CLIMB THE BRIDGE
A BridgeClimb tour group experiences the best views of Sydney Harbour - from the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. → More pictures below
Thrill of climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge
The best views of Sydney Harbour and the CBD arguably are from the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. They are certainly the most exciting ones.
Standing on top of the bridge's arch allows you a complete perspective of how the harbour extends outwards from Sydney Cove and Circular Quay. The 360-degree views take in every major attraction of Sydney and showcases the harbour's natural beauty.
In the late 1990s an entrepreneurial fellow was able to do a deal with the authority that managed the Sydney Harbour Bridge to allow people to walk across the top of the span. This website, Sydney.com.au, was instrumental at that time in promoting the fact that people could pay to walk on top of the bridge. The walk was done on the steel walkways and steps that were traditonally used by maintenance workers, but which were being less and less used by maintenance workers due to the introduction of bridge maintenance techology.
These are the same walkways that film star Paul Hogan used to clamber over when he worked on the bridge as a rigger in the 1970s, before he became famous as the star of the movie Crocodile Dundee.
The first "tourist walks" in the late 1990s saw steps and walkways modified to allow people wearing a safety belt to be safely linked to handrails.
More than 17 years on, Sydney BridgeClimb has become one of the city's most spectacular and thrilling tourist attractions with thousands of people of all ages making the climb every year. Groups limited by numbers are lead by guides trained in all aspects of safely guiding people of all ages up onto the bridge's steel arch.
Participants suit up in coveralls with a safety belt worn around the waist. Chains are attached to the belts and hooked to safety wire running alongside the bridge's railings. This allows participants to climb the steps and walk along the walkways in complete safety.
Tour members are required to wear coveralls and are not permitted to take devices (cameras, mobile phones etc) on the tour due to the risk of items falling onto the bridge below. Although people are unable to take cameras with them, provision is made by BridgeClimb for souvenir pictures to be taken on the bridge.
There are no great age restrictions on climbing the bridge - you just need to be eight years or older and have a reasonable level of fitness. The oldest person to have climbed the bridge was a 100-year-old woman.
If you look up at the bridge at any given time you will see multiple "tours" taking place. It's not unusual to see five tours at different points on the bridge at any given time.
BridgeClimb tours operate all day with dawn, daytime, twilight and evening tours.
A BridgeClimb tour group member starts the climb up the steel steps of the Sydney Harbour Bridge with Sydney Cove, Circular Quay and the Sydney Opera House in the background. Picture: © Sydney.com.au
Cars pass underneath as a tour group makes its way up the steel steps on the southern side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge span. Picture: Wikimedia Commons
Bridge climbers stop to take in the view as they near the top of the arch.
Two tour groups climb the bridge's span on the eastern side while a group descends on the western side. There are a number of tour groups on the bridge at any one time.
A tour group stands above the Pier One hotel development at Dawes Point on the western side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Lavender Bay is seen on the far side of the Sydney Harbour with the high-rise office blocks of North Sydney in the background.