Today was a big day planned for Mike and me: we were going
to do the Sydney harbo(u)r bridge climb. We'd been advised that the twilight
climbs are the best, and so we booked for the 6-7pm window. The company that
runs the bridge climb is apparently also aware that this is the best time to
go, and charged us 20% extra for the privilege of going up in that window. To
fill our day until the appointed time, we decided to go check out Manly, one of
Sydney’s northern suburbs. There's a fast ferry that runs out of Watson’s Bay,
due North of Bondi, so we hopped on a bus to get up there.
The ride up there was beautiful. Not only do you get to catch a glimpse of some of the nicer houses in the Bondi area, but the road rides a ridge all the way up a peninsula to Watson’s bay. You get sweeping views of the pacific off to your right, and Sydney harbo(u)r down to your left. We arrived at the ferry terminal with just a few minutes to wait until the next ferry was scheduled to arrive.
One nice aspect of the Sydney transit system is that the fare system for everything – busses, local and regional trains, and even ferries- runs on a single "OPAL" card. I never did find out what OPAL stood for, but I still appreciated the idea. The only issue that can arise is when you're at a remote ferry terminal with an empty card, and the "top-up" machine is having trouble processing credit card transactions. Mike prefers to deal primarily in cash when traveling, so he had some to top up with. Capital One doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees, and reimburses ATM fees, so I didn’t feel the need to get any Aussie dollars before I went over there.
You went to a foreign
country without a single dollar of the local currency, or even any traveler’s
cheques? I’m sure some of you older readers are asking, incredulously. Why
yes, I did. I didn’t even print out directions to where I was staying before I
left and stick all the details of my itinerary into a manila folder that I
carried around with me the entire trip. Crazy, I know. But, I’ll grant you that
I would have appreciated having a ten-spot with the Queen’s face* on it right
about then.
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| *Ok, it turns out the $10 bill doesn't have the queen's face, it's got this guy. Whoever he is. |
The ferry arrived and I decided to take my chances boarding
without being able to pay for the ride. I figured I could always plead ignorance
or blame it on the machine if necessary. Fortunately, I somehow managed to inadvertently
avoid the ticket-taker altogether when I happened to stand up to take in the
sights just before he came around to scan everybody seated in our section. And
my, were the sights spectacular. The entrance to the harbo(u)r is surprisingly narrow, with the peninsula of
Watson’s bay stretching up from the South and Manly reaching down from the
North. I suppose that’s part of what makes it such a good harbo(u)r. High cliffs
stick up from the water on both sides of the entrance. The fast ferry was quite
fast indeed, and we reached Manly Wharf in just a few minutes. We disembarked
and set out to explore the town.
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| The Approach to Manly |
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| Manly Wharf |
Our first order of business was to secure some additional
top-up funds on our OPAL cards. We found a grocery store, but they directed us
to a 7-11 around the corner. The street that the 7-11 was on was a nice, wide
pedestrian promenade, with a very beach-town shopping vibe to it. As Mike and I
stopped at the ATM (having recently been convinced of the usefulness of
carrying paper money myself), I noticed that the Caps game was playing in a
dimly-lit sports bar next door. We stepped in to sadly confirm that they were
losing 3-1, and we realized that this was less a dimly-lit sports bar and more
a dimly-lit gambling den.
Gambling is huge in Australia. Most bars have what they
somewhat ironically call “VIP Lounges” where they have several “Pokies” (i.e.
slot machines). In the states, the VIP lounge is where you buy $600 bottles of
vodka that would be $45 at the liquor store. The clientele that this type of
offering attracts is quite a bit different from the folks that spend their days
pulling away at the slot machines, with an ash-tipped cigarette and a vodka
soda in hand at all times.
In this bar, in addition to the “pokies,” they have
touchscreen machines that allow you to place bets on every sport imaginable.
Even totally fake sports like “Australian Rules Football” and “Cricket.” For
novelty’s sake, Mike placed a $10 bet on a 3-team college basketball parlay. He
collected his ticket and we continued on to 7-11. A couple of Slurpees on this
hot summer day sounded quite nice. In keeping with official franchise rules, at
least 4 of the 7 flavors of Slurpee were in a state much closer to a lukewarm
syrup than a frozen slushee. The remaining flavors were sufficient though, and
my Slurpee was just as good as I remembered the last one being, which I probably
had 4 or 5 years ago.
Slurpees in hand and sporting well-topped-up OPAL cards, we
pressed on down the promenade towards the beach. And what a top-notch beach it
was. In fact, Manly recently dethroned Bondi as the favorite beach of the
Sydneysiders, according to an online poll. Manly was quite a bit different from
Bondi, being as it was much longer and less cove-like than Bondi. We strolled
along the beach a bit and enjoyed the view. All that strolling got us a bit
hungry, though, and we began to ponder our lunch options.
