• Adventuring Down Under
    Under the Sydney Harbour Bridge (I'm cheating ... this photo was taken yesterday).
    Under the Sydney Harbour Bridge (I'm cheating ... this photo was taken yesterday).Climb Base ... leading out of the ready room to the catwalk — Sydney Harbour Bridge.The first of many catwalks we negotiated to get to the southeast pylon for our bridge climb.Climbers returning along the catwalk — Sydney Harbour Bridge.View from under the Sydney Harbour Bridge.Bridge stats from an info panel at the Pylon Museum — Sydney, NSW.Historic construction photos of the bridge @ the Pylon Museum — Sydney, NSW.Historic construction photos of the bridge @ the Pylon Museum — Sydney, NSW.The stained glass windows depict the different trade workers who constructed the bridge — Sydney.Photo op at the Pylon Museum — Sydney, NSW.Disrupting the ribbon cutting ... he did get his sentence reversed ... and the fine refunded.From the Pylon Lookout — Sydney, NSW.Check out the climbers on the bridge — from the Pylon Lookout ... Sydney.Taking turns going down the ladder to get below the road deck — from the Pylon Lookout.View towards Lavender Bay ... from the Pylon Lookout — Sydney, NSW.View towards Circular Quay ... from the Pylon Lookout — Sydney, NSW.Can't resist a photo op with the Opera House — Sydney, NSW.The Opera House tiles are off-white to cut down on the glare from the sun (when it is shining).Taking in the skyline on both sides of the bridge — Sydney, NSW.

    Sydney: Pylon Museum & Lookout

    December 19, 2023 in Australia ☁️ 82 °F

    “Our Bridge is made from a whopping 550,000 pieces of steel!”

    “6 million or 3200 tons of rivets hold our Bridge together!”

    “Did we mention it’s a pretty-strong Bridge? 96 trains were shunted onto the Bridge for load-testing … .”

    Those are just some of the tidbits we learned from today’s first outing.

    Our sixth day in Sydney dawned overcast … the skies hazy with wildfire smoke. I was hoping that it would clear before we set off for the Bridge Climb Pylon Museum & Lookout. No such luck. Oh well … with rain in the forecast for the next two days, we decided to proceed with our plan anyway.

    We started out by walking under the Sydney Harbour Bridge to check out — during daylight— the catwalks we had scrambled on and around to get to the ladders that had led us above the road deck for our bridge climb. As luck would have it, there were some climbers to add visual interest. (Just pretend they are us when you look at the photos 🤭)

    Finding the elevator from the street level up to the bridge level, next we took a short stroll to the southeast pylon where the museum and lookout are located. And then came the steps … over 200 in all … with some 130 of them from the museum level up to the lookout, which sits at 290+ feet above sea level.

    The focus of the small museum is the planning and construction of the bridge. There are a couple of artifacts in display cases, however, the exhibits are mostly short snippets of info to read … accompanied by historic photos. A 7-minute video, shown on a loop, highlights the key information … a quick overview, if you will.

    The Lookout is billed as the original Sydney city observation terrace. It’s worth the climb … though it would have been even better if we’d had blue skies as a backdrop for the scenery. Nonetheless, we enjoyed seeing the Sydney Harbour Bridge from a different perspective, searching out and finding the places we had climbed and walked on our bridge climb just two nights ago.    Read more