Sydney Harbor Bridge marks 75 years

One of the world’s most famous travel landmarks is 75 years old this week. The distinctive arch of the Sydney Harbor Bridge is a icon found on every Australian travel brochure and has been seen by millions of travellers to the continent over the decades.

To celebrate its long running status as one of the city’s most endearing tourist attractions, vehicular traffic was closed as more than 200,000 people joined a parade over it’s span that is longer than 6 football fields. However, it was far fewer than he estimated 750,000 who turned out for its inauguration in 1932.

It weighs more than 52,000 tonnes and contains more than 6 million rivets. A popular activity among tourists is the bridge walk, where groups are taken to the top of the span, tethered with harnesses, for a hair raising adventure.

The bridge took six years to build, but was preceded by decades of mooted plans to link the two sides of the harbour by bridging the narrows between Dawes and Milsons Points.

Few people know that it actually has a smaller sister bridge located across the Save river in a remote region of Zimbabwe. An identical, but smaller replica was made from the same plans when the two countries were common colonies of Britain.