“Saying goodbye to Sydney…”

After a bit too much to drink Wednesday night I was nursing a horrible hangover all day Thursday. Mum and co went to do the Bondi to Coogee walk whilst Nathan and I stayed at the house and sunbathed on the roof. Luckily she was kind enough to send me photos…It looked beautiful, how they managed it in flip flops is beyond me! They got back about five and we headed out to Darling Harbour and to Rashays for dinner. Steak was on the menu before the harbour was lit up for the night.

Friday was to be our last proper day in Sydney so first of all we headed to Sydney Aquarium to use the last of the tickets on our pass. It was bigger than the one in Manly, not that it looks it from the outside, but the exhibit is in layers.

They had the usual array of marine animals and at times it actually felt like we were in the harbour!

We worked our way through the exhibitions before we came across the dugongs! I don’t think any aquarium we have been to has been the same as the one before. They all have at least one or two different animals.

Out of only five dugongs in sea life centres across the world, two reside at the Sydney Aquarium and they’re the only male/female pairing. They’ve attempted to release them back into the wild but they end up malnourished and injured so for the time being, their home is here. They look a bit like dogs and were just floating around eating lettuce!

Back in we went to the shark tunnel before embarking on a penguin exhibition on a bit in freezing temperatures of six degrees!! Ok maybe not freezing but it was compared to the outside. I mean all the workers were in jumpers and coats!

The last part was a huge tank full of groupers, sharks, eels, small fish and rays. We sat watching them for a bit before exiting. There’s something incredibly calming about aquariums.

We exited back out to Darling Harbour and as we passed Cockle Bay Wharf we saw there was an Invictus Games function going on. Hoping to catch a glimpse of Prince Harry, we sat outside and ogled the insiders but there was no sign of him.

Next stop was Bondi as my brother wanted to get a few souvenirs. Still as beautiful as ever in the sun, we strolled along admiring this wonderful place until I realised there were lifeguards in the tower.

What commenced was a hilarious fifteen minutes that involves the car crawling along slowly and me walking up and down trying to catch a glimpse, faking selfies and watching a lifeguard sitting on the car eating lunch listening to music. We all managed to get a snap of Yatesy though from Bondi Rescue! Result!

We couldn’t agree on anywhere to eat at Bondi so headed to somewhere called ‘The Cottage’ in Balmain instead.

It was a quaint little bistro off the road which served good albeit cheesy pizzas. Still, it was enough to fill us up ready for our Bridge Climb that evening!

After catching the last hours sun at the house, we set headed to our Bridge Climb. We had booked onto the 19:05 climb and got there about twenty minutes early, so spent it looking round the gift shop.

We waited upstairs until we were called through into the briefing room. There were two Americans and three other men with us. Declarations signed, it was time to get our jumpsuits. Mine was huge with the crotch hanging by my knees! I looked hideous but I was too excited to care!

Next was through the metal detector, which was frustrating because we were told countless times to empty our pockets yet people still pleaded ignorant. Reminded me of an airport! I didn’t have my phone past this point so my words will have to do 😂! We went downstairs to get the rest of our accessories. A belt with a slider on to attach us to the bridge, a fleece, a radio, a hanky and an ever-so-sexy headtorch! Once we were kitted our it was time to make sure we knew what we were doing by climbing the training ladders!

Satisfied we all knew what we were doing, our guide Holly, took us out to the tunnel to start our climb. We got about fifty steps onto the bridge and one of the older guys in the group of three decided it wasn’t for him so we turned back, dropped him off and started again. To begin with we were waking along the rafters underneath the bridge until we got the four ladders to climb upwards that would put us on the bridge. This was taken underneath. As we got onto the bridge the views just got more and more amazing the higher we got. It didn’t feel like we were that high either! We had great commentary from Holly and we stopped every now and then to have photos taken and to let other groups move further ahead.We stopped every now and then to have photos taken with different backgrounds.The Bridge. The Opera House. The city.We crosses the bridge to get back down and dumped our accessories into the relevant bins, got a look at our photos and received our certificates! If you’re in Sydney I highly recommend doing this, especially at night. The views were epic. We got back to our house around 11pm ready for our last day in Sydney. Everything loaded into the car…we decided to dump all the bags in the Airbnb Nathan and I would be staying in that night. Five people, five big bags and five hand luggage, our Mitsubishi was a squeeze! It only just fit in but we arrived after about forty five minutes, emptied the car, collected the keys and headed to Cumberland Avenue to climb the 200 steps to the top of the Pylon. Tickets for this were included with our Bridge Climb tickets!The climb Friday night was 1320 steps and the Pylon was only 200! By now I’d had enough of steps but as we got onto the bridge we peered down onto the Park Hyatt hotel to see if there were any celebs in the rooftop pool of the Presidential suite. There were people in the pool of this $19,000 a night hotel room but we couldn’t make out who!We continued to the Pylon which has a museum inside dedicated to the building of this monumental and iconic structure! As we reached the top of the 200 steps there were some facts about the bridge: it was completed on 19th March 1932 after taking 7 years and 365 days to complete. During construction, 16 men died consisting of 8 iron workers, 1 carpenter, 1 painter, 2 quarrymen and 2 labourers of which only two fell from the bridge. It is 1149 metres long, 49 metres wide and 134 metres above sea level compared to the Pylon which is only 88 metres above sea level. It took 272,000 litres of paint to do the original three coats and there are 6 million rivets securing the bridge and only 10,000 fell into the harbour during construction! People have been climbing the bridge since 1998!From the top of the Pylon you could see for miles but not as far as being another 60 metres up!Once we had finished marvelling at the views for the last time, we ventured to The Rocks Market which had everything you could possibly want, except a didgeridoo, and then round to Circular Quay which was exceptionally busy as a cruise ship was about to depart. That and it was a nice day and the start of the weekend!

Dinner consisted of McDonald’s and Subway on the way back to the Airbnb. That gave Mum and co time to shower and change and make sure everything was packed before we headed to the rental place to drop off the Mitsubishi and pick up the car Nathan and I would have for the next month. That, as well as making sure no Timtams went to waste…Paperwork sorted we piled into our Hyundai i30 and went to drop Mum, Steve and Claire off at the airport for their journey home…

Until next time…