Current Mood: Mischievous & Playful

Canberra…  But it really shouldn’t be, this place is duller than a labour party broadcast!  We arrived here fresh from our adventures in Sydney yesterday, but have already booked our ticket out of here for tomorrow.

So, I’ll say a little bit about Sydney – when I arrived there I was a little bit underwhelmed with the place, it was like a hot London in my eyes with nothing really to do!  But…  Stay a few days in this city and you begin to get your bearings, you start to see the things you missed when you walk around lost – its like a giant onion, you peel back each layer you get something fresh and new.

For my birthday, Emma really went all out with arranging the day for me.  It was definately a surprise as I had lost track of which day it actually was, so when I was woken at 8 in the morning by my Mum calling me to be the first to wish me happy birthday I was a little taken aback!  Em didn’t waste anytime when she saw my eyes were awake and while still half asleep I opened cards that she had been carrying with her ever since we left England.

Then it was time for my presents and I got some clip-on Koalas and a Kangaroo skin bookmark from Scatt, Smellies and a pedometer from Lucy and then a shit load of stuff from Emma.  Firstly I got smellies again (they’re telling me something!), then I had a postcard of my favourite image and a programme from an exhibition we went to, then I got a ticket to see ‘Open Season 3D’ at the IMAX in Darling Harbour which reports to be the biggest cinema screen in the world at 6 storeys high.  Well as you can imagine I was well chuffed, but even more so when she gave me a card with a confirmation that we were going to do the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb the next day! 

The IMAX was incredible and if anyone gets a chance to pay a visit to the screen in London then do it.  It’s way better than the normal screens, especially if the showing is in 3D.  Open Season the film is only so so, but the trailers for the other things made you jump, dodge out the way and make stupid little noises even though your brain knows its still only 2D and your just wearing a massive set of glasses.  The girls decided that they would never ever watch a horror in one of these screens as you would probably soil yourself.

Now onto the Bridge Climb and something we had chatted about the whole time we were in Sydney, but decided against it because of the cost – well, Em paid for me so I didn’t have to worry at all ;).  We trekked over to the office where we signed in and then waited in a little room with 10 other ‘climbers’ – Em and I discussed how fit the people that take you up and over the bridge must be and decided that their physique would be somewhere between Matthew McConaughey and Harrison Ford (in his Indy Jones days!) – were we surprised when ‘Cliff’ walked in, a dude so round that he had to wear a plane seat belt around his middle to tell himself which of him was his upper body and which was his lower body.  Then he opened his mouth, he would of seriously made Julian Clary sound like he was as butch as Arnie – “Well hello there climbers, and welcome to the wonderful Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb!!!” – Emma and I wet ourselves!

After he came over and gave us all a breathe test (checking for Alcohol, not halitosis) he sized us all up and handed us our Jump Suits – nice Grey and Blue numbers with the zip at the back.  Then we met our ’handler’ Tony - who actually was the size we thought they would be.  A quick run through of how the harness will work and a quick scenario where we climbed a pretend ladder and we were out on the bridge.

Walking out onto the catwalk was all well and good, it was when we went out over George street and up the first few ladders when I started to really enjoy it – the sense of scale is immense and a smile was raised quicker than a Lee Evans sketch.  We procedded along many gangways, walkways and ladders until we reached the base of the actual curve in the Bridge.  One of the ladies was getting a little nervous, so after a brief wait for her to catch her nerve we carried on up.  The skyline of Sydney was amazing and we kept stopping on the way up so that we could really appreciate it.  Tony took a few snaps of us and then we were in the middle of the bridge – here we learned that before they had video cameras up here a bunch of kids had climbed the bridge – with a shopping trolley – and left it smack bang in the middle of the arch (fair play I say!). 

So we made our way down and back into the office where we took off the Tom Jones jump suit and made our way to the photo desk, this was a bit of a mistake as they somehow convince you that all 4 photos are amazing and you should buy them all – which we did.  Oops, bank balance!

Anyway, that was my Birthday and the highlight for me of Sydney – thanks for the emails and comments they are all appreciated.  Keep em coming :) 

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 at 9:21 pm and is filed under Australia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.