June 18, 2016
The team spent it’s last full day on its Australian tour exploring Sydney’s most high profile attractions. Kendyll Dellinger recounts the day. The team departs Sydney at 1:00 p.m. on a 16-hour Quantas flight to Dallas, billed the world’s longest non-stop flight.
Hey y’all!
Our last full day in Australia was spent exploring the beautiful city of Sydney. While each place we have visited here has been beautiful, Sydney has been my personal favorite.
Although the morning started off drizzling, the weather today ended up being arguably the nicest we’ve experienced the entire trip. I absolutely love buildings and architecture, so today I was like a kid in a candy store.
Seeing the modern and historic buildings side by side really shows how adaptable this country is while not forgetting where it came from. More than that, the uniqueness of so many buildings here has blown me away, starting with the Opera House.
We began our day at the Sydney Opera House, touring the iconic landmark and learning more about its interesting history. The design for the opera house was selected from a contest of over 200 submissions and its construction exceeded the initial timeline and budget by 13 years and $100 million back in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.
As far as the architecture, the Opera House is unparalleled in its ability to be simplistically beautiful while bringing in Sydney’s natural elegance. The structure is a combination of various woods, concrete, and glass that allows natural light to flow in as well as spectacular views of the harbour. Being able to walk through a building that is globally recognized and monumentally significant was really neat. And to everyone who asked, no, we didn’t find Dory.
I’m so excited I get to write about today because we did what I was looking forward to most – climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge – and it was above and beyond my expectations. I’m an engineering major, so being able to get so close to such an incredibly constructed structure was fantastic.
At its peak the bridge sits 191 meters (440 feet) above sea level, give or take 18 centimeters that the bridge can expand or contract due to environmental factors. We were able to climb around the granite encased pylon and up to the top of the arch, taking in the most impressive view of Sydney that exists.
The construction of the bridge was an absolute marvel for its time. Although construction began in 1923 and finished eight years later, every measurement taken, every beam installed, and every rivet placed was executed with unfathomable precision.
Over 40,000 blue granite stones encase the pylons that were hand-carved by artisans from Australia, Scotland, and Italy; each stone was carved off site, numbered, then shipped and assembled in Sydney like a massive jigsaw puzzle. With less than three millimeters of allowable room for error on each of these massive blocks, this gigantic undertaking was executed flawlessly: not a single one of the 40,000 blocks has to be altered on site, and each one fit in place perfectly.
Just think about that for a second! I can’t get my weeks’ worth of clothes back into my suitcase, but 90 years ago they were able to replicate a set of measurements identically and create 40,000 exact blocks for a structure miles and miles away.
We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect last day on this beautiful continent. I’m not good with words (one of the reasons I’m studying engineering and not English), but even if I was, I don’t think I’d be able to articulate how fantastic this experience has been.
We are so appreciative to Vanderbilt for giving us the opportunity to compete and learn about the culture and history of this country with some of our best friends.
Signing off for the last time from down under,
