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Published: January 2nd 2008
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First of all Happy New Year to everyone!!! Hope you all enjoyed the celebrations into 2008 and had a great Christmas!!!!
We arrived in Sydney on Christmas Eve and we have spent the last week and a half just relaxing and taking a break from travelling. We rented an apartment while we were here so it was just nice to feel at home somewhere after our first three months of our round the world adventure.
Christmas Day was quite weird as we were missing our families back home... but we spent the day on the beach at Manly with our turkey rolls, salad, beer and wine!! Unfortunately, the clear blue skies we had hoped for did not materialise and in fact it was the coldest Christmas in Sydney for 13 years... but it was still in the low 20's which was good enough for us and everyone else on the beach and the sun did make the odd appearance. The beach was packed with tourists, families and surfers catching the waves... we thought we were organised with our little picnic but it was amusing to see people turning up with their eskies full of cold beer, some even brought
what looked like portable fridges to the beach!! So we sat back watching the surfers with the Santa hats and a few people playing cricket on the grass nearby....I think this is what you would call a typical Aussie Xmas.
Boxing Day in Oz seems to focus on sport... which is a great theme... and not just football like at home. In Sydney they had a whole host of events, one of them was the Sydney to Hobart (Tasmania) yacht race... they set sail from the harbour, and down the east coast taking about 2 days. We took a bus to Watson's Bay just north of the city to take part in the festivities and to see the great view of the city. It certainly was amazing to see the hundreds of boats sail past us and out to sea, goodness knows how the competitors managed to avoid all the public and media boats that followed them!
We met up with a some friends, Martin and Alison, a couple of times while we were here, and one glorious sunny day we travelled to the Blue Mountains where we did a bit of a bush walk (well... a 1.5km
walk out to a lookout!), although we did this in the middle of the day when it was really hot... the walk only took about 15 minutes and by this time we were happy to get back to the car... and we wonder why the Aussies take the mickey out of us poms!!!! The Blue Mountains were amazing to see, they really are blue with the haze from the Eucalyptus trees, and the view of the famous Three Sisters was certainly worthwhile battling the crowds for.
We have wandered around the city, around the harbour and gazed up at the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera house... in fact the first day we arrived we walked down to the harbour just to get our first glimpse... other than Uluru these are the main symbols of Oz so it was here where it dawned on us we were really in Australia and the other side of the world!!! However, since this thought we are beginning to wonder if there are any Aussies in Sydney at all.....everyone seems to be either British, Irish or American!!
One of the main objectives when planning our Round the World trip was to see in
the New Year in Sydney, after watching it on the TV every year. This meant it had a lot to live up too and we had to watch the fireworks with the best vantage point we could get.... i.e. a view of the bridge. So at 10am (a mere 14 hours before the show) on New Years Eve we trekked down to the Botanic Gardens just behind the opera house with yet another picnic... only to find a queue of people waiting to get in (it was good to see we were not the only mad people in town!!) We found a great spot where we set up our towels for the long wait head, it slowly began to fill up and by 4pm there was not an inch of space left in the park. We were all then waiting for the countdown which began at 9pm with some fireworks to get us into the spirit and then a counter on the bridge, when every 5 minutes we let out a cheer... by this time we weren't sure whether we were happy that New Year was here so we could see the fireworks or happy that we would then be
able to move!!! But after a long wait the final countdown began and the fireworks started and what a fireworks display it was... 12 minutes of constant fireworks from nearby buildings, 6 barges in the harbour and of course the main attraction, the Harbour Bridge!!! After much oohing and aaaring the fireworks were over and it was sooo worth our wait!!!!!!
Eleven hours later we were celebrating the New Year again by watching Big Ben strike midnight in London, we watched the fireworks launch from the wheel and they did look spectacular, although comparing them to the Sydney ones we would have to say that Sydney's were the best.... this year anyway!!!!
So... we haven't too much to report in Sydney as we haven't done too much other than party into 2008... we will be coming back in three weeks when Elaine's parents are due to arrive, but after our relaxing time we are now ready to pack up our backpacks (really??!!!) and start our adventures again... we have hired a car and will be travelling up the east coast of Oz in the search for some more great beaches and blue seas!!!!
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Jacky
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Happy new year to both of you, love reading your blog. Keep safe. Love Jacky, Nigel and Katherine xx