Tyler and I have a friend living in Manly that we met through
the DC Canes alumni group (before he moved to Manly). He is also named Mike, so
I will henceforth refer to him as Mike W. He was kind enough to supply us with
a list of recommendations for our visit to Manly. One of the places on this
list was Papi Chulo, which he claimed has the best burgers he’s ever had. A
bold statement, and one we definitely needed to verify for ourselves. We headed
back to the Wharf to check it out.
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| Tyler has been shouting this stupid "Yeeeew" thing ever since he moved to Australia. He swore it was something everybody did over there. Having never met an Aussie who also Yewed, nor any reference to "Yew" in the pop culture that has made it across the Pacific, I didn't fully believe him that this was a thing. The paintings on this column confirmed it for me, though this was the only time I saw or heard "Yew" other than from his mouth. |
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| More Yew! |
The place was completely empty when we got there, but that
just meant that we had our pick of seats. They have a whole bar-style seating
area that looks out over the water, so we sat down there. At first, our jaws
kind of dropped when we saw the price tag on the burger: $29. We had to remind
ourselves of what I mentioned in Monday's post, that once you factor in the
exchange rate, tax, and tip, the equivalent price in America is about half
that. Which is not at all unreasonable for a great burger and fries in a nicer
restaurant. When the burgers arrived, they definitely lived up to the hype. The
buns were buttery and crisp and the burgers tender and juicy. The whole thing
just melts in your mouth. I’m not certain
that it was the best burger I’d ever had, but it was undoubtedly a strong
contender for the title. Eating it on a picture-perfect day overlooking the
wharf while wiling away the afternoon on the other side of the world didn’t
hurt the experience, either.
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| Me trying my best Instagram framing |
After lunch we moseyed back away from the wharf and headed
into 4 Pines Brewery, a microbrewery that I had seen some good reviews for. When
we got to the bar to order, I was pleasantly surprised to find that they
offered a stout, my favorite type of beer. I had yet to find any in Australia.
These people love their pale ales. The typical bar we had experienced so far
had 5 taps of pale ales and 1 cider. I ordered a flight that consisted of one
sour beer, 2 pale ales, an amber ale, and the stout. They were all pretty good,
and provided the perfect liquid desert to follow our burgers.
Our bellies full and our thirst sated, we set off for our
next point of interest: Shelly Beach. It’s not clear whether the beach is named
so because it is quite shelly, or was named for a Sheila named Shelly. We hoped
visiting would at least shed some light on this. However, by the time we had
gotten about three-quarters of the way there, our energy level began to flag.
The huge burger, the flight of beer samples, and the heat were probably all
factors in this. We saw that Shelly beach was still quite a ways off.
Additionally, Mike W was taking off work early to come meet us and would be
arriving soon. We decided to call it there, and turned back up the beach to
head back towards the promenade. At least we caught a glimpse of Shelly beach,
albeit from afar. We never did get close enough to determine just how Shelly
she was, though.
To rejuvenate ourselves and enjoy a bit of Air Con during
the hottest part of the afternoon, we headed for the local American consulate. By
that I mean, we ducked into the Starbucks for some iced coffees. Mike hopped on
his Slingbox app and pulled up the Missouri basketball game, which was tied
with a couple of minutes left. We watched the game as it went into overtime.
Ultimately, Missouri went on to lose, and Mike’s mood fell as his $10 bet was
lost and his alma mater’s hopes of making the NCAA tournament dwindled.
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| Church on a hill |
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| Manly Mural |
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| Half a stone swimmer |
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| Shelly Beach, off in the distance. Mike twittering, foreground |
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| Manly Beach, from the South |
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| Dude on the rocks |
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| I didn't get a photo of the kid, but this basically sums it up |
The Wharf Bar was pretty great, outfitted with picnic tables
and umbrellas and situated right by the water. We ran into a couple of little
dude’s friends and their mommies when we got there. Apparently Manly is the
place to be for young families in Sydney. We enjoyed our cold beers while Mike
W showed off all the tricks he’d trained little dude to do, cheersing us with
his milk bottle and throwing up the “U” with his hands on command. I considered
having another beer, but Mike W thankfully reminded me of the bridgeclimb’s
strict sobriety policy: no blowing over a .05 before you climb. Seeing little
point to sitting waterside at a sweet bar on a beautiful, breezy afternoon
shooting the shit with old friends while an adorable toddler provides
entertainment if we couldn’t keep drinking, Mike and I grabbed some pizza from
the place next door and hopped on the next fast ferry to Circular Quay. It was
time for the day’s main event.
