Metal Winners
Climbing Sydney's highest platform
"IF YOU ONLY HAVE one day in Sydney, do this," says Rose Lynn, a local sculptor and part-time climb leader who has taken nearly 8,000 clients to the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Since the first outfitted ascent in 1998, more than 300,000 people of all skill levels have summited the structure—and the climbers just keep coming. In
fact, a tour with the urban adventure outfitter BridgeClimb (011-61-2-8274-7777; www.BridgeClimb.com), the only company licensed by the city to lead these climbs, is one of the hottest activities in Sydney. Both night tours and day excursions leave every ten minutes—barring
electrical storms—and most climbers arrive at the apex, 440 feet above the water, two hours later. (Among those who have scaled the arch are William Shatner, his bodyguard, and Nicole Kidman). But ascending the 1,337 ladderlike steps may be more rewarding for the khaki-clad tourist than the adrenaline-fixated rock monkey—for whom the
real crux of the climb is likely the $98 price tag. —MISTY BLAKESLEY
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HERON ISLAND RESORT negotiated a singular lease with the park to remain private property. The arrangement limits island access to 300 resort guests and a dozen biologists at Heron Island Research Station. (The scientists monitor everything from shrimp populations to coral bleaching, an El Niño&150;induced catastrophe that the Great Barrier Reef
escaped.)
Above water, the pandaus-wooded island hosts almost every kind of seabird save its namesake. It's part of the world's largest nesting ground for black noddy terns, with up to 100,000 of them occupying all available branches during the summer.
Most importantly, everything about Heron's location works to the diver's advantage. Its southern latitude provides the widest range of water temperatures on the reef, allowing a broad spectrum of coral and nearly 1,500 other marine species to thrive. Because it's 50 miles off the Queensland coast, the water is exceptionally clear, sans coastal runoff and
sediment. And about 20 fertile sites—such as Three Rocks and a porous wall called Gorgonia Hole—are found within a mile.
On the fourth day of my stay, Gazza led a group of a dozen divers underwater to the giant eagle rays and coral trout that haunt North Bommie, another 20-foot-high pillar, and the 25-foot-wide Hole-in-the-Wall. It was at the Hole that afternoon that Gazza kicked up to a smaller, jagged opening in some white coral—a moray eel lair—and wiggled
his fingers gently until the moray stuck its copper-colored head from the hole and appeared to watch us, opening and closing its powerful jaws for several minutes before retreating, bored, back into its cave.
Gazza continued to take a twisted delight in showing us the scariest creatures of the deep. The olive sea snake, for example, measures just three feet long but is one of the most venomous reptiles on earth. (Thankfully, bites almost never occur, because the snake's tiny jaw can only open wide enough to bite an earlobe or the thin skin between a diver's
fingers). And the stonefish, which looks like a floating, sand-colored pincushion, has spines containing deadly venom. ("The pain of being punctured is described in textbooks as indescribable," Gazza confided gleefully.)
Invisible dangers lurking behind a colorful curtain of marine creatures was a recurring theme. But despite all the deadly venoms, spines, and fangs, not one diver under Gazza's watch suffered a scratch during my stay. "You know what's the biggest danger to divers on the reef?" a Great Barrier Reef Marine Park ranger had warned a disbelieving me before I
left for Heron Island. "Sunburn." —TONY PERROTTET
AUSSIE NATUREL
Overdosing on the Games? Recover amid the wonders Down Under.
SURE, WATCHING MICHAEL JOHNSON rip down the track is worth the 14-hour flight from L.A. to Sydney. But if you begin to suffer Olympics ennui from too many hours in a back-row stadium seat, fear not: Hundreds of eucalyptus-lined singletrack trails, sandstone crags begging to be climbed, and 200 miles of surfable, kayakable coastline sit within
two hours of Sydney. Herewith, six slow-lane picks in and around town. —CHRISTIAN NARDI
BLUE MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK
A eucalyptus-covered plateau cut by green valleys, gorges, and 200 miles of sandstone cliffs. Start at the park's western boundary at Mount Piddington, site of a classic 5.9 crack, before heading northeast to Grose Valley's multipitch climbs. Park Info: 61-2-4739-6266 // Getting
Outfitted: Blue Mountains Adventure Company, 4782-1271; Australian School of Mountaineering, 4782-2014
KANANGRA-BOYD NATIONAL PARK
Over 165,000 acres of Blue Mountains terrain crisscrossed by 120 miles of fire roads and technical singletrack—so steep the local guidebook recommends carrying a rope for lowering your bike over small cliffs. Park Info: 61-2-6336-1972 // Getting Outfitted: Blue Mountains Adventure
Company, 4782-1271; Extreme Mountain Bike Tours, 4787-7281
ROYAL NATIONAL PARK
The second-oldest national park in the world and the best surfing near Sydney, thanks to yellow Hawkesbury sandstone cliffs that channel ocean currents into a series of predictably smooth six-foot-high rollers. Park Info: 61-2-9542-0648 // Getting Outfitted: Aloha Surf Shop (in Sydney),
9977-3777
BRISBANE WATER NATIONAL PARK
Aussie fly-fishing heaven. Mulberry-lined creeks teem with—trust us on this—a bounty of bream, whiting, luderick, flathead, and mulloway that spill from the Watagan Mountains. Park Info: 61-2-4324-4911 // Getting Outfitted: West Gosford Bait and Tackle, 4324-6522
KU-RING-GAI CHASE NATIONAL PARK
Home to sulfur-crested cockatoos, pheasant-like lyrebirds, swamp wallabies, and about 20 two- to fifteen-mile trails that wind through the rainforest. // Park Info: 61-2-9457-9853
SYDNEY HARBOUR NATIONAL PARK
Seakayak to any of three nearby uninhabited islands. Head about one mile west to 19th-century Fort Denison. Or turn east for half a mile to Shark Island, a snorkeling haven, or lush rainforested Clarke Island. Park Info: 61-2-9247-5033 // Getting Outfitted: Sydney Kayak Center,
61-2-9969-4590
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