Showing posts with label Seven Bridge Walk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Seven Bridge Walk. Show all posts
Monday, December 6, 2010
This blog post is part of a bigger compilation. If you are interested on read it from the start. Click here.
Some of you might remember me complaining about my knee and the intense pain I had once I finished the event. Well... being honest it was painful from start to end; but you know, in my mind I hoped this year could be different: as in, different good, ‘I felt really good doing it’ different.
We woke up at 7 a.m Sunday morning (why? Because we were parting the day before with some of our friends and trying to being creepy on Halloween) packed our stuff and took the train to Circular Quay; which is the closest train station to The Rocks (our selected starting and ending point) and point where we were supposed to grab our ‘7 bridges walk passport’ (just like last year’s) and keep the march as much as possible.
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| The Rocks. Starting point of our walking experience |
Around 10:20 a.m we were ready to start the lovely sunny day to tackle down the seven bridges, starting with Pyrmont Bridge and ending with the harbour bridge... I was amazed how fast Kathy and I were keeping up the speed with a bunch of guys that obviously were trained to the bone to walk these bridges...
I even remember thinking:
Ending the Anzac Bridge... Already? Uh! P.I.E.C.E O.F C.A.K.E as in Piece of cake!
Somewhere at the end of the Iron Cove Bridge... Boy... is these people going faster or are we getting slower??? Nah... they are just trying to get ahead a little bit... We will catch up on the next one.
Stating Gladesville Bridge... Oh! There is the pain again... and where the bloody hell went those guys? Oh I can barely see them at the end of the bridge... we will totally catch up with them on the next one...
Totally...
Stating Tarban Creek Bridge... did those f**king blokes start running or what? Bloody knee... I hate you knee... I just get one of those robotic knees my buddies at work comment on every week...
Fig Tree Bridge... f**king painful f**king knee that doesn’t f**king work as I f**king want to! I am going to blame the f**king shoes as well... 13 kilometres and my feet are in pain??? Piece of crap...
Somewhere in Woolstonecraft... f**king f**k f**k! An old woman has just left me behind? Pain or not I am not going to let this happen... (Opened my mouth and said to Kathy) Come on... let’s walk faster that oldie just passed us by... we need to make the effort to at least match her!
Somewhere close to Milson’s Point village... I can’t feel my legs... this is not good... I shouldn’t have tried to beat that woman... certainly she could be the mother of those bastards at the middle of the event.
Come on knee... don’t fail me now!
Somewhere finishing the Harbour Bridge... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close...
OH F**KKKKKKKKKK more stairs?
It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts...
(handing over my passport to get the last stamp) we have finished! We have finished! We have finished! ....
The girl smiles to me and says ‘congratulations you have finished the 7 bridges walk’ and I keep waiting for her to pop up a giant poster with the map and a stamp saying ‘walk completed’, just like we had the year before... but... nothing... NOT A THING AT ALL........ then she told me to move on because the old lady was getting her stamp to keep walking to her next checkpoint.
Yes.... the same that left me behind in Woolstonecraft.... probably she did a loo stop and that was when I went ahead...
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| Yeah... she looks like an angel... but is pure evil... I tell'ya... PURE E.V.I.L |
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| 1600 calories burned during the day... 2000 calories gained back in one meal... |
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| Maybe I am starting to understand why the event was so hard on me... |
Something interesting to point was watching several houses with Halloween decorations. Partially because we didn’t expected but mainly because lots of people told us how Halloween is a foreign thing for the US totally alien to Aussie culture.
Well... I think this is a sum up of the Sydney Crave events... we will post some more soon...
Cheerios
Believe it or not I have been writing this post for at least 8 days (maybe more) and trying to post it for almost four weeks… It has been a bit weird to have the idea developed to its fullest and then not know how to put it on paper (e-paper) or what images to set up… And believe me when I tell you that I am the kind of guy that doesn’t publish if the post doesn’t have the right ideas or images to enhance it.
These posts started as a conglomerate of ideas related to different event of October and it materialised into a bunch of posts (that requires tons of works, but looks great afterwards). Hope you find it entertaining and leave a comment if you want.
I have so many things to tell… I know, I know… I have been away for quite a while now, but work and some other stuff keep me busy; and trying to find the spot to write a little bit and shape the idea in my head wasn’t as easy as I wanted or expected. Then trying to find the right image to go with the idea has been quite a challenge.
For instance, if you image Google ‘Month of October’ you will find tons… literally tons of images related to fall or pumpkins…
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| Images speak by themselves Don't get me wrong, I love fall... But this is not what I can see everyday walking to work. |
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| And yes, I remember that October is pretty well known by Halloween... |
But in Australia is all the way around! We are in spring… Trees are blooming with intense colours... Outstanding purples, violets and blues… Gosh… I don’t really know how to describe it properly… Maybe some images?
