Our Trip - Chapter 3

Saturday was kind of funny. On Josh’s itinerary, Saturday morning said, “Flower show and coat hanger crafts.” Which we thought was really odd, since none of us are interested in that type of thing. When we asked Josh about it, he gave us some story about the aboriginal people making sculptures out of coat hangers. Anyway, come to find out, he had planned a surprise for us. We were really climbing the Sydney Harbor Bridge. We didn’t figure that out until we walked into the “bridge climb” building. That was definitely an interesting experience. The first thing you do is sign a waiver or whatever it’s called, basically saying that you don’t have any medical conditions and you aren’t going to sue them, etc. Then they give you a breath test to make sure you aren’t inebriated… Then you have to take off all hats, jewelry and empty your pockets and put all your stuff in a locker. I guess the purpose of that is to make sure you don’t drop anything through a windshield on the cars below you on the bridge. Then they give you a jumpsuit and wind pants to put on over your clothes. After that they give you a climbing belt type thing and from there you start attaching things to yourself: hat, gloves, extra jacket, radio, cable to attach yourself to the cables on the bridge, etc. Of course only the tour guide had a camera, so you have to buy any pictures you want from the bridge climb place. The whole time you are up there you are attached to a cable, so you can’t really fall off. We had a beautiful day and an amazing view. After the last couple of days, the nice weather was a real blessing.

After finishing the bridge climb we took a ferry out to Manly Beach and back. The weather was warm enough to enjoy the beach, but not warm enough to want to swim. I had a little "encounter" with a seagull while we were at the beach. While I was sitting near the beach eating my lunch, a seagull swooped down from behind me and tried to take my piece of chicken out of my hand. Fortunately it didn't get the chicken. I wasn't very happy about it stabbing my hand with its claw though. I guess the birds must have been pretty used to having a lot of people around. That evening Josh had a bunch of his friends over for dinner. We really enjoyed meeting them and getting to know them a little bit.