Another reason we wanted to get out of there quickly was to
give ourselves plenty of time to get to the bridgeclimb location. The hell if
we were going to blow our large investment in this experience by being too late
to go up at our appointed time. The only problem with giving yourself plenty of
time, though, is what happens when you get there without experiencing any kind
of delay. Being from DC and dealing with our abysmal form of public
transportation, we half expected the ferry to just randomly stop in the middle
of the harbo(u)r and announce, “there’s a ferry ahead of us in the harbo(u)r,
moving momentarily,” but then wait there for another 15 minutes with no further
explanation. Having experienced no such delays, we arrived at the launch spot
at 5:05, checked in for our 6:15 climb, and were told to be upstairs no later
than 6:10. Great. We now had 65 minutes to peruse the minimal gift shop full of
very undesirable bridgeclimb-themed memorabilia, watch a small video screen
slowly scroll through the pictures of celebrities who had also done what we
were now about to wait an hour+ to do, check out the bridge museum, and take in
a series of narration-free videos about the bridge in the bridgeclimb
experience theater. We did all of these things, with varying degrees of
enjoyment. Fun facts: Only 16 men died while building the bridge, compared to
27 men who died while building the Brooklyn bridge, a comparable construction
feat, albeit one accomplished a half-century earlier. One man actually survived
falling from the suspension structure. He broke several ribs, but was back at
work 3 days later. Worker’s Comp was not a thing during the great depression.
Finally, our appointed time had arrived. We headed upstairs
to the check-in, and started filling out all the waiver forms acknowledging
that climbing a 1930s-era steel structure a few hundred feet above the water
level was dangerous and potentially life threatening and the bridgeclimb
experience company was not liable if we experienced death or dismemberment or
yada yada yada sign on the dotted line. Next came the breathalyzer. I was legit
a bit nervous for this one. We hadn’t had a drink in over an hour and I kept
doing the math in my head and knew I would be fine. But this was (fortunately)
the first breathalyzer I’d ever taken that I had to pass (there’d been a few novelty breathalyzers taken in my
younger days where a higher result was just a point of pride rather than a
potential felony). I counted to 10, no alarms went off, and he moved on to the
next person in the group. Phew. We
made some introductions amongst our 15-person timeslot group and then headed in
to the next room to suit up.
First we were given jumpsuits and told to leave any personal
items in a locker. Then we all stood around a horseshoe-shaped railing while
they prepared the rest of our equipment. We got a restraining belt with a
zipline to attach ourselves to the cable that ran up and around the bridge
structure. We got a walkie-talkie with headphones, all of which clipped in to
our jumpsuits. We got a wrist-bound handkerchief, which also got a strap to
attach to our jumpsuits. Then it was off to the practice course.
The practice course was a replica of the kind of terrain we
would expect to encounter on the bridge. There were ladders, and there were
stairs. Nothing too crazy. We were coached that our ziplines might get caught
on some of fixtures, and that we were not to freak out. One of our companions
revealed at this point that she was afraid of heights. Power to ya, lady. It
was time to get out there.
We started out by strolling through some cutouts in the
concrete structure that makes up the anchor of the whole suspension bridge.
Then, we emerged onto the open bridge, and the whole harbo(u)r opened up below
us. We could see the opera house down below to the right. And 100-some-odd feet
below us (or however many meters that might be) was a road, a running trail,
and then the harbo(u)r. The view was pretty spectacular. Somehow, I had found
myself strapped in as the rear of the caravan, so I had to give a reassuring
wave to our tour guide every once in a while to confirm that I hadn’t fallen
behind, or worse, fallen off.
Once we had walked out over the water, it was time to begin
our ascent. We climbed up a series of tight ladders to get up on to the iron
structure. Laid out in front of us was a sloping staircase that led all the way
to the top of the bridge, with the huge flags of Australia and the state of New
South Wales perched atop, flapping in the wind.
As we started our climb, marveling at the lovely scenery spread out
below us, the sun began to form a beautiful sunset behind us. Our tour guide
started running up and down the line, snapping sunset photos of each of us.
With the impromptu photoshoot complete, we continued up the bridge.
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| Sunset Photo |
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| Mike indulging me with a quick U |
We climbed until we reached the first designated photo spot,
with a low-light camera set up for our guide’s use. We took our turns getting
photos with the Sydney skyline in the background. With that complete, we
climbed the stairs until we reached the top, where another photo spot was set
up. We soon realized why the whole bridgeclimb experience was a 3-3 ½ hour
event. The actual moving is a small portion of the time, we’re really just
walking between photo ops and waiting our turn for Instagram gold. No
complaints from me though, the view was spectacular and the weather quite
pleasant. In between setting up the shots and coaching his photo subjects, our
guide regaled us with interesting facts about the bridge’s history and engineering. My favorite anecdote was that a number of angry Sydneysiders had
asserted that the entire project was a folly once the suspension arch had been
completed. Assuming that the road would be built atop the arch, rather than
hanging flat below it, they complained that the angle of ascent and descent down
the other side were complete madness and no car would be able to safely make it
across.
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| Skyline shot |
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| The Opera House |
Once we made it to the top and had our pictures taken again,
we crossed over to the other side and began our descent. A few more photos and
a few more historical tidbits later, we were back in the base area. We stripped
off all the safety equipment, changed out of our jumpsuits, paid far too much
for a thumb drive of our photos, and headed back to Tyler’s flat. We recapped
our day to Tyler and Bella before quickly heading off to bed. A day full of
adventures, indeed.