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| Jacaranda trees |
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| Another Jacaranda tree |
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| And some Fire tree which a Jacaranda tree as background. |
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| What about this flowers? |
So I have come to tell you about recent events in our life since September in a not-so-confusing-that-you-won't-try-to-commit-suicide way.
I have so many things to tell… I know, I know… I have been away for quite a while now, but work and some other stuff keep me busy; and trying to find the spot to write a little bit and shape the idea in my head wasn’t as easy as I wanted or expected.
So I have come to tell you about recent events in our life since September in a not-so-confusing-that-you-won’t-try-to-commit-suicide way.
Spring started with September, but the days have been changing between cold and warm every 5 to 7 days and long weeks of just pouring rain… Australians pouring rains (which in comparison to America, these rains are nothing else than drizzles)… and the changes in the weather oscillate between 8C to 26C in just 12 or 16 hours. All that had a direct impact in our health (negative impact) sending us to the deep jaws of sickness at least for 3 weeks; but that didn’t diminish the desire to participate in the Sydney Crave Festival or the Sydney’s Seven Bridges Walk (which is part of the same Sydney Crave event).
Sydney Crave is a international event celebrated in every corner of Sydney. Includes events such as:
- Sydney Morning Herald International Food Festival (Yummy!!)
- Sydney harbour Island hopping
- Breakfast on the bridge
- Eat Street Sunday
- Darling Harbour Fiesta
- Sydney Opera House Open Day (to read my post click here)
- Seven Bridges Walk (to read my post click here)
Of which we wanted to assist to the Breakfast on the bridge, Darling Harbour Fiesta, the Open day and the seven bridges walk as we did last year.
So the first thing we tried to do was the Breakfast on the bridge… but we didn’t get the invitation, to which I am going to file a formal complaint to ‘Breakfast on the Bridge’ for not picking me to participate…
Why? Well… because it could have been extremely special for us to be in the harbour bridge, with some of this views!
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| One of those could've been me! |
Plus it was our anniversary since our arrival to this wonderful land… So we kind of wished to have a special moment in the harbour. Oh well, it will be next time.
Moving on… Kathy wanted to go to the Darling Harbour Fiesta, which is a festival for Latin-Americans, in which some good Latin-American artists have done presentations. This year’s performers were from Mexico, Colombia and Argentina and even though I wanted to take a look to the tango dancers we decided not to go, given our very limited understanding or knowledge of most of the artists.
As you might guess… No pictures (or comments) related to that event…
With those events checked off the list, the next items were
Sydney Opera House – Open Day
And the Seven Bridges Walk
Friday, October 30, 2009
The last week’s Sunday it was Sydney’s Seven Bridges Walk; A city event and perfect opportunity for us to walk around the city and get to meet something else.
I may have not said it properly in the blog, but I have been in Sydney’s CBD just a couple of times before this walk, even though I am going to have two months in Australia. The reason of this lack of visits to Sydney’s CBD is due to we came down under short of money and we cannot afford to spend our money as we were tourists.
Anyway, Kathy was looking on the Internet the city event planning and bumped into the seven bridges walk website (Sydney Events Calendar). This event’s idea is to walk around to city, getting to know something else than just the Sydney‘s regular attractions, gathering the bridges stamps, starting and finishing in your nearest point and walking a closed track of 25 kilometres length. As we are living in Hornsby, our nearest point was maybe Lane Cove Village, but we decided it would be better to start near our beloved Sydney’s Opera House, so our starting point was moved to The Rocks.
And so, the Saturday before the event, we went to our closest Chinese market (in other post I will explain the pros and cons of those markets) to get to waterproof ponchos (just in case it started to rain during the walking) and get some bread at woollies in order to make sandwiches and maybe an apple or two for the journey.
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Sunday morning it was truly a sun-day, because at very early hours in the morning the sun came up soon, shining and heating without mercy, but something fishy was in the air... I had read in the Sydney Morning Herald that rain was predicted during the day... So we packed our waterproof ponchos, water bottle, apples and sandwiches and marched to gather with our mates at the Hornsby train station heading to Circular Quay station (the nearest train station to The Rocks). Once in Circular Quay we noticed the Opera House was opened for free visit during that day... Was I already told you guys, we were not wasting our money, so decided to give it a shot and visit the Opera House, but 30 minutes later and 25K ahead of us we knew we needed to start walking; back to the walking at the rocks we picked our passports, take a picture or two and marched to the Pyrmont bridge (our first bridge from The Rocks).
Oh! Almost forgot to show you a funny thing, a techno-aborigine... He he, in our way to The Rocks an Australian aborigine was peacefully playing his didgeridoo in the floor at the beats of a techno music. Pretty cool beats!
Quick note: The first thing to notice when you have the map is you don’t really need it unless you are lost. Every block, turn or redirection is marked with sign related to the event. So you better concentrate in the signs and check your map just to find out how much you have walked and how many is pending.
