Sydney Harbour Bridge & Great Ocean Road

AFTER TRAVELING ALONE FOR 6 MONTHS, IT IS WONDERFUL TO SEE YOUR MOTHER AND FATHER.  My lovely Mom and Dad came to visit me in Australia and also to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary.  Congrats again you guys!  I waved goodbye to the outstanding 2 weeks spent in Byron Bay and hopped a quick flight to Sydney.  One switch of terminals and there I was to see my folks come walking right out of customs.  God bless world airplane travel at this point right?  So nice to see them.  For one, when you travel alone, the TIME that goes by seems like ages when you don't see people you are close to (i.e. family and friends); secondly, the appreciation for these people (close to you) goes up ten fold due to being by yourself for so long.  You start to look back on the last 20 years of your life and realize how much your parents and siblings have done for you financially, socially, mentally, and emotionally.  Your hugs become longer.  I kiss my mother on the lips more than I used to as a kid.  Your talks with your father become more in depth and meaningful.  YOU PAY ATTENTION TO HOW SPECIAL FAMILY IS.  This career break and choice to travel the world I made is paying dividends when it comes to how I view how special family and friends are to oneself.  Truly awesome and my heart goes out to anyone who has lost someone close to them (i.e. Laura I met from Spain in Byron Bay who was in a car crash with her 2 sisters and both her mother and father died when she was 5).  She was one of the strongest girls I have ever met and pretty much watered my eyes a bit when she told me this story.  We don't know how lucky we are sometimes.  So lucky.

"WE IN SYDNEY BABY!" was one of my favorite quotes I have ever seen on Facebook and I saw it right before New Years Eve 2010 by my friend from Cairns, Annabel.  I always liked the excitement it had to it and wondered if I would have the same excitement when I got to this world renowned international city.  I did.  My folks and I checked in to the Marriot in Circular Quay (thank you Mom and Dad for the timeshare trade!) for 5 nights and were loving every minute of it.  We city explored by day and tried different restaurants and bars by night.  We could see the Sydney Harbour Bridge from our room.  It was such a great setting to catch up and be a family (Sean we wish you were there!) on vacation.  Instead of getting lost and losing a ton of money on public transportation, we paid for this double decker Sydney Tour big red bus thing that let us jump on and off at all the main Sydney attractions; Sydney Opera House, The Rocks, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Kings Cross, Darling Harbour, etc.  While I know you would love to be bored with detailed descriptions of all of these places, I will only focus on one:  The Sydney Harbour Bridge.

CLIMBING THE SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE WAS ONE OF THE MOST EXHILARATING THINGS I HAVE EVER DONE.  First of all you wonder why its costs $198.  $200 bucks to climb a bridge?  Huh?  Its just a bridge isn't it??  Ryan McLeod is here to tell you IT IS NOT JUST A BRIDGE AND IS WORTH EVERY PENNY.  You get there early for your briefing in the morning and start poking around the lobby and see photos of celebrities and random people from all around the world doing all types of things at the top of the bridge (kissing, wedding proposals, famous comedians being funny, etc).  You are soon taken into this small room and asked to strip off everything that could fall off while scaling the structure; wallets, watches, rings, bracelets, earrings, etc.  My father and I chose the 'just underwear underneath' route rather than wearing some bulky pants or shorts under the coveralls they give you.  You are the taken to another room where you are searched with a metal detector to make sure you have not hidden anything in your climbing suit.  Metal detectors?  What the hell did I sign up for here?  We are just going up a few steps to see a view right?  What is going on here Sydney Bridgeclimb people?  You are then taken into another room and given a radio headset that allows you to communicate with your Bridgeclimb leader.  Headsets?  Okay, this is getting intense.  Then you are taken into a room where you are given a practice replica ladder system of what it will be like when getting up to the first stage of the climb.  You hook in to this runner system so if you fall you won't die.  Oh yeah, I forgot, in the first room, you are breathalyzed for alcohol too.  BREATHALYZED!  Why does alcohol matter if I am wired in and can't fall off the bridge?  Lets put it this way, Ryan is getting a bit anxious at this point.

