Aussie Adventure - Sydney Day 2 - BRIDGE CLIMB DAY !!!!!!

Bridge Climb Day has finally arrived - one of the highlights of our trip!

Thanks to jet lag I had a terrible night's sleep and was wide awake at 4am, luckily Shaun had bought a 24hr pass for the hotel wi-fi so I caught up with FB, Twitter & Skype, as it was only 2pm in the UK everyone was up and about!

Shaun woke about 7 so once we were sorted we headed out to find some breakfast.   We'd seen a programme where Rick Stein had found breakfast at the famous fish market so decided we'd do the same.  Wish I'd paid more attention - no idea where he ate but we could only find fish and freshly made sushi - not quite what I had in mind for breakfast.   It was a pretty amazing place though and I'm glad we did the walk, even if it was already 30 degs by 9am!   Probably better for lunch though!  We then headed down towards Darling Harbour where we found Rob's Cafe off the beaten track at Pyrmont Bridge and ordered scrambled egg on toast and coffee.  After breakfast we headed into the Harbour area for a look around and then back to the Town Hall where we needed to be to pick up the free walking tour.   We got there a bit early so went into the Queen Victoria Building (QVB) to enjoy some welcome aircon and to find the Pandora shop.

At 10.30 we went back to the meeting point at the Town Hall where we met our guides Ross & Justine (the founders of I'm Free).   There were a lot of people for the tour so we were split into two groups and we were taken by Justine on a 3 hour wander of the city learning about the history and seeing sights that you probably wouldn't see if you were on your own, like the birdcage alley

There's no birds in them but you can hear birds singing - they were put there to replace the lost birds in the city.  Extremely clever.    At the end of the tour you pay the guide what you think the tour was worth - hopefully we weren't too stingy!

After the tour we headed to the Royal Botanical Gardens for a wander and some lunch.   We made it all the way out to Mrs McQuarie's Point and had a sit down on her chair.

The Botanical Gardens were on the must-do list and they didn't disappoint - a haven of quiet and somewhere to take part in sport or family activity - even found a bootcamp class working out in 37 degs!

We weren't due to climb the bridge until after 4 but we decided to head back to The Rocks to recce where we had to go.   It was only about 3pm when we found the building which holds Bridge Climb Sydney so we decided to see if they could take us up earlier.   We were told that there were spaces on the next climb due to go out in 15 minutes so we went for it.   Glad we did because the group was lovely and small - only 8 of us in total plus our climb guide, Nick.

Sydney Bridge Climb is not a cheap activity but when you see how much goes into making sure climbers are safe and comfortable it's not hard to see why.   We booked ours in the UK via our travel agent which made it a little cheaper.  Once we'd be given our very fetching boiler suits and other equipment we were taken through a safety talk and a practice run and then Nick took us out onto the starting point of the climb.  As soon as my safety wire was fitted to the rail the tears started.  I'm not sure if I was scared, anxious or excited but there they were.   We slowly made our way out to the girders of the bridge and the ladders which led us up to the top.  The worst point is where you come out level with the road which carries the cars.  It's very noisy and the cars seem awfully close.  The train thunders by too but luckily I managed to miss that passing as we climbed up.  At certain points Nick stopped us to chat and answer questions and he took photos.   The views out across the harbour were amazing, the height didn't bother me at all.  Once we reached the top most point of the bridge we stopped and everyone had photos taken and a short video message.   Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take our own cameras up so I can only share with you the two photos and video given to us.

Copyright Bridge Climb Sydney

 On top of the world - in our sexy climbing kit

Copyright Bridge Climb Sydney

Our tiny group of amazing people - normally groups are anything up to 16, so we were very lucky. 

Hope the video works once I've posted, if not apologies!

Going down is a little bit more scary as it's on the side where the rail track is - time it badly like I did and the train goes thundering past your right ear just as you're on a ladder!   Not gonna lie - I did freeze for a bit and have to take a very deep breath before I continued down.   The whole climb takes about 3 hours, once you're back into basecamp you can get changed out of your kit, collect your photos and souvenirs - you get to keep the baseball caps - and have a wander round the gift shop.  I can't wait to wear my tshirt!   I'm so pleased Shaun talked me into doing this - I would've been really pissed off if he'd done it on his own!

Back on Terra Firma we made our way back to our hotel, on the way stopping off for a cold cider and pick up some Tiger beers and a kangaroo burger for dinner with the salad we had leftover from the previous day.

After dinner we repacked the suitcases ready for our flight to Melbourne

What an amazing day - Day 2 done!