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Pyrmont Bridge gave us a nice surprise, rowing race, as well as rain. But we wanted to finish this event no matter what cost, Kathy and I pulled out our ponchos but our mates didn’t had anything to get covered with, so we walked to a couple of stores just to find, those ponchos are sold in very few places; but raining or not, we wanted to keep walking (not trademarks or slogans were use) and marched to the Pyrmont village to get our stamps in our passport. At that point we noticed our passports (with very few water drops on them) started to suffer some heavy damage due to the water and storage place (my pants’ pocket)... but what the bloody hell, with or without passport we were going to finish the walk (still 6 bridges ahead, no biggy). Put the passports back to my pocket and headed to Anzac Bridge.
The Anzac Bridge showed its silhouette 15 minutes later; is a beautiful and modern cable-stayed bridge. This one was Kathy’s favourite so she took her camera out and starts shooting every aspect of the bridge.
As we kept walking, the rain kept falling hard upon us, but every step near another bridge seemed to fade away the water so we could take a couple of pictures and continue with our journey. That way we went through Iron Cove Bridge (an art-deco ugly bridge with a nice view of the vicinity), Gladesville Bridge and Tarban Creek Bridge (bow concrete ribbed modern bridges with awesome view of Sydney’s vicinity with an outstanding Harbour Bridge perspective at the background) and Fig Tree Bridge. Was at the Fig Tree Bridge were we count those bridges left behind and realised there was one to go... Only the Harbour Bridge was pending for us to walk upon his concrete and iron structure. We took the map out just to find a horrible truth: we were 12 kilometres away from the Harbour Bridge and almost every bridge of this event is included into the very first (our very first) 13 kilometres of walk... But how hard could it be? 13 kilometres went by without any issue... So let’s keep moving forward! (again, no trademarks used)
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The thing with this part of the track is, gets very into a residency area with hills and slopes with up to 45 degrees; maybe I am exaggerating a bit, but after almost 3 hours walking in cold rain and those slopes our legs muscles were making our way harder to complete, but we marched on through Lane Cove up to North Sydney. I got to tell you, my left knee was killing me more than anything else because of lesions I had suffered when kid, but I didn’t want to slip this away. Once in Milson Point (about to start the Harbour Bridge) the pain was almost unbearable; the knee was making me squizzed my teeth against each other but at last I was in the Harbour Bridge.
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When you start reading about Sydney, the first thing to pop out is the Sydney’s Opera House and the second is the Harbour Bridge. To be honest, I didn’t find anything special about this bridge except it was big, but as the time goes by and you keep readying about your future place to live you start to develop some empathy with its things and a caring sensation grows within. Near the concrete pylons making the Bridge to stand as is, your heart starts pumping and adrenaline flows through your veins. Is something magical that makes you admire the structure and fully understand why this bridge is so important for Sydneysiders. Every step in the bridge was painful but at the same time made me wonder about its construction and how perfect it seems to be. Kathy was mesmerised with the Opera House view and very 20 metres stoped to take another picture of those five hundreds we already possess. At the end of the bridge there was what we believed to be our last stamped. A lady asked us very kindly, “Is this your last bridge, right?” after nodding due to be breathless she told us “you got to hurry up, in order to complete the walk you got to return to your starting village so they can stamp in your passport the walk completed stamp, and it is almost about time to pack everything... Without that stamp your walk would be pointless so hurry!”
All of the sudden, my knee started killing me badly, but my wife and Joe (our only mate to complete the walk with us) cheer me up to walk 3 more blocks to get the final stamp. We saw the village and a peaceful sensation embrace us; we finished our walk at the rocks having these glorious red stamps in our passports. Maybe isn’t something big to finish a 25 kilometres walk, but for us (that we never had participate in these kind of events before) tasted as having completed the Australian Iron Man.
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Back to home, the body started complaining about everything done during the day... Due to almost 5 hours of cold raining I was having hypothermia and Kathy had terrible back pains the following days. But even as painful, as hard and exhausting it was... Get to know your city and complete this event is something great and worth it to be done again, in many cases the view will be enough to mitigate exhaustion.
Quick notes:
As we walked, we noticed the experienced one among the group. People don’t tend to give for granted weather conditions, thus bring with you something to take cover. Umbrellas don’t work well.
To protect your passport bring something waterproof. Plastic bags don’t work. Maybe a plastic folder would work well.
As you will be burning out your energy reserves during the day, is great practice you have a high energy breakfast (high energy cereal with milk, sugar, pancakes, etc) but you will need to keep it light as you keep walking. Fruits will do it for lunch and maybe snacks, but right after finishing the walk a hot chocolate (or just a chocolate candy bar) will replenish the energy shortage you might be suffering. If the weather is cold and you have low energy reserves is highly probable you will suffer some kind of hypothermia as I did. Believe me, isn’t pleasant.
Hope you enjoy the pictures and the story.
Cya soon mates.
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