THE FIRST STAGE OF THE BRIDGE CLIMB IS ALMOST MORE SCARY THAN BEING AT THE TOP.  It is that height level I have talked to others about in the same realm of heights (skydived, bungee jumped, cliff jumped, etc) that makes your legs a bit weary.  Weary to say the least when you look down and the metal grating you are walking on is 2 inches thick and HAS HOLES IN IT.  While it is only around a hundred feet up at this point you start getting that shaky real life "oh shit if I fell right here" cringe in your mind that can sometimes make the hair on the back of your neck stand up or make your heart race.  Mine was a small combination of both.  Alright, at this point you might think I am being a sissy...let me remind you people I have jumped out of planes at 14,000 feet, bungee jumped off towers, ran with the bulls, scubadived at night with sharks, and jumped off of bridges at 60 feet into water, etc., but for some reason this climb up this steel structure somehow gets your fear factor to a 7 out of 10.  I think it is the slow ascension or something.  It is an unbelievably awesome fear that I think a lot of people that climb it have no idea would come and hit them.  While you go through these different ladders and steps and then start up the main stairs your Bridgeclimb leader is talking to you about the history of the bridge and give you fun facts and features of the bridge.  I don't really remember much of what she said except for the parts of "this is where 44 people the first year jumped off to kill themselves."  Funny what your mind picks up when you are in a fearful situation.  Dying.  Anyway, my father and I scaled this son of a bitch all the way to the top and it was PRICELESS.  Taking in the 360 degree view of this special international city they call Sydney was something out of a novel that hasn't been written yet (climbing the bridge a pretty new thing).  A few pictures later with the Sydney Opera House in the background it was time for the dreaded CROSSOVER.  You see you go up the bridge on one side and then descend on the other meaning you have to cross over the middle of it and over the freeway with cars and trains ZOOMING ACROSS IT.  Looking down was something you didn't want to do but still did anyway.  My God it was scary as all hell but at the same time, a good scary.  A very good scary.  I'll put it this way, the beer at lunch that day seemed to go down a bit faster and smoother than it would on any other day.  What a once in a lifetime, highly recommended.

THE NEXT BEST HIGHLIGHT OF THIS HOLIDAY WAS DRIVING THE GREAT OCEAN ROAD.  We rented a car in Melbourne and headed south to Geelong where we stopped in at a I center, or Information Center.  These are abundant in Australia and much respect to the Australian government on their efficient tourism help and great road signage.  I don't think we ever got lost once and we drover over 1000km.  Exceptional.  Mind you I did run the rental car over a curb within the first two minutes of driving the car out of the lot (spatial dimensions off a bit when you are driving on the right side of the car) and almost killed a biker in the CBD (Central Business District) on the way to our hotel.  Anyway, back to the Great Ocean Road.  THIS THING WAS SPECIAL.  Can't put my finger on it but it has to do with the changes of scenery you go through during your trek.  Rolling green cliffs (like the Oregon Coast) to smaller foliage and towns (like Malibu, CA), to huge orange and red and yellow cliffs that enormous (like something I have never scene).  While the 12 apostles were cool and all, the Bay of Martyrs and the Bay of Islands were WAY better.  Underlooked, undertraveled, underestimated, you name it.  At a couple of those stops we were the only people on the lookout point.  Sun was setting and hitting these Halloween-colored cliffsides that were HUGE and we were the only ones around to see it.  Awesome, simply awesome.  We stayed in a couple of small towns on the road (Apollo Bay and Woornambool) and found ourselves in places that you would only picture in a Hemingway novel.  Here is the best way I can some up the Great Ocean Road and why it was so spectacular...a photo I took that was featured as the photo of the day on a large photography website; another great adventure and part of the world, RCM: