Sydney bridge climb a city staycation highlight
We have all been urged to ‘holiday here this year’, and you could hardly get more ‘here’ than atop Sydney’s beloved arch.
Far below us, swimmers are gliding through the sun-sparkled lanes of North Sydney swimming pool. The harbour is a modernist masterpiece, a la Brett Whiteley, striped every which way with the white wakes of yachts, motor cruisers and ferries. The wings of the Opera House gleam against a bluebird sky and, despite being high above it all on the far northern reaches of the Harbour Bridge, there’s barely a breath of wind.
We have all been urged to “holiday here this year”, and you could hardly get more “here”, as far as domestic travel destinations go, than atop Sydney’s beloved arch. As popular holiday destinations up and down the east coast rapidly book out for the summer, the ever-innovative BridgeClimb Sydney people have devised an enticing option for a stay-at-home sojourn. It encourages locals to break free from their domestic reality, ditch the WFH trackies, put on some smart threads for a night out and get a fresh perspective on the Emerald City. The Climb, Dine & Stay package combines a night at groovy Ovolo Woolloomooloo and dinner at waterside establishment OTTO with a bridge climb.
And so hubby and I have packed an overnight bag, abandoned the teenagers and here we are, the afternoon before our climb, watching workers and walkers tread the boards of the historic Finger Wharf at Woolloomooloo. Our water-view guestroom has two striking red snapper splashed across the bedhead. Brightly coloured chaise longues are ideally placed to loll on while sipping negronis from the complimentary minibar and admiring the flash boats bobbing on their moorings. Ovolo is known for its guest goodie bags and ours come with a couple of COVID-related items: hand sanitiser and face masks, which, in the hotel group’s typically irreverent style, sport an 1980s pop song reference (Eyes Without a Face). OC/DC has become the catch cry — Obsessive Commitment to Deep Cleaning — and certainly the place looks pretty spotless apart from some badly chipped paint around the room’s entryway. But let’s not quibble. Let’s go for dinner.
Otto has been a fixture of Sydney’s dining scene for 20 years. It serves up modern Italian fare in an indoor-outdoor wharfside setting that is bustling with patrons on this warm midweek evening. Included in the package is a three-course dinner with welcome cocktail; a dirty martini and flute of bubbles duly arrive as the city skyline is silhouetted against the sunset. Seafood features prominently on the menu and we choose Merimbula oysters with a zingy pickled cucumber vinaigrette, and salt and pepper school prawns from the Clarence River. Tomorrow we’ll be hoisting ourselves up and down 1621 steps on the full, 3½ hour, south-to-north (and back) breadth of the bridge, so surely a little carbo loading is in order. Linguine with Moreton Bay bugs and a capsicum risotto topped with lemon thyme crumb take our calorie count to the next level, so much so that we skip dessert. We leave well fuelled for tomorrow’s exertions.
The day of our climb dawns bright and still. There’s time for a quick continental breakfast in Ovolo’s Alibi restaurant before we head to BridgeClimb HQ at The Rocks. As a first-timer, I’m impressed by the slickness of this production line. Within about 30 minutes we undergo a safety briefing and are kitted out in our flattering climbing onesies, harnesses and headsets; there’s even a hanky attached should we get the sniffles at altitude. Before we know it, we are clambering through the bridge’s lower section, up a southern pylon and across a platform, the harbour glittering beneath us.
Climb leader Dean has been taking groups up and down the bridge for 21 years, just shy of the 22 years for which the climb has been operating. His patter is well rehearsed but never boring, although there’s no shortage of facts and figures. Opened in March 1932, Sydney Harbour Bridge was designed and built under the direction of chief engineer John Bradfield by British firm Dorman Long over eight years; 16 workers died during its construction. The world’s largest steel arch bridge, it comprises 550,000 individual pieces of steel held together with six million hand-driven rivets and weighs 52,000 tonnes. But beyond the dates and data are tales of derring-do that would make a workplace healthy and safety officer blanch.
Dean describes the riveters, perched untethered on beams, catching white-hot rivets tossed to them from workers manning portable furnaces. He is quick to dispel the myth about Irish worker Vincent Kelly, who is widely believed to have been saved by his toolbelt breaking the surface tension of the water when he fell almost 70m. The reality, says Dean, is Kelly was a diver who knew he needed to hit the harbour feet first if he was going to survive. He did just that, miraculously walking away with a couple of broken ribs.
At the summit, a height of 134m, we feel on top of the world. The Blue Mountains are an inky ribbon in the distance as Dean points out various landmarks across the sprawling metropolis. We descend the western arch towards Luna Park, completing the new “Ultimate” extension to the traditional summit climb that has been in operation only since September. Too soon, we are making our way back to base.
Dean entertains us with the story of Lennie Gwyther, the tough-as-nails nine-year-old who rode his pony, Ginger Mick, from the Victorian town of Leongatha to Sydney and back for the opening of the bridge. His journey took four months and along the way he met prime minister Joseph Lyons and the legendary Donald Bradman, and captured the heart of a nation struggling through the Great Depression. I’ve heard the story before but the resilience of the lad never fails to impress.
As we approach our starting point, we spy the 1920s Harbour View Hotel beside the southwest pylon. The lunchtime crowd is lapping up the spring sunshine in an inviting upstairs beer garden. It looks the perfect spot to enjoy a cold drink and toast Sydney’s bridge, and Lennie.
In the know
The Climb, Dine & Stay package includes one night’s accommodation at Ovolo Woolloomooloo with welcome cocktail, dinner at Otto also with welcome cocktail (other beverages extra), and BridgeClimb experience. From $480 a person, minimum two people, for a Summit climb; $630 for the Ultimate climb.
More to the story
High times in other state capitals.
Brisbane Story Bridge Adventure Climb has a range of tours, including night and twilight climbs. For those for whom Vertigo is just a Hitchcock movie, there are options to “walk the plank”, lean out from a platform 50m above the traffic or abseil down a pylon to the ground.
storybridgeadventureclimb.com.au
Adelaide View the South Australian capital and its revered Oval from on high during a rooftop tour of the sports stadium. It follows the spine of the Western Stand and completes a circuit of the football-shaped Riverbank Stand, with its dizzying lean-out platform, before returning.
Perth A new zip-line and climb on the city’s curvaceous Matagarup Bridge is expected to open to the public early next year. Zip-line guests will travel 400m at up to 100km/h from the bridge and across the Swan River, landing on the foreshore. Climbers will take more than 300 steps, ascending about 70m, to the top of the main arch.
Penny Hunter was a guest of BridgeClimb Sydney.