Happy Birthday Bridgy Boy

And so it came to be! Sydney Harbour Bridge was about to celebrate it's 75th birthday and the city's present to it was to give it a day off... apart from the fact it was going to let millions of people walk over it and sing it happy birthday whenst doing so. But at least it got a day of no cars or buses zipping across it to make the treck over Sydney Harbour. A group of us set off at around 8pm to do it and I must admit, it really felt like we were a part of something rather special. All people had to start from the north side and travel over to the south. At the beginning, it was kind of like going through one of those marathon gates with tents stacking up supplies of water and sponges for its athletes. Instead, however, this time, the "athletes" were given hats with little lights on them. It sort of gave the effect that millions of little aliens were trecking across it. Great Stuff actually. The walk didn't take that long, and would have taken even less had we not stopped every 5 minutes to take photos of everyone and everything around us. They installed lots of speakers across the bridge, looping recordings of radio transmissions that had been saved from the approximate period that the bridge had been built in. That, mixed with a plethora of classical "victorious" tunes that really made you feel like either you were gunning to accomplish something extraordinary, or to just give you the impression that an Indian Jones movie was reaching it's climax. There was a great light show... apparently, but unfortunately we were actually "doing the walk" when it happened so we couldn't really see it. Those who'd completed it and were standing on the harbour's edge or even at the Sydney Opera House said it was all rather impressive though. Now I think I know why there was so much of that artificial smoke being huffed out of those machines for. It was slightly annoying at the time but I just thought they were gonna turn it into a disco of sorts. It was also a bit of a shame the fireworks display didn't go ahead. For what reason, we still don't know. Maybe high winds, maybe low clouds, maybe millions of people actually on the bridge at the time meant it would make it somewhat unsafe. One of the above probably. Anyway, it was all good stuff :-)