Our Last Day In Sydney!

Wow, how fast can 3 weeks go? In the blink of an eye for me. We had an early start to the day meeting downstairs in the lobby by 7:15am. We wanted to get to the Taronga Zoo right when it opened at 9am. We headed to the bus stop outside our building and waited in anticipation. We saw a bus go by on the other side of the street and Dr. Jutte thought we missed it, but it turned out a few minutes later one came from the other way and we were on our way to the Sydney Olympic Park Wharf. Now some of you may not know what a "wharf" is, it's simply another word for a ferry. It took us through the harbour to our destination, Circular Quay (pronounced "key"). The ride was fairly nice with not too many problems in the category of motion sickness, except a few. But we all made it safely. Then at Circular Quay we got onto a direct wharf to the zoo. It was a beautiful view of the city from the boat. We all enjoyed taking pictures of the bridge, city, and opera house. We arrived at the zoo and we egar to see the animals. One main goal of our trip was to see a kangaroo, well we did not (all) see a kangaroo in the wild but we did get to see AND PET them in the zoo! The zookeeper was very nice in letting the group take turns, 2 at a time, petting the baby joey. He liked it when we would rub his belly and give him food. He tried to eat my fingers because he thought my nails were food. We all got really good pictures with him. Speaking of pictures with animals, Mandi, Laney, Tamara, and I signed up for a Koala encounter. We were allowed to go into the cages where they lived and have our picture taken with one. Unfortunately we were not allowed to hold or touch them but we were allowed to be as close to them as you could get with out touching them and take as many pictures as you want with your own camera. We saw many other animals there too such as, penguins, lions, dingos, Tasmanian devils, a kimono dragon, 11 of the top 15 deadliest snakes, many different kinds of birds, monkey's elephants, even a baby gorilla with his family. They had a wonderful assortment of animals there that was great to see.
The next adventure of the day came for me, Mandi and Tonya (originally) but we added 3 more people, some reluctantly, Laney, Tamara, and Allen to climb the Sydney Bridge with us. I think I was the most calm about it and others were not happy to be doing it. We started off watching a video of what we would be doing, then we went into another room where we pretty much signed our life away and got a breathalyzer test. Then it was off to the change rooms where we put on what looked like space suits and got geared up with harnesses, radios, hats, handkerchiefs, and our "balls." Which of course were to keep us connected to the bridge safety cable at all times. We did a practice walk up stairs and across a catwalk and down the other side, then it was off to the real deal. We started underneath the road in the frame work where our guide, by the way was hilarious and a great entertainer, told us the history of the bridge and the town. We ascended up the stairs in between lanes 7 & 8 of traffic, don't worry we were not directly IN the road, and up to the catwalk. We waited a bit for our group of 11, 6 BSU people and 5 people from England, to all make it up and then we started the "real" climb up the arch. It really was not that hard of climb once you got to that part, and it was not as scary as you would think because the steps were not see through anymore and just thick steel. We got more stories about the bridge on the way up from Dale our guide, which by the way knew each of our names, pretty impressive to remember complete strangers in less than 3 and a half hours! He told us when the bridge was built at least 1,400 people were working at a time and only 16 people died in 10 years. Almost unbelievable. That was a close guess Tonya...."7,000." Yet we have to give credit to her because she answer almost every trivia question right, props to Tonya! When we almost got to the top we took a group photo of just the 6 of us with the opera house and the city in the background. I really liked the one with all of us giving a thumbs up! Then when we finally made it to the very top, 134 meters (about 440 feet) we took a whole group photo of the 11 of us. it was a great view and we were about to see so much of Sydney. To name a few: the city downtown, Manly and Bondi Beaches, and even the Olympic Park where we were staying at. Wow it sure was a beautiful view! I would recommend it to anyone that goes there. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity that how many people can say, "I climbed the Sydney Bridge!" Also many celebrities climbed it and we saw their pictures in the lobby after the climb. It was a great way to end the trip with one final view of Sydney and reflect on all that we've done on our journey here. Now time to pack those suitcases and head back home!