I’m 20 steps from the summit of the architectural landmark that forms the backdrop to many a Brisbane wedding photo and my thighs are on fire.
Unlike the gentle curves on Sydney’s BridgeClimb, to which it’s inevitably compared, the main ascent to the top of Brisbane’s 65-year-old double-cantilever bridge comes in one steep rush.
Earlier, as I stood on the anchor pier walkway looking up, I could see step after step of unrelenting steel stretching to the clouds – a stairway to heaven.
The Story Bridge Adventure Climb opened to the public in 2005, becoming only the third such climb in the world (the other is in Auckland).
The view is worth those tender morning-after quadriceps and, with all the rest stops, the 21/2- hour climb can be attempted by any reasonably fit person.
Climbs are available at dawn, during the day, at twilight, or at night. There are even full moon climbs for those seeking a bit of additional atmosphere.
For me, it is just after 8 on a weekday morning when I venture up the Story Bridge, as fondly familiar to residents of Queensland’s capital as “the coathanger” is to Sydneysiders.
The peak-hour traffic under the steel grilles of the walkway can be felt as well as seen and heard, with shaking and shuddering accompanying rhythmic thudding and thunking as the first of the day’s 70,000 sets of tyres cross the expansion points.
Standing majestically over the Brisbane River, the Story Bridge links the formerly rat-infested suburb of Kangaroo Point (now an upmarket residential area with a marina) and the once-seedy Fortitude Valley (now a vibrant food-and-fashion hub).
Up here, 80 metres above sea level, is the perfect vantage point to observe these and other dramatic changes to the metropolis over the past few decades.
There are no jaw-dropping monuments such as the Opera House on the skyline, but the 360-degree views are unexpectedly intimate and appealing: glass skyscrapers and crane-topped construction sites rub shoulders with creaking old tin-and-timber Queenslander houses.
The Glasshouse Mountains loom in the distant north, while to the east lies the weekend getaway of Moreton Island, with its mountains of sand.
Below us the Brisbane River twists and coils like a carpet python, an appropriate simile given the Queensland Museum estimates that at least half of all residents in Brisbane’s older suburbs have one of these reptiles dwelling in or visiting their roofs.
Cutting across the surface of the river as it snakes towards the Pacific Ocean, City Cats jammed with commuters breeze along to CBD destinations, smaller inner-city ferries chug from one side of the river to the other, elegant paddle-steamers preside over Eagle Street Pier, and one determined chap in a dinghy rows furiously against the tidal waters.
“Look down there. See that old house on the corner, the one with the brown roof? That’s the site of a particularly gruesome murder,” the climb leader says, cheerfully.
He’s referring to a map printed in The Mayne Inheritance by Rosamond Siemon, which documents the different areas around Kangaroo Point where the murder victim’s body parts were found. The legs were in the river, the torso just up the road, the head at an unfinished building and the intestines in the well of a hotel – just the sort of detail that makes me relieved I had a light breakfast.
While the Sydney BridgeClimb goes about 50 metres higher than the Story Bridge, some participants have described the Brisbane experience as more confronting because a straight drop is visible through the sturdy grilles at one’s feet. All climbers are harnessed and attached to a static line.
Because the arduous parts of the climb last only a few minutes, there will be thrill-seekers who find it a little tame. The antidote to any lingering ennui, though, comes at nearby Riverlife, which offers a range of “harder” adventures.
It is here I decide to try rock climbing for the first time, on the sheer limestone cliffs at Kangaroo Point, described by insiders as “the urban crag”.
After a ferry ride to Thornton Street and a stroll along the boardwalk above the mangroves, my instructor says: “You’ll be right. I’ll have you climbing the 20 metres to the top by the end of the day.”
His optimism is contagious, but the names of some of the climb routes – Hernia, Piles, Tombstone Row, Wages of Fear, Be a Robot for Jesus – should have tipped me off that it wasn’t a done deal.
Today I’m climbing Zorro, rated 12, which is climber code for dead easy, strapped into a harness attached to a rope. But as a first-timer with no “rock sense”, I forget everything I’ve been told about how to fall safely. Losing my footing four metres up, I clutch wildly at the rope, at the rocks, at anything, and spin sideways, smacking my helmeted head against the rocks.
Later, watching the other climbers scale the cliff with effortless grace, I feel like a lumbering Augustus Gloop in the land of the Oompa Loompas. Mental note to self: stick to abseiling next time. At least with that you start at the top and work your way down.
I’m still trembling on the return to the ferry terminal. The soaring adrenaline that carried me through the afternoon is dissipating and I suddenly feel exhausted. And hungry. And sore.
The place to rest your head and seek further nourishment after such exertion is the sustainable five-star hotel the Crystalbrook Vincent which is tucked under the Story Bridge in the midst of the thriving Howard Smith Wharves entertainment and cultural precinct.
As I line up with commuters for the journey back to my hotel, dusk is descending and a couple of tourists are holding their mobile phones at arm’s length, taking pictures with the Story Bridge in the background. It’s lit with orange points of light to match the floodlit Kangaroo Point cliffs in the distance, taunting me.
It is alarming to realise that already I’m nursing a desire to go back, to give it another shot, and the feeling intensifies as I see the silhouettes of climbers still scaling the luminous cliffs as the boat zips along the river, now black and seemingly as slippery as oil.
