Update MOnday, Mrach 12, 2012: The Bridge Climb and Shanelle's Last Tour

Shanelle promptly picked us up at 10AM in front of Patissiere which became Joe's favorite morning coffee place. Joe ordered his coffee "Weak Long Black."

Shanelle drove expertly southward and went across the harbour into the city where she pointed out all the points of interest. We drove pass Bondi Junction in the city heading to South Head area called Watson's Bay. We stopped for refreshments in the lovely upscale village of Rose Bay. The place where we stopped had a small island in the middle of the road where a restaurant had set up tables outside. Even though the sky was threatening the weather stayed good and mild making it very comfortable for touring. The setting was very romantic and it fit Joe's liking to a a "T."

It was cool to stand atop of South Head since we had ferried near the two heads as well as visited the land side of South Head. Joe stayed behind as we climbed to the top of the cliff where there were signs about people needed to call a SUICIDE Help line. Once you look over the cliff and see the sharpness and steepness, you see why this is a popular spot to jump or push someone off you do not like. There had been a horrible shipwreck here where over a thousand people perished on a dark stormy night where the captain mistook an inlet as the opening to Sydney Harbour. One person survived, an Irish ship hand, who clung to a rock and became a lighthouse expert after that tragedy. There was some cool evergreens which had bottle bush flowers that turned into tiny pine cones that looked like little eyes. A writer wrote a creative story which included these cones as bad guys with their beady eyes.

We had lunch at a fantastic place in Watson's Bay called, Doyles Fishmongers which was established in 1885. We ate at the white tablecloth part and we all had delicious takings. Joe and Shanelle had a wonderful salad which at the end of it, they took a spoon to finish up the salad dressing. Joe also had a marvelous dish of baked fresh oysters where six had mornay sauce on it and the other six had bits of Canadian Bacon, Tomato Salsa with Worcester sauce. I had a perfectly cooked beer battered fried prawns and chips.

After lunch Shanelle took us through Dover Heights, Bellevue Hill and then famous Bondi Beach where there were people learning how to surf, people enjoying the beach. There are lots of places to stay in Bondi where one can enjoy a grand holiday.

After another full day of touring, Shanelle dropped us off on top of the Rocks about 4Pm where we said our Good-Byes and thank yous. The meeting place for the Bridge Climb was across the street. It was a bit cool in the afternoon and we were in short shirts so we knew we needed a short that had long sleeves so we decided to go into the office and shop in the Bridge Climb store. We found two matching Bridge Climb shirts on sale. There was a snack bar there so I had my usual Diet Coke and Joe enjoyed a Hot Chocolate.

I went ahead and checked in early at the desk where the friendly clerk gave me our tickets and hats. She told us to be upstairs at 5:10PM. Since we had 30 minutes to spare, we watched several different documentaries in the theater where one showed the building of the bridge 70 years ago. Another one showed the various celebrations on the bridge. I enjoyed watching the fireworks from New Years and the Olympics. It still awed me but even more after being at Sydney Harbour and Bridge.

As directed we went upstairs at 5:10pm where our guide told us what to expect when we go into the readiness room. I asked her to let Joe go up front since Joe sometimes has a hard time following directions these days. They have the preparation for the Bridge Climb organized to a perfect science. First they gave us our jump suits where the zippers were in the back. They pointed us to the dressing rooms to remove our pants, watches, jewelry and put our stuff into individual locked lockers. Our next stop was the harness that wrapped around snugly to our waists which had lots of hooks for other attachments. Our hats were snapped onto a loop. We were given handkerchiefs that wrapped around our wrists and into the cuffs of the jumpsuits to be used to wiped sweat or blow your nose into. They had us go through metal detectors before the hook ups to make sure no one was carrying any phones, cameras or any other accessories. Hooked onto us were raincoats, fleece jackets in a vinyl bag, two way radio with headphones. a elastic head band that had a light affixed to it, a key necklace. We must have had 10 pounds of attachments to our attire. Our group had about 14 people. There was one couple from Minnesota, others from Germany, Great Britain, and Canada. Our ages were from the 20's to 70.

Our next instruction was how to climb the ladders, attach our cable pulley. One person was allowed on the ladder on each level before the next person would follow. We were to have three appendages to the bridge, meaning our feet and hands. We went up and down to make sure we were fit to climb. The also gave each person a breathalyzer test.

Our first stage was some easy ladders then walk across a long gangplank where the plank was wood with handrails on both sides. As we were doing all of this, you could see the cars and trains passing by as you were able to look at all side of the harbour and city. We all felt quite safe. The people who were a bit nervous has no issue. One of the hardest part of the climb was climbing the straight ladders up to the curvature of the bridge. There are 1427 steps we climbed and we felt every single one of them. Every so often the guide would stop us for all of us to catch our breath or take photos as couples or as a group. It is hard to believe but no parts of the bridge has curved parts. When we were almost to the top the sun set towards our left and the view was spectacular but even more spectacular when it got somewhat dark with the lights of the city, the hundreds of miles of waterfront. Luna Park was all lit up into all it glory. It is an amusement park with a large face with towers like the Chrysler Building on both sides. The whole park was lit up and was breathtaking from the top of the bridge.

After about two hours we came back to the staging point where we now had to get out of all our attire which took about thirty minutes. We picked up our group photo and our CD of our individual photographs. It was now about 8:15 PM when we were finally done. Joe wanted to do one thing and only one thing. Get home. He was dragging but I was too. Joe amazed me that he did the climb. His smile atop of the bridge was priceless since he was filled of glory that he made it which was quite an achievement with Mantle Cell Lymphoma remission and Myelofibrosis. I was so incredibly proud of his determination and success.

It was about a mile walk to the L90 bus and we scrambled our Australian coins to have enough money to get back to Dee Why since Joe had left our prepaid bus passes at home. UGH! It took about thirty minutes to get to Dee Why. Our bodies did not want to move anymore. It was about 10PM when we walked back into Dana's flat. I pushed myself to write a paragraph about today's happenings that more would come later when I got some rest. By the time I got back downstairs Joe was in bed. Since we had to get up at 4AM to be ready for the airport shuttle that would pick us up at 5AM. No alarm clock anywhere! I looked everywhere. I finally called Jillian to call us at 4AM to make sure we woke up. I was so worried about it that I could not sleep so I laid on the living room couch so I could hear the phone ring thus I got only two hours sleep when I was so exhausted.

Tomorrow is another day.