Not quite Chicago style, but still tasty

A free three hour walking tour of Sydney was something I just couldn't pass up. And it really was free. The guide works for tips. If you don't like the tour, don't pay a thing. If you like the tour, you still don't have to pay. That would be rude, but you could do it. You give what you feel the tour is worth. Our tour guide was young, energetic and full of stories and facts about her hometown, Sydney. The tour is well worth the money.

Australian Coat of Arms

One stop on the tour was outside the General Post Office of Sydney. On the facade of the post office is a stone carving of the Australian Coat of Arms. It consists of a shield with the badges of each Australian state and a seven pointed star, representing each state plus one for the commonwealth as a whole, all being held up by a kangaroo and an emu. We were told the kangaroo and emu were chosen because the stand erect on two feet and that neither the kangaroo nor emu can walk backwards, only forwards. Because they walk erect they are somehow noblier than a critter who walks on all four and moving forward represents Australian progress. This explaination was then followed with "and they are tasty too", so I'm not sure the story is 100% true. Australia may be the only country that eats their national symbols. The USA could have been had Benjamin Franklin gotten his way in naming the turkey as our national sysmbol instead of the bald eagle.

After the tour I stopped for lunch to have some pizza. Being from Chicago I do appreciate a good pizza. While I do like Chicago style deep dish pizza, I'm more traditional and prefer a simple thin crust with either sausage or pepperoni. But my choice of topping today.................kangaroo. The pizza was kangaroo with roasted peppers and cranberries. I am not a big fan of fruit on pizzas, but the cranberries and roasted peepers nicely complemented the kangaroo.  The topping was very tasty, but the crust left a little to be desired. The bottom wasn't cooked quite right, but least you didn't have to fold it to eat it. Overall I have to agree with our guide (at least for kangaroo) that the Australian coat of arms is delicious. I'll let you know how the emu tastes later.

Kangaroo, roasted pepper and cranberry pizza

So long from down under.

norb

A view from the top......

Whenever I travel, I love exploring the city and surrounding area on foot, and I usually find myself climbing to the top of things. Monuments, churches, hills, mountains, volcanoes, pagodas; it doesn’t matter. This time was no different. On Saturday I had the opportunity to do the Sydney Harbor Bridge Climb. And lucky for me, being an early morning person, the first Saturday of every month they have a twilight climb. It was destiny. When I went outside the hotel 3:30am to check the weather so I could dress properly, I was surprised by the number of young people out on the streets. This may have had something to do with the bars closing at 3:00. If you’re not an early morning person, I know you’re asking yourself why I went out at that ungodly early hour and if you’re a real late night person I’m asking what are you doing up at that ungodly late hour. It’s all a matter of perspective. Anyway, I was up partly because my internal clock was messed up because of my travel the night before and partly because I had to be there at 5:00am and it was a 30 minute walk from the hotel. By the time I left at 4:30, the streets were virtually empty.



George Street 4:30am



The bridge climb is a very smooth and professional operation. Once you arrive, they make you take everything out of your pockets, equipment you will remove all watches, jewelry, hairpins, anything that might fall off or could be dropped on unsuspecting motorist. They then have you don a one-piece jumpsuit and clip on all the equipment you will/might need for the climb; hats, gloves, headlamp, oneway radio (so you can hear the leaders commentary) and even a handkerchief. They even have you carry a fleece, if you get cold (and it was pretty chilly at the top), and rain jacket, in case it rains. All of these things are clipped to your suit or harness. It sounds like a lot, but it only takes about 10 minutes to get ready and you hardly notice you’re carrying all this stuff. After a little practice climbing some ladders, you’re ready to go. They have an ingenious device for connecting you to the safety cable. You hook it on at the beginning and it doesn’t come off until the end of the climb 3 hours later. It’s hard to explain, but when I have been zip lining, our safety harnesses had two clips because you had to take one off and put it on the other side of the anchor for the safety cable. With their system, the safety harness would slide through the safety cable anchor. Ingenious!



Chilly at the top

 Once your team is lined up and you’re hooked to the cable, you stay that way throughout the climb. All the people on the climb were Australian except for me. Stacey and Andrew were my line mates. Since you’re climbing for about 3 hours you have time to talk along the way. Stacey and Andrew were delightful and gave me several tips on things to see and do in Sydney and Australia. Ahhh! The joy of flying.

Starting the climb

We started climbing in the dark the light grew as we made our way to the top. We stopped several times along the way to take in the view of Sydney Harbor and the Opera House, and have our photo taken for a sales pitch at the end of the tour. They do not allow you to take a camera with you on the tour nor do they let you do handstands when you reach the top of the bridge. As I learned on the tour, Sydney Harbor is not actually in Australia, but in Nova Scotia Canada. The area everyone refers to as Sydney Harbor is actually named Port Jackson. But it will always be referred to as Sydney Harbor. For those Chicagoans, think Sears Tower. As we reached the top, we had to wait just a few minutes for the sun to clear the top of some low lying clouds and become a brilliant morning. The colors just before the sun broke through were like an impressionist painting. Various hues of gray, red, yellow and violet. It was impressive. And the view, SPECTACULAR! If you are afraid of heights (or bridges) this may not be for you, but you will be missing the best visual perspective of Sydney. I highly recommend this tour to anyone visiting Sydney.

Spectacular view - Sydney Opera House

A couple facts I remember about the bridge from the tour; It’s affectionately known as the “coathanger”. It was built during the Great Depression and opened in 1932. It has 6 million rivets. By contrast the Eiffel Tower has 2.5 million and the Titanic had 3 million. And even though the bridge looks curved, there are no curved pieces of steel in the bridge; all are straight.

Sydney Harbor Bridge

After climbing the bridge, I climbed one of the bridge pylons. It’s not as high as the bridge, but you can take your camera a get some nice shots of the Opera House and city skyline.

A three hour walking tour of Sydney completed my day. By the end I was pretty tired, but I looked at it as a warm-up for things to come later in my odyssey. Sunday I visit another icon, the Sydney Opera House.

G’day from down under.

norb

The joy of flying

Four and a half hours to L.A., a two hour layover that turned into four, and fourteen hours to Sydney without any in-flight entertainment (the system was down) ..... is not the joy of flying. One of the things that does make flying, and travel in general, fun is the people you meet along the way. I was lucky enough to have a seatmate, Phillip, who was friendly, conversational, and a welcome break to the boredom of flight. A few things I learned about Phillip were that he was retired from a local governement position in Olympia WA, never married  (he did appear to have had a number of girlfriends at one time based on his stories), a Vietnam veteran and overall a nice guy. Thirty-five years ago his brother started travel/working his way around the world. When he reached Sydney he liked it so much he decided to stay and has lived there ever since (although he did not give up his US citezenship). When it was time to depart, Phillip said Hey why don't you meet my brother. He knows Sydney maybe he can give you some tips on how to get around, things to do, and maybe he can drop you off somwhere. I said sure. So we made through customs and looked for his brother. Because of our delay in L.A. Phillips brother wasn't waiting for him and when he tried to call him, he only got his voicemail. Since we didn't know how long it would be before his brother would arrive, Phillip and I decided to part ways. Here was a guy I had only met hours before, a stranger, but he was willing to go out of his way to help a fellow traveller.

That is the joy of flying.

Cheers,

norb