Sydney, Part II

The aquarium made us really excited for our dive trip, so after a great day we decided we’d pioneer the train system to see how it would work the next day to get in and out of town, and went on back out to the suburbs (and saw more of the outskirts of Sydney on the way)!

We ate at a cute pub near our hotel, enjoying a live band and different sports on the tv’s (greyhound racing, cricket, some sort of horse/cart racing, etc.) and had a great time watching the locals.

Sydney Day 2

It was a very short sleep before waking up for another day in Sydney. We had to wake up around 5ish (our Bridge Climb was scheduled for 8:25 a.m. but we had to check out, take the train into the city, drop off our luggage at the more central Marriott for the day (Aussies are so nice), walk to the Quay, and be there early…

SO, the alarm went off and I told Curt, “I hate myself for this right now,” because I had set the time for us that early, not really thinking it through and just thinking the light would be better the earlier we went, and being the great hubby he is he didn’t complain along with me, he just laughed and said he was just glad he didn’t plan it so I could only be mad at myself, LOL!

After lugging our luggage around, at times in the pouring rain, we barely made it to the Bridge Climb on time, but we made it – whew (so far, the hours between 5 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. were the worst our trip so far…. GRUMPY)!

But as we went through the very well-organized assembly line, learned about what we were going to do, took a breathalizer test (there was a guy in our group who didn’t make it – I think the level was .05 so it was pretty sensitive, but they said he could go as soon as his level was down… and don’t worry, they didn’t publicize it, they just told him to hang back and I overhead a couple words and put it together… bummer though!)

We got suited up, and as it had been raining all morning we had to also put some rain pants on, and I was PRAYING it wouldn’t rain anymore so we could have a good time, and we got lucky! The sky was overcast, but no rain, and as it was pretty humid and hot so the cloud cover actually made it better. It was amazing to have a tour (we had headsets), learn all about the history of Sydney, the bridge, what we were seeing (bridge descriptions as well as city descriptions), and to be on top of it all!

Interesting tidbits about the bridge:

There are more than 6 million rivets, and they used to cook them in a portable oven (a man on the edge of the bridge – way up high, no ropes or safety lines attaching them), and because they only had 15 seconds to set them, they threw it to the man out in the middle of the bridge who was setting the rivets who caught it in a small bucket (who ALSO had no safety ropes or harnesses) – I couldn’t believe it! Can you imagine trying to catch white hot rivets suspended 500 feet above water?

The abuttments (sp?) are made from blue granite mined from Australia, and each block is unique and was masoned by 200 masons commissioned from Scotland (as in, THE Masons), and each block had its own specifications, which took the masons 2 weeks per block (one mason per block). The Australians made a temporary town for the masons near the quarry, and then the blocks were marked with their spec number, and shipped to the bridge… cool, huh?

The Bridge Climb was truly spectacular, and we had a great time with our group, leader, and seeing what Sydney is all about, just too cool! We kept pinching ourselves, not believing where we were, even when we were staring right at the Opera House – what a dream come true!

Afterwards we went to the Lowenbrau and had the most amazing German food, and by that time (1 p.m.), the weather was starting to clear out with some cool breezes and soft sunshine, so we ate outside at The Rocks, only one street away from KENDALL LANE!

Then we walked around Sydney for the rest of the afternoon, and when we got tired we settled down in Darling Harbor at the Starbucks to people watch, write blog posts, and rest (we were knackered).

Then off to the airport to catch our flight to Melbourne on Qantas – which, as we were told, was a very nice airline!

I had some more ear trouble on this flight, which is still a concern for diving to come soon, so pray whatever is going on clears out soon!

Then off to one of our nicer hotel stays at the Marriott in Melbourne, on the way to which I drove on the OTHER side of the road for the very first time (for a solid 20 minutes, it was a big deal)! I was being VERY careful, constantly repeating “Stay on the Left,” and almost peed myself when we both saw a “roundabout” sign 5 minutes into it, but I did it!

We slept amazingly well (I love Marriott beds), slept in a bit as we didn’t have a hard schedule the next day, and woke up to a beautiful sunny day.