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View won't leave you speechless
By TERRY TOMALIN
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 26, 2000
SYDNEY, Australia -- Standing atop the Sydney Harbor Bridge looking down at the water 400 feet below, you want to scream.
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[Times photo: Terry Tomalin]
For a price, Olympic visitors can get a scenic view from the the top of the Sydney Harbor Bridge.
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"Go ahead," Sarah Fairweather said. "Everybody does it. ... Anything you want."
"Anything I want?" I said.
"Anything you want," she replied.
"How about Geronimo?" I asked.
"Anything but Geronimo," she said and double checked the safety line that kept me tethered to a bridge railing.
Just mucking about, I told her. I wouldn't dream about diving off a bridge like this, I said. Too much ferry traffic below.
Dive? No. Cannonball? Maybe.
"People have tried everything from up here over the years," Jon "Jon-O" Graczol said. "Bungee jumping, base jumping, all illegal, of course."
But for two years now, Sydneysiders have been able to get a breathtaking 360-degree view of their city, for a price.
"I do three tours a day," said Fairweather, a BridgeClimb guide. "But there are people going up pretty much non-stop."
Locals call this 52,800-ton steel monolith "The Coat Hanger." Heralded as the world's largest (not longest) steel arch bridge, it links north and south Sydney, and has become an international symbol of Aussie pride.
Construction began in 1923 atop the historic "Rocks" section of the city, the site of the first permanent European settlement on the continent. It took 1,400 workers nearly 10 years to complete.
"Back then, during the Depression, people called the bridge "The Iron Lung,' " said Graczol, a guide. . "The work here kept a lot of people alive during the Depression."
When the bridge opened in 1932, average traffic was 10,000 cars a day. By 1989, that number peaked at 182,000. Then they opened up the Harbor Tunnel, which took some of the pressure off the bridge.
Two years ago, some entrepreneurs got together and decided to let the public climb the bridge for about $82 American.
The average tour takes about three hours. Participants must be moderately fit. Children under 12, pregnant women and drunks (they give everybody a breathalyzer test -- you must be under 0.05 to climb) are not allowed.
No personal items are allowed on the bridge -- they don't want somebody's 10-pound medallion to fall on a passenger ferry below -- and just to be sure, all participants must pass through a metal detector.
Climbers are then issued "Bridge-Suits," which resemble the one-piece coveralls popularized by the punk band Devo. Once in the suit, climbers are strapped into a harness rigged with a mountain-climber's caribeener, which is then locked into a steel cable that runs along the entire route.
Then climbers snake their way along a catwalk to the pylon. A series of ladders lead to the arch, and from then on, it is nothing but fresh air.
"I have had accomplished rock climbers up here who can't handle it," Graczol said. "It is something about being up on the bridge."
The guides keep the groups small -- no more than 12 people at a time -- and participants are given communication equipment in case they want to ask questions en route.
"You let people move at their own pace," Fairweather said. "If the leader is calm, people usually follow along and feel more at ease."
But then you get to the summit and the wind starts to blow. A huge Australian flag -- with its Union Jack and Southern Cross -- flies above, and you can't help but be overcome. It just makes you want to yell something.
"How about the Aussie War Cry?" I asked, since the national cheer had been getting a lot of air time lately.
"Sounds good to me," Fairweather said.
So there, 400 feet above Sydney, we let it rip.
Aussie Aussie Aussie
Oye Oye Oye
Aussie Aussie Aussie
Oye Oye Oye
Aussie Oye
Aussie Oye
Aussie Aussie Aussie
Oye Oye Oye
As the War Cry echoed across the harbor, the tour group that followed would not be outdone.
USA! USA! USA! USA! . . .
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