SYDNEY!! HOP TO IT

Day 1 Sydney continued…
So after we settled into our new residence for the next two days I called BridgeClimb—if it isn’t obvious this is the company that allows you to climb up onto the Sydney Harbor Bridge, which stands at 134 meters at its maximum. Just a bit of background, the bridge was finished in 1932, having been started in 1923. And it was designed by John Bradfield and cost over 10 million dollars. Luckily, though still sad, only 16 of the 1500 workers on the bridge were killed in construction.
After I made reservations for the night climb, we made our way in the general direction of the bridge—not really knowing where exactly we were supposed to climb from. We passed a beautiful church, the infamous Hyde Park, the botanical gardens and finally the Opera House! This was beautiful but loaded with people. We turned our heads to the left and saw the bridge! We made our way along the harbor side, passing delicious looking cafes and restaurants, weaving in and out of the historical “Rocks” (an old convict prison area) finally finding the BridgeClimb building. Excitedly we took loads of pictures finally making it in to get our tickets and suit up. We ended up going on an earlier trip (by 15 minutes) because apparently we were the only 3 in the later time—would have been cool to have a personal tour! Inside there were several stations to prepare us how to climb, ending with a simulator of the bridge’s height and how we would be connected as we climbed the stairs. At this point I told Scott and Morgan that I was going to count every stair—but I never actually remembered when we made it out to the climb.
All ready to go in our sweet bridge climb jumpers, gadgets and accessories we made our way to where the adventure began. At first it was a bit scary—the bottom was close enough that it was scary –I could feel my legs shake. I wanted to stop and look around but I couldn’t stop looking at my feet. I should note that I was at the front of the line because the guide said anyone scared of heights should be at the front. I am scared of heights but I also thought the best spot would be at the front so you don’t have to stare at everybody’s butts. In retrospect this was a very good decision because throughout the climb I was able to ask the guide questions and hear his stories. Oh oh we also all had these like ear pieces so we could hear our guide—it was a good thing to because even a meter behind him I couldn’t hear him half the time without it.
Anyway you are probably wondering about the spectacular view, and of course I have only one picture to show you because we weren’t allowed to bring cameras (or anything dangling for that matter). But it was spectacular. We could see endless lights, bustling cars, the glowing Opera House and even people still busy at work in their offices. It was a city, but it was a lot different than any other. Life was calm and relaxed and it was beautiful. The climb itself wasn’t too strenuous and it certainly wasn’t humid as they told us it would be. They had provided us with beenies and a zip up hoodie (of course attached to our bodies) that we could use if we got cold. So of course I used those. So the walk went like this…walk across the planks to where the arch forms—walk inside the hard sturdy concrete slabs holding the arch up-walk under the arch-stare at the Opera House—walk underneath the road with cars speeding overhead—walk up the steepest stairs ever becoming even with the road/smushed in between the road and train tracks (way cool when the train went by!)-walk up more steep stairs and finally on the arch! Climb the towering arch—take a break and stand on the platform directly above the road—feel the bridge shake a bit as cars zoomed below—climb the arch to its peak and scream at the top of your lungs!—smile for the solitary picture you would get at the end—stand in awe while listening to the stories of John the tour guide/ask a million questions if your name is Hilary—head back down in similar fashion. In all the climb took 3.5 hours, and not surprisingly my legs didn’t stop shaking until about an hour after my feet were firmly planted on the ground. It was amazing, to climb the bridge, see the view and hear the stories of its existence.
One story in particular was most impressive. An Irish worker who had been working on the bridge since they started one day fell off the bridge from 40meters. For anyone this is sure death, but this managed to make his body so ridge and pencil like that he penetrated the water only to surface a few seconds later. Miraculously alive he had only loads of bruises and probably a really bad headache. He was taken to the hospital, so lucky to be alive. 5 days later he was back to work on the bridge. Why you ask? He was one of 1500 men working while thousands more waited outside hoping for a job. If he didn’t go back to work he would have been easily replaced, but this was the time of depression even in Australia. He had to go back to work, either that or his family would have no means of getting food and protection. Crazy huh?
I would definitely recommend climbing the bridge to anyone who goes to Sydney. It was awesome.
We were all starving afterward because we hadn’t actually eaten properly since breakfast that morning. We searched the alley ways which I had heard were cheaper than the busy streets (not true) finally making our way back to the harbor. We found this delicious restaurant—City Extra—where we enjoyed the most needed meal ever. It was quite good but in the end it took our waiter 1 hour and a stare down before we got our bill and this was after Morgan stacked our cups and plates in disgust haha. Luckily the whole meal we were serenaded by a man playing accordion so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
We made the long walk back to our hostel via Hyde Park and the beautiful church. Sleep did not come so easily—there was definitely major partying going on somewhere nearby and our solo roommate came back at like 3AM drunk and loud.
