[drawing courtesy of then-8-year-old Lauren Jarred; turning it upside-down wouldn’t give you Sydney and its Harbour Bridge though, we note]
There are many bridge adventures you can have while you are in Sydney, even if the most popular is to climb the Harbour Bridge!
We at Madeleine’s like to do some other bridge things … One of our favourite walks is the Spit Bridge to Manly walk though that cannot be considered a bridge adventure, as the walk isn’t so much about the bridge but the many bays and coves and reserves and suburbs you encounter on the way.
And we had recently marvelled at the specialness of the Ryde Bridge.
Well, we simply like to just walk the Harbour Bridge!
Many people want to climb the bridge, and it does offer the most spectacular view of the city; the “top-of-the-world” feel you get at the apex of the arch, 134 metres above the harbour is unbeatable. Today there’s the official organizer for this, BridgeClimb, but before this many people climbed the bridge illegally, so many that reportedly there was a guestbook on the summit for people to write messages and there was a Sydney Harbour Social Climbers Association, a “club” whose code of ethics included such items as “I shall not unplug the beacon at the top of the arch” and refraining from vomiting on the traffic below!
All that aside and going a little contrarian, the best and a wonderful thing to do, in our view, is to actually walk the bridge which by the way is called the “coat-hanger” by Sydneysiders.
As the Bridge connects the centre of Sydney with what is called the North Shore, it’s actually perfect if you were just commuting, going from the CBD to some event in the North Shore, for example. It won’t take more than 30 minutes, it’s free, you can do it anytime you want, at your own pace, and take your own photos (!). It is not easy to find the starting point though: the easiest access is via the pedestrian walkway on the eastern side of the bridge roadway from The Rocks. You will need to find a sign along George Street just south of Argyle Street pointing you towards the long flight of stairs leading to the bridge’s south end. These stairs are located near Gloucester Street and Cumberland Street.
We also profess our love for an October bridge adventure that is more strenuous and is called the Seven Bridges Walk – which officially starts from Milson’s Point (its first stop) and immediately takes in the Harbour Bridge, not far from the Prymont fish market. The route takes in the Harbour Bridge, Pyrmont Bridge, Anzac Bridge, Iron Cove Bridge Gladesville Bridge, Tarban Creek Bridge, and Fig Tree Bridge. The bridges encircle the harbor, and so along the way you’ll see the thriving Darling Harbour, find yourself walking along the stunning Glebe Foreshore, and take in wonderful views across the water to Rodd Point on the Iron Cove Bridge.
It’s a 28km course in total and starting time is 7.30am. Walkers need to go clockwise from one stop to the next, and can start at any of the 7 starting points, while free buses are provided that go in the anti-clockwise direction to bring you back to where your car may be.
If we spend time at Pyrmont fish market for breakfast before doing the walk, we have two choices: we can start at the Prymont village start-point, or we can make a small hop either on the train or a bus or a car back to Milsons Point, the official first-stop.
The Walk has now become a rather well-known and popular annual event (it celebrates its 20th anniversary in October this year). Those of us obsessed with puzzles might remember something called the Seven Bridges of Königsberg, a historically notable problem in mathematics: Königsberg was a city in Prussia (in today’s Germany) that was set on both sides of the Pregel river and included two large islands connected to each other and the mainland by seven bridges. The problem was to devise a walk through the city that would cross each bridge once and only once.
Sydney is no Königsberg and the Seven Bridges Walk is a well-organized event rather than a mathematical puzzle; it is a fantastic way to see Sydney Harbour and explore the many streets that hold much history and architectural surprises. And yes, even in such a young country! When we think of Sydney, we think about its lightness and its luminosity, and we absolutely adore walking on the Sydney Harbour Bridge which also happens to be the world’s largest steel and arch bridge. Whichever way you walk on the Seven Bridges Walk, you can see her majestically standing guard above the city.
But we also like the bridge that comes after the Pyrmont Bridge, the Anzac Bridge, the longest cable-stayed span bridge in Australia and one of its most recognizable. Its two towers support 128 cables, while two statues of Anzac soldiers stand guard on either side of the bridge on the city side.
If you go on this Walk, there are five other bridges to admire!
