Sydney Bridge Climb

As an aviator I don’t really have a fear of heights. So of course when I found out that you can climb the towering Sydney Harbour Bridge I was all in! Surprisingly both of my parents were on board as well!

This had to be one of the first things that we did in Sydney but also had to be on a nice day. I mean seriously, who wants to be on a bridge when its all raining and yucky? Not me, no thanks!   So I booked the tickets online and we were off, giving ourselves plenty of time to get to the bridge for our climb. Ha, Sydney Transportation had other plans and we only just barely made it on time for our scheduled climb time, whoops! Ten minutes later we were ushered into a room where we were giving jumpsuits (seriously) and harnesses similar to climbing harnesses.

Then we went and changed into our new fangled outfits. For me it was very reminiscent of wearing a flight suit and putting on your flight gear. It made me miss flying just a bit. Next, we met Mitch, our climbing guide, and we were off towards the bridge!

At the base of the bridge Mitch had us hook our harness into the bridge harness system and turn on our headsets.   Mitch spoke to us through a headset system and we were free to look around as we were securely hooked into the bridge harness system the entire time. We spent the next hour moseying our way casually up one side of the bridge!

You climb on a platform that is about eight feet wide, so you can’t really see straight down. I think that was purposeful. In the middle of the platform are a set of handrails that you had to stay between. I promise it is not as scary as most of you are thinking.

The views up there are just amazing! You can see all of Sydney! Once you make it to the tiptop of the bridge you get to cross perpendicularly over to the other side of the bridge.

Here is where things get a bit tricky! There is no platform over this 30-foot section, just a grated floor and guardrails that you can see all the way through to the rushing traffic 450 feet below! Awesome!!! This was the best part, or at least I thought. Not sure how everyone else felt about this section. I’m pretty sure everyone’s hearts were racing just a bit more here.

Ironically, about 20 minutes prior to this point on our ascent up the bridge, someone in the group ahead of us got on the top section and had a panic attack and couldn’t get to the other side. While I felt sorry for this person it allowed us an extra 20 minutes to just hang out and enjoys the views. One of those views though just happened to be a storm off in the distance. Nowhere extremely close but definitely headed our way. I know better than anyone that you can’t rush a panic attack. They end when they do. Eventually we were on our way and headed back down the other side of the bridge. The descent allowed us a better view of the other side of Sydney.

As we were descending, the storm had made its happy way a bit too close to us. We just happened to be the third to last group to successfully make it across the top before they turned everyone on the bridge around to head back down, whew just in the nick of time! One good thing about the storm was that is started to cool down the 95 degree heat that was making us all sweat through our jumpsuits, lovely hunh? We eventually made it all the way back to the bridge climb base and man were my calves speaking to me. I’d say I’m fairly in shape but even that hike was intense! Mitch told us later that we had climbed over 4,500 steps and had burned ~750 calories, way to go Mom and Dad! Back at base we climbed out of our sweat nasty jumpsuits and headed off to find a late lunch. When all is said and done we were starving, worn out and ready for a nap. Two days later and we were still hobbling around with sore calves but amazing memories!

Did I mention that the Bridgeclimb Base had two BigAss Fans!?! It was pretty cool to see their work here in Sydney!