Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
A bridge above the old town.
An introduction to The Rocks and the southern end of the Harbour Bridge, where climbs begin on Cumberland Street.
On this page
Read the streets
Climbs depart from 3 Cumberland Street in The Rocks, a short walk from Circular Quay, beside the southern approach to the bridge.
A guide can give context without turning a city into a backdrop. Notice how the bridge’s approach rises over the streets, where the pylons meet the shore, and how the harbour opens out beyond them.
Steel and granite
Six million rivets hold the bridge’s steel together, and the arch alone weighs 39,000 tonnes. The granite-faced pylons at each end carry no load.
Begin with a detail and ask how it was made and kept. A photograph alone cannot tell you who drove a rivet or cut a block of granite, or the conditions in which they worked.
A BridgeClimb chapter
BridgeClimb shows one side of the bridge today: a working bridge whose arch visitors can now climb.
Look at the meeting of the two: the steel of the 1920s and 1930s, and the climbers walking along the top of it.
Make room for context
Pair this reading with the bridge’s history and the Journal. This is an introduction for visitors, not a claim that our team manages these places or represents the people who run them.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
