Sydney & The Blue Mountains

On our way down to Melbourne we dropped in to visit the Blue Mountains. I know we've done the Melboune blog, but these mountains sit an hour or so out from Sydney, so seemed more appropriate to go on the Sydney blog, so there you go. The town of Katoomba is the gateway to the mountains and has the feel of a place removed from time, stuck as it is in the 1920's. That's not a particularly bad thing its just a bit weird. It's an easy walk to the edge of town where you're greeted by basically the kind of awe inspiring sight that's probably a bit similar to the Grand Canyon, only a lot greener....and bluer, sufficed to say that it's all very gorgeous. The question then: Why are they called the Blue Mountains? Well, its because of all the Eucalyptus trees whose grey blue colouring gives them a blueish tint, its not all jokes on this blog, oh no. One of the key attractions here are the Three Sisters, a formation of peaks, yup, three of them that just look damn fine and especially nice at sunset when they look a particularly groovy golden colour.
It's an incredibly beautiful place spoilt only by the hoards of flys that attacked us whenever we ventured into the open and as we were in a National Park we were in the open a lot. Hopefully the fly epidemic is a short, seasonal one, cause otherwise it wouldn't be worth going, its that bad. Unfortunately and fortunately we had only an afternoon in the mountains as the long drive to Melbourne was about to begin.
Fast forward a few days and another mammoth and nightmarish drive later, we were in Sydney. Wow! Sydney's a city we've all seen countless times on the Tv, especially the famous harbor with its distinctive bridge and futuristic Opera House, but to actually arrive here and walk through the gorgeous Botanical Gardens and then stare across the harbor was a moment that will live long in my memory. I ran out of superlatives shortly after arriving in Tokyo to use in the blog and have been re-using the same ones for the last 10 months, but Sydney harbor has had me looking in my newly acquired thesaurus and so without much further a do, I name you, Sydney harbor.....Out-of-this-World! Implausibly phantasmagorical! Pulchritudinous! Simply Breath-taking! Yes, I did like it :) It's a hard scene to leave, but eventually we dragged ourselves away and as the clouds were appearing over the sun, we took the brave decision to head inside the Sydney Aquarium. I won't bang on about it to much, as we've been to plenty of aquariums on this trip, but it's a good one, with two really big tanks filled with some very nice sharks, including our old friend the Grey Nurse Shark (Just in case you missed it, here's my shark video again).
After quenching our thirst for the undersea kingdom, we met up with our old work mate Vix, who is as fantastic a person as ever and let us stay in her gorgeous flat for the weekend, whilst she moved out to her mates place, how nice is that? The only photo of all three of us isn't the greatest, we did really have a good time :)
Almost a year ago, our work chums bought us a leaving present and that was two tickets to walk over the Sydney harbor Bridge. We've carried those tickets with us for the last 10 months and not managed to lose them, which meant we actually had to do it. Gazing up at the bridge I was starting to wonder how my fear of heights (Acrophobia) was going to cope with yet another stupidly high structure, Sam on the other hand was chuntering on about how she couldn't be bothered, she was too hot, etc ( Chuntering, from the verb To Chunter, meaning : To go on, to talk incessantly about nothing, banging on, etc). We filed into the Bridge Climb office and presented our golden Willy Wonka style tickets. The Bridge Climb company has got there business down to a fine art and you're processed through the whole experience with impressive slickness, every staff member is friendly and it seems every tiny detail has been thought of. The only real shame is that you can't take a camera in case you drop it down onto the traffic, but it's a minor point as you get a free pic anyway. The whole thing takes three and a half hours and of that, two hours is spent on the climb itself. First you have to kit up in blue and grey jumpsuits, apparently so you blend in with the bridge and are less distracting to drivers, then you get breathalysed and have to pass through a metal detector, no drunks on this trip. Next up were accessories. Unsurprisingly this was when Sam started warming to the whole thing and ended up having every available accessory. The hat, the hankie, the hairband and the elastic tether for her shades. We then got our harnesses on which have a safety line that attaches to a steel wire that runs the whole length of the walk around the bridge. Then there's a practice section of the bridge laid out, where you climb a ladder and stroll across a walkway to practice moving around with your safety line. Just before you go onto the bridge, you're all kitted out with headsets so you can hear your guide, in our case a bloke called Michael who was brilliantly funny and made the whole walk even better.
Walking out onto the street in our spangly jumpsuits to walk down to the bridge we felt like complete muppets, before entering a building, climbing some stairs and then clipping onto the safety wire and starting the walk. The first section of the walk is the worst and if you're not keen on heights, frankly a nightmare :) You walk along a gantry to get to the arch of the bridge. This runs for about 150 meters or so, with the ground below you gradually descending to meet the river. You start at about 20 meters and end at about 70 meters high, the problem is that the walkway is basically a steel mesh and so you can see everything below you. I was shaking like a sh*ting dog! To make matters worse, you all stop every now and then to have a look around at the terrifying view of the roads beneath you whilst being told that this is the section most people find the scariest, great. If that wasn't bad enough, one section of the gantry seemed to be a temporary section, whilst some work was going on and appeared to be held up by some wires, this just happened to be at the highest point, it still makes me shiver :) Eventually we reached the huge stone columns that you can see in the photographs and began to climb a series of ladders to reach the bottom of the arch. This meant that you climbed level with and then above the road with cars and trains thundering past your head, quite cool. Once we reached the arch itself I breathed a sigh of relief. Walking up the arch is the easy bit, there are handrails on either side of you, its really, really wide and completely solid, no seeing whats below you're feet. You can equate it to climbing a mountain and like most mountains, the views are spectacular! You can't quite believe you're up there staring down at the Opera House and arguably the most beautiful harbor on the planet. Once again its an experience that will stay with us forever and so a massive thanks to everyone on CCU that chipped in for it and especially to Lucy whose idea it was and to James for sorting it out! The return journey along the gantry proved to be just as scary, so thanks for that to!

What more could you want from a day? Well for Sam, courtesy of a free ticket from Vix, things were about to get even better. As a surprise, she was told just a few minutes before she went that she was going to see Kylie on her comeback debut! As Vix only had the one ticket I headed into town and bravely sat in McDonalds stuffing my face before heading into the arcades to shoot the crap out of some bad ass computer dudes. I met the girls afterwards who were smelling of cheap fizzy wine and looking a bit teary from the emotion of it all and had clearly had a brilliant time of it. The photos looked great actually and the lightshow featuring lots of lazers, had me wishing I'd been able to go myself.
We spent our final day in Sydney down and around Bondi beach. The beach was rammed with folk as it was a weekend and we were really there to have a walk around the clifftops nearby where there was a sculpture festival on. There was some great stuff on display, looking even better against the backdrop of the cliffs and the sea. We sat down at another bit of the harbor later enjoying some beers, before getting on a ferry for a last look at the bridge and Opera house. We spent our last night in Sydney at a Czech bar, followed by a Thai take-away. How very Australian!

Sydney Slideshow





Currently Reading: New Zealand - Lonely Planet








Listening to: The Beatles - A Hard Days Night