to qualify. She looks a bit surprised and smiles sheepishly before saying, “I’m sorry, but it’s 60.” Now, she’s either very practiced at making old people think she believes they’re younger than 60, or she really believed I’m not 60 yet. I do hope it's the latter.

At any rate she seems relieved when I tell her my age and zips us through. The museum is divided into sections. Even though we've been warned we'll have to climb a couple of hundred steps,they are not very steep stairs. Three landings open into rooms with exhibits about the building of the bridge. On one landing they have a film, on another they discuss the politics behind building the bridge -- not everyone thought it was a good idea, and like most grand projects of this sort, snags caused delays that aroused new opposition -- and still another features the workers who pulled off the bridge’s construction. At the top of the stairs you can walk outside onto a walkway that goes around the pylon near the top.

Stained glass
window
commemorating those
who built the bridge

One of the cool facts we learned from the exhibits is that they built the  bridge from each shore side. To keep the two halves up in the air, they rigged massive cables from the top of each section back to shore and tightened cables as needed. When the two halve of the arch were completed, they slowly loosened the cables to allow the halves to be joined using a giant lynch pin. It took awhile and required multiple attempts, but not because the arch halves weren't in the right place. The halves were only a few millimeters off, well within tolerances to match them up.

From this vantage you can see groups of bridge climbers ascending one side, then descending on the other. We keep thinking one of the groups has to be the one the boys and other people from our group are in. I can zoom in on the descending groups well enough to make out faces. None of the faces belong to people we know. Oh, well.

We finally go back down and start walking back. Sharon wants to go back to the climb center to see if we can catch the boys, who’ll wind up coming in about 15 minutes or so after we arrive. They were impressed, to say the least. The climb's cost seems a bit high, but their reaction indicates it was worth every penny.

From there we’ll walk back to the hotel, stopping at a nondescript cafe for lunch. We are served by yet another young French woman, who does not come from Paris. I asked. Another of the waitresses appears to also be from France. I had promised our Parisian waitress in Cairns that I wouldn't trot out my high school French, but I did for these two, saying, “Merci. A bien tot.” They giggled and replied in French as well. I believe they said, "You're welcome. Goodbye."

Sharon and I want to stop off at a Woolies to pick up some fruit and TimTams, so the boys lead to one they knew about in the CBD and then split off to do their own thing until supper.

Replica of Captain Cook's ship. It still sails and is used as
a training vessel and for occasional excursions.

This Woolworth lies across the street from the town hall and occupies three stories of the building it’s in. It is the most like a Walmart of the ones we've been in, with groceries, electronics and other stuff. (Tony told us one day that the Aussies haven't warmed to the idea of allowing Walmart a toehold in their country.) We take our food back to the room and decide to visit the National Maritime Museum across from the hotel.

We're in luck, as admission is free today for everything but the special exhibits. Several ships are moored in the harbor next to the museum, including a replica of the Endeavour, Captain Cook’s ship. This ship and a submarine moored nearby are open to the public, but they count as special exhibits. We won't have that much time left to explore the museum so we skip going on board and taking pictures of the ships from dockside.

Among the other ships moored are a racing vessel, a boat used to find pearl oysters and a refugee ship. The refugee ship carried 37 Vietnamese fleeing their country in the '70s in a boat designed as a coastal fishing vessel. The name of the boat translates to "freedom."

Back inside we check out the exhibits, including one that’s dedicated to American and Australian naval interaction during World War II. One of the posters from that era shows and Australian Navy man and advises the Americans that he is not their enemy.

All too soon the staff announce that the museum is about to close so we go back across the pedestrian bridge to the hotel and hang out til dinner. We eat at a restaurant located on the harbor near the hotel. It's a farewell dinner, so toasts are made, Tony is given a card from the group, some birthdays are recognized and celebrated – all in all a convivial end to our great adventure to the land down under.

Sydney Opera House from the bridge pylon. Because you
can never have to many pictures of the opera house.