A 24-year-old western Sydney man died in a cliff fall while sight-seeing at the Sea Cliff Bridge on Saturday afternoon.
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The man, from Homebush West, was walking along the top of the cliff at the area where the bridge crosses over the water at the southbound end.
He was walking with friends along the clifftop and “seeing the sights” according to police.
Around 12.30pm it is believed they stopped to take a break.
He then fell 40 metres, landing just above a section of the old Lawrence Hargrave Drive.
Police and ambulance officers rushed to the scene and made their way along the closed stretch of road.
Emergency services used a ladder to reach the man, however he was deceased.
Police later spoke to two men, believed to be the man’s friends, on Clifton School Parade – near the railway level crossing.
A report will be prepared for the coroner.
The Sea Cliff Bridge has been a popular spot for tourists and Instagrammers since it opened.
Last year, the Mercury spotted two men sitting on the cliff face just north of the location where the man’s body was found on Saturday.
Sitting on a sloping section of the cliff, had either of them slipped on the loose surface they would have fallen between five to 10 metres to the road surface below.
Social media and websites contain information and directions on how to get to these vantage points.
None of these locations are open to the public and none feature fencing to protect people from falling.
Despite claims to the contrary, people using either route are trespassing.
One of the routes, and one the walking party may have taken, was to walk along the railway tracks from the level crossing at Clifton School Parade – which only had boom gates installed last year.
From there they walk through the bush to the top of the cliff.
It’s a practice that has long concerned officers with the Police Transport Command as it involved rail trespass.
The section of track features a bend and tunnel where there is a risk of a train not seeing people on the track in time for the driver to stop.