Needless to say I was more than happy to get up when Scott’s alarm went off the next morning.
Day 2: 6:50AM rise
We made our way to the opera house for some pictures without any people in the background and then back to the City Extra for pancake breakfast with icecream! Yumm and our check came quite quickly today. The reason we were up so early today was we were taking the 8AM ferry across the harbor to the Toronga Zoo!
This was really exciting, the zoo was huge! There was an entire exhibit for water animals that was probably larger than most aquariums—it has leopard seals, sea lions, seals, penguins, pelicans and other cute fuzzies. There was numerous exhibits on birds, an entire section for reptiles-poisonous snakes and frilled lizards, komodo dragons and more traditional animals like lions, tigers, zebras, giraffes and a pigmy hippo (my absolute favorite!) And of course a Tasmanian devil! It was animal lovers’ heaven. We spent four hours there and easily could have spent more time but we wanted to make it to the aquarium. We took the ferry back to the Sydney harbor and grabbed a cheap lunch at McDonald’s—this wasn’t so popular with Morgan and Scott—Morgan was deprived of French fries and Scott and his sandwhich were attached by a kamakazi (spelling) sea gull. Luckily starbucks was not far and it saved the day—yummmm.
We hit up some really awesome tourist shop and then jumped on another ferry headed for Darling Harbor—home to the infamous Nemo movie and of course the Sydney Aquarium. This was a pretty kick butt aquarium. I met some animals I have never seen before including a lung fish--human’s ancient ancestor, dugongs—Australian equivalent to a manatee, the blue-ringed octopus, a mermaid (just kidding) and FINALLY our first platypus (actually 2!). The aquarium also took us about 4 hours to get through especially because the platypus doing his wild zipping turning dance caught our attention for ages. Ultimately I had to buy a sweet t-shirt to remember this trip from the aquarium.
For dinner we were planning on going to a restaurant called Wagamama’s that Casie (a friend from Cornell) recommended. But it turned out to be less vego friendly than we thought, thanks anyway Cas! Instead we resorted to an expensive but delicious looking restaurant in “The Rocks”. AmoRoma, as it was called, served us a delicious candle light pesto flavored dinner, but unfortunately the servings were only expensive and meager. Fortunately however we had waffle Sundays on the mind and knew the perfect place to satisfy that hunger. We enjoyed them on the harborside while listening to this man sing and watched a whole bunch of gay drunk Australians walk by after their cruised ended. It was super entertaining, until this creepy creepy creepy guy came over and started asking us for money. He was not part of the cruise ps. He threatened to throw Scott in the river, it was odd and scary and none of us knew what to do because we didn’t want to make him any more mad for fear of what he would do. Finally he went away –stood infront of the poor singer probably harassing him too because we could hear his voice quiver. But we found that the perfect chance to get the heck out of there –and we headed back to our hostel.
Day 3:
Again we had an early start because we were headed for Bondi beach! We planned on taking the bus there but actually had no real clue were to get the bus or what time it left. We finally found a bus stop and found out we had just missed the soonest bus, but found this the perfect opportunity to go find breakfast. After being treated so wonderfully by the City Extra for the last two days, this mornings breakfast was a large disappointment. We found this little café on one of the side streets, saw that it wasn’t crowded so we sat down. $6.50 for a fruit salad the size of my palm—so not worth it. Basically I am going to have to disagree with the Lonely Planet Guide Book—alley food is definitely not better than main streets.
We ended up getting on a bus that took the long way to Bondi—but it didn’t actually go all the way to the Beach. There was an older woman on the first bus we got on that offered help to us in getting on the right one. She was very sweet—she even offered her home to us, well sort of. But it was nice to take the long way because we got basically a free tour of the non-commercialized part of the city—loads of beautiful homes and great views. When we finally got to the beach front we were awed by the atmosphere—what a great place to be Easter eve! We made our way toward a street that the woman form the bus had recommended—deciding not to follow the Lonely Planet book—and it was a good thing too because we found a cute little hostel not in the book, Surfside hostel.
It was nicely decorated inside—kind of a mermaid superhero scene and the guy at the desk was a lot friendlier than the guy at City Resort Hostel from the nights before. We were told we could even borrow water equipment like boogie boards. We were all excited about this so we slip, slop and slathered our way to the beach. Super surprisingly, the water was COLD but the waves were great. We were out there most of the early afternoon and by the time we were done I was so cold and managed to get some rashes on my legs and belly from the board and salt water that can still be seen today (eek!) Tired, but content we made our way back to the hostel for a nice hot shower (well needed because we dared not shower at the other hostel). It felt so good.
