Climbing the Sydney Harbor Bridge

Is anyone else awake…? It’s 3:00 am here in Sydney, Australia and the group chat has been going off… Halfway into my 9-day trip and I’m like, “Ooooh hey jetlag, it’s you again.”

We arrived in the land down under from Singapore early this morning and after a little nap we headed straight out to the Opera Bar on the Harbor. Back at my hotel now, I’ve been in bed for a few hours but it feels like I should be up having breakfast. Specifically my favorite eggs benedict. I have just called room service to see what time breakfast actually starts and they guy on the other side of the phone politely reminded me, “Miss Prendergast, it’s almost 3:00 am. Breakfast doesn’t start until 6:30.”

So here I am waiting for breakfast, and after a failed attempt at watching some random murder documentary on Netflix I have just started typing instead.

To give you a better idea of the kind of trip I’m currently on, I left London a few days ago, having then landed into Singapore for two local nights before flying onto Sydney this morning for 32 hours. Then it’s back to Singapore for a few days before the home stretch to London begins.

It’s a great trip, but you either love it or hate it. I like to make the most of my time in different countries and I’ve had a chance to do quite a bit on these trips. My favorite one yet is probably when I got to climb the Harbor Bridge in Sydney. Personally this is something I’d had on my bucket list for as far as I could remember. Having such little downtime in Sydney means sometimes you would rather just chill on the harbor and watch others go up and down this massive bridge towering 440 ft into the air.

Standing on the harbor, having the Sydney Opera House on your right and the bridge on your left is a surreal sight to see. Construction started on this brilliant bridge on July 28th 1923, nine years and almost 53,000 tons of steel later, the bridge opened in 1932.

It was summer in Australia when I began my climb to the summit. With a great crew, six of us made our way to the harbor and began our preparation for the climb. The climb leaders took us into a small room and briefed us on the climb, while also breathalyzing us. This was something that wouldn’t necessarily come to mind when you think about a bridge climb so it might be best to keep the celebratory champagne or cocktails under wraps until after your trek to the top.