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Published: January 5th 2006
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Russell - We had both been looking forward to spending our New Year in Sydney after seeing the celebrations so often on the TV, and we were determined to get a good pitch. The info leaflet said that our chosen point, Mrs Maquairies Point, would be closed once the 25,000 person capacity was reached and that should be by about 3pm. So at 12:30pm we were having our bags checked by security to ensure we weren't trying to seek any alcohol or glass bottles into the area. It wasn't a dry area you understand, they were just making sure you bought your alcohol from them! Just inside the gate there was a queue of people snakeing across the park. They were queueing up to show their ID and get given a pink wristband allowing them to buy alcohol. Not just the youngun's either, everyone was. This presented a bit of problem as we don't carry ID now we are withered oldun's so it looked like it could be a very sober New Year. Still we had a pitch to claim and we both hate queuing, so we moved on.
We walked down to the end of the point to find
Our Pitch
Getting busy! that most of the good pitches had already gone. We found a patch of ground and put up our new sun shelter in order to save us from the Aussie heat. Then there was just 11 and half hours to wait! Well it wasn't as bad as it sounds. Sitting in the sun, reading, eating our picnic was actually really nice. The crowds built during the day and everyone was quite jolly. They were also almost exclusively British or at least European. Very few voices around us sounded even remotely Australian.
In order to entertain everyone there was a programme of events called 'On the Hour'. From 1pm each hour something happened, starting with the gun firing at Fort Denison and scaring the hell out of everyone! There was a Helicopter towing a huge Aussie flag, a team of Pitt Special aircraft doing formation flying, some microlights, sky divers, all sorts. Most of which went unnoticed by the crowd as it is quite normal to have aircraft flying around the harbour on pleasure flights. The best one though had to be the Sky Writer. From high altitude the pilot aerobatted around, writing messages in the sky. The first one
everyone watched with baited breath. T. Hmm what can it be. T U. Err TUESDAY maybe no. T U R. Turps? T U R R Eh? TURRIFIC !!!! Even the Aussies around didn't quite understand! He spent the rest of the time making hearts in the sky and advertising various products.
At around 5pm I decided to check out getting a wrist band as we had heard that you needed one if you looked under 30 and despite what some Thai market researches might think we do! I went back to the gate to find that not only had the queue for wrist bands not reduced it was now about a 2 hour wait and the bar had about a 30 minute wait after that! I returned to sun shelter empty handed. Shortly after Lins went for scout and spoke to one of the secruity guards near the bar. "Yer only need a band if you look under 18 but frankly why would you queue this long for a beer?" By this time the bar queue was well over an hour. "How come everyone seems to have a band?" Lins asked "Dunno, one person queued so everyone did I
suppose!"
Later I braved the bar queue and was served my maximum allowance of 2 bottles of wine meaning we were able to at least have a drink at countdown.
At 9pm the first set of fireworks went off. These are for the kids so that they can be taken home and put to bed without whinging. They were impressive but it demonstarted something about our pitch. Nearly all of them went off behind a tree which was stood in front of us. It was amazing to watch the explosions as they appeaed to spread out exactly in the shape of the tree so we didn't see them! Still what we could see was great and it made our mind up to pack up at ten to eleven and get mobile so that we could get to the front.
As we all waited for midnight to arrive more and more people arrived to fill in the spaces making it a bit cramped and difficult for people to walk around, leading to some swine standing on Lins' sunnies I had bought her for Christmas - git!
We finally packed up our stuff and edged forward so we
were near the harbour edge. People were happy-drunk and the atmosphere was great. Then the 10 second count down was projected onto the bridge pylons. It never occured to me before how handy Big Ben's intro music is to get people's attension, as without it most people seemed to miss 10 to 6. Then everyone was shouting the 5 seconds count down ...2, 1. Nothing. The fireworks actually have a 10 second fuse so that everyone has a chance to kiss their loved ones before they start! And then they started. Huge shots came off the Bridge and red love hearts formed above it. Then the rest of the $4million dollars worth of fireworks went off. It was amazing and was definitley worth the 11 hour wait.
After the firworks we headed back to the appartment and had to walk the long way around as the police had blocked off some roads. We got home tired and happy, ready for New Years day.
The day dawned hot. I went down to the hotel pool but it was too hot to stay there. In the end we decided we had to brave the heat to find our next hotel.
I can't really describe how hot it was. There was a wind blowing, but instead of being cooling, it was like blowing yourself with a hairdryer, and why would you do that! The closest I have had to it before is opening the oven door and being caught by the steam, but there was no escape from it. We quickly found somewhere to stay and scurried back to our appartment and hid in the air conditioning. The news reported that it was 43.5 degrees (110.3 Farenheit!!!!) and was the hottest New Year's Day ever. Note - not the hottest 'since records began' -
ever!!! Unfortunately it did lead to some bush fires in the northern suburbs of Sydney and a few houses were lost but fortunately no-one died. Thankfully since then it has cooled down so we are able to go out again though they are predicting a hotter than usual January. A bit of difference between what the news is reporting as weather in the UK and Europe!!!
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Katherine
non-member comment
Happy New Year
Hi Lindsay! Am so jealous!! I absolutely loved it in Sydney! Enjoy yourselves.....think of me in Sutton Coldfield as it starts to snow...or is that sleet!! Have a great time x