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Published: March 11th 2011
Friday 31st December 2010 Spending most of the day scoping out places to watch the Fireworks, we decided against trying for the botanical gardens and waiting the whole day in the heat and crowds (especially as it’s an alcohol free zone!). A lot of the small beaches near Vaucluse that used to be free to the public have been restricted and are now ticket only - funnily enough, arriving on the 30th they were sold out! We found a great spot near to Rose Bay Girls School with a panoramic view of the bridge and harbour. Only two people were there, although it was only 11am at this point and there were enough picnic tables and chairs saving places to take up most of the front. We gambled and returned at 7:30pm to find hundreds of people; however a small spot had been left right at the front, perfect for 2 people! We made friends with the French and US/AUS couples next to us and within no time the 9pm kiddies display had started.
After a very impressive warm up, Richard dashed back to base with a shopping list before the main event... a tripod for Joanne’s camera
(that Dave kindly lent us), bug spray to save us from being eaten alive, a jacket for Joanne despite it being the middle of Summer, and of course, some more beer.
Shortly after Richard returned and Joanne had set up the tripod a drunken bloke grabbed Joanne’s camera and almost knocked it over the cliff into the abyss below... we were not a happy crowd and he stumbled off apparently unaware of what he’d done following a zig-zag path.
The main event started at midnight with an eager count down from the crowd and went on for about 13 mins. It was an amazing display – well worth the visit!
Saturday 1st January 2011 After a long lie-in we headed into the city and almost got caught up in a mass of festival goers around the Botanical Gardens for a big New Year Bash.
Escaping from the crowd, we briefly checked out the Art Museum before walking from Circular Quay to Darling harbour via The Rocks. There was a tiny museum about the Rocks history that was interesting and after debating going to the aquarium (before seeing the queue) we went to the Maritime
museum where they had a big Sharks exhibition. Unfortunately it was quite late by this point and we barely got passed the start before we ran out of time and were kicked out by security.
IMAX was our next idea, but it was sold out bar the front row which we didn’t really fancy, so we called it a day and headed back to Dave’s.
Sunday 2nd January 2011 Venturing out to the Blue Mountains today, we visited the ‘three sisters’ in Katoomba. Our day took a while to get started after we got to the station only to miss our train by a couple of minutes, waiting an hour until the next one departed.
The weather was changeable but we enjoyed a 3 hour hike down and around the mountain before the heavens opened. Luckily we’d just reached the queue for the ‘steepest railway in the world’ back up to the top, but we did have to sit on very wet seats as it continued to pour.
After a long day we visited Katherine and Chris (Richard’s cousin & her husband) in Paramatta where we met their beautiful girls Cerys & Tegan for
3 Sisters
@ The Blue Mountainsthe first time. Lasagne (with a special veggie version just for Joanne) made for a wonderful homemade dinner. Joanne enjoyed finally having access to the Internet and made herself comfortable with their laptop while the rest of the family watched Football.
Monday 3rd January 2011 Katherine dropped us at the riverboat and we enjoyed a cruise down the river back to the rocks. We headed back to the Maritime museum to see the child migration exhibition and finish the one on sharks - apparently they're not so bad after all!
Tuesday 4th January 2011 The day had finally arrived for the 2nd day of the Ashes 5th test. Richard woke up excited while Joanne cursed herself for buying him the tickets.
We got to watch England wrap up the Australian tail, and Cook smash yet another brilliant hundred. Joanne surprised herself when she found it was actually quite enjoyable with a fantastic elevated view – she didn’t even read her book!
It took way too long to get home after being given very poor directions, but when we finally made it we settled down to a great Indian takeaway.
Wednesday 5th January 2011
A lazy beach day, Richard had a dip in the ocean while Joanne ploughed her way through one of Dave’s ‘Grisham’ novels. In the evening we took Dave for a lovely dinner at Watson’s Bay.
Thursday 6th January 2011 After a very late lie-in, we chilled around the house, getting our clothes washed and packed before we moved on to Fiji the following day... Dave came home halfway through the day with a badly cut finger which Joanne did her best to strap up with some butterfly strips from our first aid kit (nice to see it come to some use after lugging it all over the world!). Dave wasn’t feeling too good that evening and had an early night so we were really pleased we’d gone out for dinner the previous day.
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Mark
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Great pixs
of fireworks. Ashes must have been good but seems like a distant memory. Watched us loose to Bangladesh today, a game we'd lost, won & then finally lost in the end.