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Published: January 1st 2009
Sydney 2009
Fireworks in full flow!HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM SYDNEY! Thursday 1st January 2009
What a great place to be for New Year! The fireworks were awesome and summer has truly arrived in New South Wales; it is HOT, HOT, HOT. One and a half million people watched the fireworks last night, having spent all day getting their “spot” the all important viewing point. Obviously not everyone could get a view of the bridge (but we did) so there were seven huge firework locations all around the harbour and synchronised to create a whole sky full of colour. We met Sue and Eric early and by10 a.m. we were in The Domain, with our backpacks, picnics and spare clothes, ready, or so we thought, to find a nice spot to spend the day awaiting the big night. Thousands were there before us. This huge event, which was the biggest ever this year, just keeps attracting more and more spectators; they came from across the world and across the continent, driving down from Queensland for a few nights or flying in from Perth. We planned to make our way to the very end of Mrs Macquarie’s Point (and we eventually did) where the view of the
Start of the Big Queue
Just after 10 a.m. in the morning 31st December 2008 harbour and bridge are excellent. We joined a queue at the very start of The Domain (at least a kilometre away) and stood in it for FOUR HOURS!!!!!!! It was 38 degrees without shade. It was an amazingly well-tempered queue of people, some sunbathing in bikinis, most seeking shade under umbrellas, some playing footie and we all did Mexican Waves every now and again to relieve the tedium! All over the city similar queues were forming. It is a good thing that the main roads were all closed! We kept saying “It had better be worth it!” It was.
At 2 p.m. we reached the queue for the bag checks; no alcohol or glass, which turned out not to be a health and safety thing at all because inside the barricades you could buy plenty of beer and wine in glass bottles! The four hour queue was really a joke. For a city that organises such a fantastic event, the organisation of moving crowds of people was poor, with an inadequate number of staff to check the bags and, as we discovered later, an inadequate number of security guards for crowd control. Once inside we headed for the Point
Two hours later in the queue
St Mary's cathedral and blue sky above. 38 degrees! and found a good spot (but not a comfortable one) on a tiny bit of grass, on a slope between a fence and a pathway. We guarded our spot for the next seven hours of hot sun until the sun set at about 9 p.m. By this time the crowds were pressing closer and closer to get a view of the bridge, the security lost control and the police had to be brought in to shift crowds of people. Another barricade was set up right by where we were sitting, which meant that we had our spot preserved from invasion; people got through the barricades, however,over them, under them and the people-clearing had to be repeated many times right up until midnight. It was all a bit mad and uncomfortable and from 10 p.m. onwards the rule had to be “Nobody comes in and nobody goes out”; we all needed strong bladders because by then, the loos were the other side of the barricades. Just before midnight the security were being offered money to get to our side of the barricades (they didn’t take the bribes) and it was at that point, hearing a guy behind me offering $100 to
4 Hours later!
Crowds finally approaching the bag checking tables sit where we were sitting, that fourteen hours of discomfort really began to feel worth it.
The show was truly spectacular! Started off at 5 p.m. with three Tiger Moths flying over the bridge, followed by other planes writing messages in the sky and providing some aerial entertainment for the weary thousands sweating below in the sun, cramped together like cattle in pens, drinking beer and waiting, waiting for the year’s end and the fireworks to begin. After this, at 6 p.m. there was a water pageant around the harbour of all the harbour service vehicles, including the ferries and fire, police and coastguard vessels; led by a fire ship spraying huge jets of water we all wished he could have come closer to shore and hosed us all down. The big bats that live in the Botanical Gardens then gave their own display at dusk as they flew and swooped across the water. At 9 a.m. the sky was lit up by a huge firework display from the seven locations around the harbour (not the bridge, which was saved for the grand finale at midnight) and then a procession of illuminated boats toured the harbour on a 15
Water pageant
Fire service waterboat (wish it had hosed us down) kilometre circuit from the Heads and Manly to Darling and Balmain. Hundreds of boats, lit up like galleons, Chinese junks, sharks, whales and all sorts of other features, provided a sensational display which lasted right up until about 11.30 p.m. At the same time, occasional rumbles like thunder were heard and fireworks shot up high in to the sky like bolts of lightning. The theme for the big display was “The Creation Storm’ so this was all build up to midnight. Brilliant! It was very exciting, especially for us folk right out on the edge of the Point, since we also had the added entertainment of crowd-clearing, police lines and a few little tussles going on. It was a bit of a surreal experience really; never experienced a night like this before!
And so to the Countdown, 10, 9, 8.……1 and the skies above Sydney erupted into dazzling colour and light. A new pyrotechnic technique never used here before, meant that horizontal fireworks gave the illusion that the displays and the bridge were coming towards the spectators. It was amazing. We had a wonderful time. The special extra busses to get us back to our hotel were all free
of charge and so we didn’t have to walk. Great night, great start to 2009. This was a “Once in a Lifetime Experience“! So we are just chilling out today recovering. HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY. HAVE A GOOD ONE!
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