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Published: January 22nd 2006
The Bridge Climb
Sydney’s Harbor Bridge is the equivalent to our Golden Gate Bridge in terms of fame and its symbolic value to the country. It is the world’s largest (but not longest) steel arch bridge built throughout the 1920s and opening in March of 1932. And of course keeping with the theme of all things dangerous and Australian, the city of Sydney allows people to climb the Harbor Bridge, which incidentally is held together by about six million little rivets that seem to have a propensity for falling into the Harbor.
To be clear, they don’t simply allow people to walk across the bridge on a pedestrian sidewalk. But they actually let people hike up the steel girders that form the arch of the bridge, cross over the bridge at the top and walk down the other side. All this happens above five or six lanes of cars speeding along the bridge highway, and of course they are whizzing above the long drop to the water below. The entire production is organized by a private company that, for a not unsubstantial chunk of change, will guide you up and over the bridge while providing a tour and of
course an adventure experience of the near-death sort.
I believe I’ve already established my basically clinical fear of heights. It’s not pretty - but neither is it my choice. That said, Les really wanted me to join him on the climb and so about two months ago, in a fit of delusion, I booked myself a non-refundable ticket. When I got the ticket I asked. “And do you have many people who are scared of heights?”
“Oh yes!” replied the perky ticket operator. “Many and it’s the bridge climb that cures them in fact!”
“Uh huh, but what I guess I’m asking,” I said trying to sound very nonchalant, “is have you ever had someone completely freak out, say for example burst into tears on the bridge and totally freeze while screaming for no one to touch them?” I only asked this question because that’s what happened to me in St. Paul’s cathedral; visions of screaming at my then boyfriend, “DO NOT COME ANY CLOSER DO NOT TOUCH ME!!” came to mind. It was, for me, a very plausible situation.
There was a silence.
Then the operator said, “Well I can’t say we’ve ever had that exact situation, but
On the catwalk
This was seconds after we started, our guide had already taken off, but Abby was just below and we wanted to wave to her and I didnt want to seem scared.heaps of people are really scared and our guides are trained to handle any situation.”
Right I thought, and booked the ticket.
The actual Bridge Climb company has perfected the art of the climb. With corporate precision they run walks approximately every 10 minutes, each group spending three and a half hours with the company by the time it is all complete, and of that, about two hours on the actual bridge.
We kissed Abby goodbye and left her with my parents around 8:45 am and headed into the Bridge complex. Our tickets were for a 9:15 group. There is nothing like waiting to help solidify the fact that you are really, really scared. We browsed through the museum and through the wall of fame where happy celebrities had their pictures from atop the bridge. But even seeing all those famous people cheerfully waving from the bridge’s summit did nothing but make me feel sick.
Finally at 9:15 we were asked to enter a small waiting area and meet the rest of our group. There were about 10 of us. These were the people we would be spending the next three and a half hours with, and
Going Up
My Dad took these from an observation deck on the Bridge Pylon. This was on the bridge after completing the catwalks. the group of people whose tour I was sure I would ruin when I had to be medivacced out. While in the room watching a video on the history of the climb, I burst into tears. And that was how we kicked off our tour.
Once we had all signed various forms and taken breathalyzer tests, we were moved into the dressing room and handed jumpsuits. The biggest concern and liability that the Bride Climb had was that something would fall off the bridge into the traffic below. I had that same fear, so I was all for anything that would keep objects, such as myself, from hurtling into the traffic and shark infested waters. The jumpsuits covered our street clothes, but we still had to remove all earrings, watches, barrettes, head bands and any other loose paraphernalia including cameras, cell phones and wallets and place them into little lockers.
And then, dressed like a bunch of kids in PJs, we were ushered into the gear hall where we met Rhys (pronounced Reese), our guide for the day.
Rhys. A tussled, blond, barely 20 something, who talked in the affected way that all youthful Aussies do down
Up and Away
Les and I are the top two people in the lower group. here by ending everything with a question.
“Hey, I already led a 4:30 am dawn tour over the bridge yeah?” He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. “I’m dead beat hey?”
He paused and I stared at him with zero sympathy asking. “Do they provide you with a resting area here when you have to lead such an early morning hike and then lead hikes such as ours with almost no sleep?”
He laughed like I’d made a joke. Ha ha ha. I. Was. Not. Joking.
“Nah,” he responded. “I crashed on the break-room couch yeah? Whew.”
Whew.
Rhys then helped us put our safety harness belts on - the single thing keeping us from blowing off the bridge - gave us clips for our sunglasses, hats to wear with special attachments, hankies to wipe off sweat (or tears) that were attached to our wrists and headed us over to the simulator. The simulator was basically a catwalk about 20 ft off the ground with a series of ladders on both sides. It simulated not so much the bridge climb, but the trickier walk to the bridge where we would have to negotiate the catwalks and
ladders that led out over the harbor and up to the base of the bridge proper.
Well I got scared on the catwalk. It was high and shaky and I was tangled up in all my belts and clips and wires and I was sure I was going to just completely disintegrate on the real thing. But Rhys was already on to the communications gear section and there was nothing to do but join him.
There we received our radios and headsets. The headsets were snazzy and snapped me momentarily out of my growing panic. We wore them on our temples, not our ears, because the vibrations actually bypassed our outer ear and went directly into our head. That way we could both hear our fellow climbers through our ears, and Rhys at the same time.
To get to the actual start of the bridge walk we had to walk about 50 yards along the outside of the complex, in other words in the real world, before ducking back into the scary, insane world of the climb. My parents and Abby were outside as we walked down the sidewalk, single file in our monkey suits. I felt
Full Bridge
We walked up the right side, crossed at the top, and came back down the left side. No one ever walks on the far side of the bridge as part of the tour. like one of the astronauts when they make the final walk to the shuttle and the crowds are cheering. It made me wonder if they think what I was thinking, “What ever am I doing!? “
Finally we emerged at a tunnel and all we could see in front of us was a lot of air below us and a catwalk under the base of the bridge that was going to take us up, up and away. Rhys paused and looked at our group.