Aussie Adventure - Sydney Day 1

Monday 11th January - our first full day in Sydney and I'm having to pinch myself that we're actually here!  We both slept well, waking up at about 6am, unfortunately I had the mother of all sinus headaches (probably from drying out on the flight).   Luckily I'd packed a box of Sudafed.   We had a lovely apartment at the Break Free situated on George Street.

We didn't realise how central the hotel was until we went to search out some breakfast.   Our apartment had a small but extremely well equipped kitchen with fridge, hob, oven and microwave and "living room" area which we later found was a major plus.

Breakfast in Sydney, maybe like most major cities of the world, is an "on the go" affair - lots of food halls selling breakfast in a wrap, but nowhere to really sit and relax and enjoy something to eat.  I wasn't coming all this way to run into Maccy Ds (or Maccys as the Australians call it).   It didn't take long though to spot down a quiet little alleyway 1 Abercrombie Lane

- a cafe/bakery which serves breakfast to go but also allows customers to sit down and enjoy poached eggs with avocado (Avo) on sourdough with a decent cup of coffee - alternatively I went for an apple bircher with a lovely cup of "English Tea".   This place is a little gold mine, the staff are very friendly, the food is fresh and it seems very popular with the Sydneysiders too!

Once breakfast was done we headed to Circular Quay - we'd booked a 24 hour ticket for Captain Cook Cruises to take us on a trip of the Harbour, mainly to get to Manly but maybe also hop on and off at various other stopping points within the Harbour.   Once we'd swapped our voucher for tickets at the kiosk and worked out which ferry we needed to catch we headed off to explore the quay area which includes one of Sydney's most famous landmarks - the Opera House.

Wow, what an amazing piece of architecture.   It's not stunning but is definitely a bit mesmerising!

Seeing the Bridge on the other side of the quay was a bit of an exciting moment, with the realisation that the next day we would be climbing it.  Watching the tiny figures walking up and down it was fascinating!

After some must have photos of the Opera House and the views of the City we headed back to the quay to board our "ferry" to Manly.  There were also stops at Watsons Bay and Taronga Zoo but we decided we would come back and do those if we had time - our main objective was to get to Manly, hire a couple of bikes and head out to the North Head Nature Reserve.  Getting off the ferry the other end we headed straight to Manly Bike Tours shop where we hired a couple of hybrids.   Manly Bike Tours come highly recommended - the guy who runs it is extremely helpful and makes sure you're comfortable on your bike, the hire charges are very reasonable and you can hire a bike for as short a time as an hour or for a day.   They also cater for families too with baby seats, kids trailers and bikes and tag alongs.  There are also lockers for hire if you don't want to carry all your belongings.  Each bike comes with a cycling helmet, bike lock and a map of Manly.   There are a number of rides you can follow - if you let the guy know where you want to go, he will mark the best route on the map.   You do need to carry your own water though, which you can either carry in the bottle cages or in the bike bag on the handlebars.    One word of warning, Manly is not flat!  I'm not brilliant on hills and in the heat I did struggle a bit, probably not helped by the tiredness from the flight!

North Head Nature Reserve is a lovely area - but it was very warm, about 35 degs we found out later.

After North Head we headed back to the bike shop via the beach, it was great to see Cabbage Tree Bay and the very impressive Shelly Beach, it was packed as it was still school holidays.  We didn't do much cycling because it was so busy on the cycle path.  Once we'd handed the bikes back and had some lunch and an ice cold beer at Crinitis, we headed back to the ferry.  

Our next planned stop was Fort Denison - actually wished we hadn't bothered and got off at Watson's Bay instead!  There's only a ferry to Fort Denison once an hour so once you are there you are stuck.  It's much smaller than I thought it would be and whilst there is a museum about it's history it's not big and takes all of about 20 minutes to walk round.   There is a very nice restaurant so we were able to get an ice cold drink (no beer unless you buy food), but it wasn't cheap!
Great chance for Shaun to use his telescope though

The ferry picked us up and took us back to Circular Quay.  

Top tip : there are other ferry companies on the Quay and the Manly Ferry.  We only booked ours in the UK because we didn't know what else was available.  Depending on what you want from your day in the Harbour you could probably do it cheaper than we did.  We could've spent a lot longer at Manly, a sit on Shelly Beach and a dip in the sea would've been nice.

During our walk back to our hotel we spotted a Woolworths (a major supermarket in Australia), we needed some water, snacks and cold drinks for the room so decided to go in an investigate.   Walking round we found freshly cooked chickens so decided to buy one and some salad stuff and take it back to our room for dinner instead of trying to find somewhere to eat that night.  We'd been on the go since 8am and with the heat were both exhausted.  We bought some Tiger beers from the bottleshop (offy - you can't buy alcohol in Australia supermarkets).

Our first fantastic day in Australia was over!