5, 4, 3, 2, 1, nothing!

Whenever we came to Sydney we must have been memorized by all the bike riders that were allowed to ride in the streets with the other cars that we thought we needed our very own bike. We were able to find a good deal on a bike and were avid about riding it to get some good use out of it. However, those days have come and gone and our bike has not been ridden in a few weeks, so we knew it was time to get rid of it before we left. We put an ad up on gumtree, and hadn’t gotten a response for a few days now. We had nearly forgotten about it until we got a late night text from a guy that was interested and wanted to pick it up in the morning. Riley was beyond excited about this and got up early to go inflate the tires and everything! The guy was coming all the way from West Sydney suburbs to check out the bike which is a good 45 minutes away. That also meant with the Sydney traffic that he was late for our meet up time which didn’t make me too fond of him. I had a Creative Arts 2 project to worry about that I may, or may not have, pushed off to the side and forgotten about until one week before it was due. In the meantime, Riley preoccupied himself with finally figuring out how to fold down this supposedly foldable bike. We got about half of it folded but absolutely could not get the handlebars to move in any direction. In all the moving around, we somehow deflated the front tire that Riley had gone to inflate that morning. We felt horrible about not having the tires blown up for the guy to give it a test run, but turns out he just wanted a fast deal and didn’t care to take it for a test ride. He also only wanted to know how to fold the bike in the middle and said he already knew how to fold the handlebars. We couldn’t believe our luck, especially since he didn’t even try to talk down our price any! Riley was beyond ecstatic, as was I, but I was also just ready to get started on my project again. Plus we had limited time because today we were climbing the SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE! This had been Riley’s surprise birthday present from his mom and I had planned it as close to his birthday as possible. But we also wanted to plan it during Vivid Sydney, which is when the Opera House lights up in the beautiful colors that are seen on postcards. Our bridge climb was set for 4 o’clock in the afternoon, with the climb allegedly going to take 3.5 hours which would put us on the bridge for both the sunset and Vivid. We were beyond excited with only a bit of disappointment from the clouds that kept rolling in. We had planned on leaving early giving us plenty of time to leisurely walk down to Circular Quay and to the Bridge Climb center, but somehow time got away from us again. We were able to catch the free bus down to the Harbour though and did a fast walk over to the meeting place where we ended up being very early. This gave us plenty of time to look around the gift shop as well as get even more excited to do the climb. When they finally called our group we were able to meet our group mates that would climb with us, as well as sign our life away. This definitely remembered us of skydiving, but we knew this wouldn’t be nearly as scary. Then it came time for us to put on tons of equipment! I had no idea that it would take so much equipment to simply climb a bridge. There was a jump suit, jump pants that were rain repellent, gloves, beanies, harness, and a fleece jacket and rain jacket in bags attached to the back of our belts. Along with a radio and headset that would be used to hear our tour guide the whole time. We were both feeling rather attractive after that and able to move about freely as you can imagine. Actually we felt like penguins having to waddle everywhere.

That's only the suits, not any of the equipment!

In the Bridge Climb building they had a small replica of the ladders on the actual bridge to have the participants have a try at using their equipment to get up the ladders. We all had some type of metal runner that would be attached to us and the wire along the bridge the whole way up. Once we attached to the wire we would be stuck on it until the very end of the climb and I was lucky enough to go in front! A few other people had already done the climb before and encouraged Riley and I to be the first pair up to get the best view. We of course didn’t complain and took them up on the offer. We made our way through a small tunnel in the bridge and were soon on the rafters walking right over the streets of Circular Quay. I don’t know how we never noticed people walking right above us before, but it was cool to have a bird’s eye view of everything. The scariest part was definitely having to climb the first ladders right in the middle of traffic on the Harbour Bridge. Along the way, our awesome tour guy Brett, shared lots of stories about the creation and construction of the bridge. After we all made it up the ladders he told us to take a seat on the smaller stairs along the arch and have a look back at the city. He then told us about the construction guys that worked on the bridge and the hard task they had. We learned infinite amounts of information and stories that we’ll save for when we return. Okay I’ll share one fun fact: The Sydney Harbour Bridge was only supposed to last for 70 years, and has now been standing for 81 years! Brett decided to tell us that right before we started the Bridge Climb which was of course was very reassuring! But Sydney has been working very hard on sandblasting the foundation to put another 20 years into the lifespan. However, they’ve been at this for about 7 years now and won’t be finished for another 3 years. They might as well make this a permanent job because once they finish they’ll have to turn right back around and start again! Brett made us stop several times along the journey to take pictures that they would try to sell us at the end, but Riley and I were more interested in the view. We weren’t allowed to bring our camera with us so we had to take a lot of mental pictures. We also talked with the Australian girls behind us that were from Adelaide and visiting Sydney on their holiday. We got to the top rather quickly and Brett informed us we still had about 10 more minutes until the Opera House was scheduled to light up. He also said that we weren’t supposed to stall up there since another group would be coming, but we said he’d break the rules for us if we didn’t tell on him. That meant we were allowed to wait as long as another group didn’t come up behind us. This also meant it was just about the longest 10 minutes of our lives, but we passed the time by talking to Chazz and Jazz from Adelaide. We even did the New Year’s Eve countdown of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and nothing happened. That felt like a complete crush of all our childhood dreams, but not even 10 seconds later and it lit up! We were both amazed at how beautiful and peaceful the city of Sydney looked from the top of the bridge. It felt like a personal show just for us, but like anything else the moment had to come to an end all too soon. We crossed the middle beams of the bridge and started to walk down the other side. We were actually part of the Vivid crew and got to wear our own reflective jackets so that people could see us lit up walking down the bridge. All the way down the bridge we were able to catch glimpses of the Opera House and the amazing show at the Harbour that was being put on. There were many light displays all around the wharfs that we could also see, along with the skyscrapers that had turned a different color with the nightfall. I particularly liked watching the roaring traffic go by underneath us, which definitely reminded me of New York City where people always have more important places to be. By the end, we were all a lot hungrier than we had expected and ready to get out of pounds of unneeded gear! We had been lucky enough to not get any rain and the wind hadn’t been as cold as we had expected. We shredded layer upon layers, collected our free group picture from the top of the bridge, certificate and headed out the door. We had food on our minds and had decided on trying kangaroo for the first time. We had seen this shop on George Street that sold kangaroo, and with it being the only one we had seen in Australia so far, we had to settle for that. We order our kangaroo burgers and waited to have them made fresh! The burgers actually cost just as much as a regular burger would since we got two burgers and fries for $20. Now you can see why we don’t eat out very often! We took our first bite without knowing what to expect but were pleasantly surprised. It tasted just like beef but a little chewier and tougher, but really it wasn’t bad at all. Plus we’re huge fans of burgers anyways, so we were happy campers. And we were able to cross another thing off our Australia bucket list so it was a great way to end an amazing day!