Next we decided to be tourists and did a bit of shopping! I managed to find a cute new purse/wallet and an Aussie hoodie! Next up, meal time, as you can only imagine from the pathetic breakfast we had that morning. We found this awesome looking place, with decent prices—the Bondi Bistro—and what a good move! I ate an entire large pizza by myself—Margarita style—SO good!
That evening we were going to take a walk to Coogee along this scenic route from Bondi-but it got dark too fast! What is this America? We ended up playing on the beach all night –burying ourselves and making funny shapes and even attempting to make a Easter picture for you all. To continue with tradition we went to Hungry Jacks (the equivalent of burger king) to get an icecream cone. It must be something about icecream and creepers because we found another creepy pissed off man asking for money, luckily we weren’t his victims that night.
Sleep that night did not come so well—we were sharing a room with 4 kids from the UK and two mystery people. The mystery people came in late that night and some of the UK people pounded on the door at all hours of the night.
Day 4: Easter!!!
Early rise 6AM because we were headed to Coogee!! It was definetly the perfect time to go on the walk because the sun was just rising and the view was terrific. I am so glad we waited until the morning. We were greeted by the Sydney runners and many cute little dogs along the way. It was about an hour and a half walk—though probably a bit longer because we stopped ever second to take a picture. We decided that we are all moving to Sydney and are going to leave there. You should have seen the water, it was picture perfect and the sky colors behind it –awestriking. It was cool to see Sydney life at its norm-there were even surfers out hiting the morning waves. How wonderful would it be to wake up to that kind of life? We passed two beaches in between—McKeay and Bronte—Bronte had a sea pool that was basically filled by the ocean but you could do laps in it. Way cool!! In the Easter spirit Scott had bought us all cadburry eggs, which we happily enjoyed on our wonderful walk. Our walk bypassed us through a cemetery overlooking the ocean. This is the picture at the top of my blog—fyi –I want to be buried there. We finally made it to Coogee and sat and enjoyed the peacefulness before heading back.
When we got back we had just enough time to take a quick shower, pack up and get out before we had to check out. We then had planned to have breakfast at this place called the Gelati Bar that had mouth watering pastries in its window. Everyone, and I mean everyone, stopped by the window when they passed. Morgan and I split some French toast with strawberries and an omelet with tomatoes and cheese. Scott couldn’t resist having more icecream and got crepes with icecream. We then all split a delicious piece of rum cake and a chocolate eclaire.
After snapping a final picture we jumped on a bus back to the city. Here is where trouble finally hit. It was Easter day and we had no booking for a hostel. We called a million places not expecting everything to be booked, but it was. Finally we called a YWCA that had a triple for $120. Settling on this we made our way there. Our room was amazing, we were so excited not to be in a hostel, so excited to have real sheets and a towel and even the free soap! Needless to say we crashed on our beds for a well needed afternoon nap. Finally waking up happily we decided we had to go into the city one last time. On our way we passed through the Anzac Memorial and the Botanical Gardens. The gardens were gorgeous—there were amazing flowers, trees and the mixture of garden and city was spectacular. Inside the garden was the government building—basically a castle—we could have had a tour but we came too late. Oh well we will just have to go back! We then made our way to the Opera House because we still hadn’t touched it. This was fun, lots of people were crowded around, there was even a wedding going on. It did not appear that there was an opera going on though, bummer. Our mission for the night was to make it to Darling Harbour to the Lindt café, yes an entire café for Lindt chocolates! First we stopped at this bar/night club for a ten dollar dinner, It was pretty good, though after we saw a cockroach on the floor. Haha. Finally making it to the Lindt shop we were all in ecstatic bliss. What a great way to spend Easter! We each had a chocolate shake and purchased a few Lindt balls. We devoured our milkshakes on the Darling Harbor pier watching the lights dance on the water. Sadly at about 9 we decided we should probably head back as we had to catch a ride to the airport the next morning at 520AM. When we got back we turned our TV on, just to enjoy all aspects of our 120 dollar room. We watched Mr and Mrs Smith and enjoyed nice hot showers. It was the perfect way to end our trip to Sydney!
Day 5
We headed back to Sydney on a 7:10 flight and my friends Noor and Rhona were there to pick us up! It was nice to see them, but sad to be back in reality. What a nice trip!
We pretty much had done everything we wanted, we didn’t do much as far as nightlife stuff but I think we definitely did the worth stuff in Sydney. The only thing I am bummed we didn’t get to was Manly beach—but hey they just means I’ll have to get back someday!