“How you all going hey?”
The group, mostly excitable adventure sorts let out a little cheer. I remained silent.
“Anyone scared then?” Rhys asked glancing at me. My hand shot up and I found the words to blurt out, “I am VERY scared.”
“Right then, you’ll need to come in front yeah?”
Up front!? I grabbed Les and panic stricken I found myself at the front. I was horrified, now when I froze and had my meltdown I’d also be stranding the entire group behind me. What was Rhys thinking? But before I could wonder what he was thinking, I had to first wonder, where had he gone?
Because Rhys was off. The tour had
started and flight-footed, happy, blond Rhys was off and running. Almost literally. I had no choice with the whole group behind me waiting but to plunge out onto the catwalk and follow him wherever he went.
For the first five minutes or so I simply walked with an iron grip on both sides of the catwalk.
Les kept saying, “He’s up there just keep moving.” And so I did. But I could not believe “Mr. Is Anyone Scared Hey?” had left me. What if I froze? What if I suddenly spontaneously whipped myself over the railing in a deer-like panic??
Les said from behind me. “I think that’s the point, he’s not giving you time to stop and freeze.”
“Whatever!” I growled. “I am freaking out! Our guide deserted me! This is so unprofessional, what if I tripped? What if I got tangled up? What if a gale force wind blew in from the sea!?!?!”
And so forth and so on until suddenly we were at the half way point of the catwalk, and from behind a steel pylon stepped Rhys beaming his sunny smile.
He glanced at me and laughed. “You look like this yeah!?” He hunched
down and did an impersonation of a person freaking out and freezing. Everyone laughed and I got myself all ready to be ticked off when I actually found myself laughing too. But only for a minute, after all I was very, very scared.
We continued on like that for a good 15 minutes when we finally got to the ladders. Rhys took the opportunity to point out some construction features of the bridge, but that meant looking down and no matter what else, I’d not be looking down thank you very much.
The ladders were simply horrific and there is no other way to describe them. I only climbed them, with the highway rushing below me and the even further away the water sparkling beneath, because once again Rhys had vanished and everyone else was waiting behind me. My brain kept saying that I could not climb them; I must stop and never move again. But I focused on deep breaths, small movements and a desire to kick Rhys in the shins and within minutes I found myself at the base of the bridge.
Everyone said the bridge was easy, it was just getting to the bridge that was hard. I’d pooh-poohed that until I saw the actual path up the bridge. Why I could jog up that I thought, I might even pull off a cartwheel if I had to. It was a wide, easy-grade path with a solid floor so we couldn’t see down, only out and what a view!
The walk up was great, just great. I felt absolutely safe and thrilled to be up there, I even enjoyed Rhys’ tour commentary colored with classic male banter with Les about their respective country's strengths and weaknesses. We could see all the way out to the Olympic Park, over to Manly and where Bondi was. We could see everything. We could even see my parents and Abby when we first started, and we got a kick out of waving to her in her stroller far below.
We took our time walking up the east side. Rhys pointed out various sites from wars, places of prominence, and architectural points while giving us lots of time to just enjoy the view. Finally we reached the top where the climb required you to cross the bridge in order to walk back down the other side. Crossing the bridge at the top meant another catwalk and this one was as high as you could get and right over the highway. It was also the point for the big summit photo shoot.
Rhys didn’t run off again, but as I started across to the photo point he said. “Esther, you’re doing this again.” He hunched down and grabbed the railing with both hands and made a bug-eyed face. “You really should just look down.”
“I’m not looking down.” I replied in a steady but starting to unravel voice. “This catwalk is scary that’s all. I am NOT looking down.”
He shrugged, “You’ll relax if you do.”
“That makes no sense.” I snapped back. And then I allowed myself to peek over the edge. I watched all the cars far, far below racing by and the water even further below sparkling in the sun. I could not believe how high up I was.
“Look,” said Rhys. “You’ve let go with one hand and you’re standing up straight.”
I looked at myself. “Huh” I said. He was right.
Just looking down, though scary, did seem to relax me. It was very odd. But, I had to admit, Rhys obviously knew what he was doing and I realized I was having a blast as you can see in the ‘summit shot’ we took. It was really impressive to be up there, and I was so excited and happy to be up there with Les.
On our walk back down, Rhys told us that in the building of the bridge only 16 people died and only one of them from falling off. Most were killed in the manufacturing area, and one was killed when hit by a lorry on his way to lunch. He added, for Les’ benefit, that compared to a similar bridge like this that was built in America where over 100 people died, 16 wasn’t that bad.
The catwalks back down the ladders and to the base were still scary. I still had to take deep yoga breaths to get down them, but Rhys didn’t go running off this time and instead told us interesting facts about the 64 objections that the owner of The Bridge Climb had had to overcome with the city in order to open the business. I asked if one was that people might lose it and require helicopter rescues. But, apparently it was not.
And just like that, we were done. Out of our suits, off with all our clips and on to the photo center to pick up our pictures to prove that we’d done this.
1,337 stairs and 1.5 football fields above the water... we climbed it!
Whoohoo!
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Cbs
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You see
That is EXACTLY how I feel about boats - they freak me out so much and I HATE being on them - not like planes that just make me throw up (but are not scary) I can calm the fear and take yoga breaths and fool everyone for an afternoon out on the water that I'm fine, but still, I just do not like being in boats. It's like being in prison with a chance of drowning. (and yes, I do know how to swim)