Bondi and beyond..

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There is plenty of great little restaurants along the boardwalk of Bondi, but that is about it. Apart from the beach there is little to do, and you’ll have to venture inward towards the city for a large supermarket or anything along those lines.
Xmas time was spent in and around the apartment, unfortunately the weather didn’t really play ball and instead of the BBQ on the beach I had to settle for a frozen turkey. Now we’d left it up to the girls to ‘cook’, as you do! In hindsight, with the turkey still frozen at 7pm so we were on course for having ‘lunch’ at about one am Christmas day. (I should explain that being French; my housemates celebrate on Christmas Eve.) However, the Christmas spirit was in the air and the friendly neighbor let us positively ‘nuke’ the frozen bird in his microwave. (True to form ours had broken)
It all turned out ‘ok’ in the end, whilst we may of ‘lunched’ well into the early hours of Christmas morning; it was all fun and games.
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Well, Happy New Year!
New Years Eve of 2009, was spent in Sydney, down by the harbor. Now it was estimated that one and a half million people would descend on the harbor to watch the fireworks and ring in the New Year. I’m not sure if the estimates were accurate, but there were certainly a lot of people out and about. Plenty, including some friends of mine, had camped out the night before to reserve the ‘best’ vantage points. Said friends had managed to reserve a great little spot on one of the harbors residential headlands. Cronmore point was its name, and armed with a pride of place position I arrived early NYE morning myself, prepped and ready to celebrate. So that meant up at 5, out the door of my Bondi apartment by 6 and on the way into the city by 6:30am.
Now if you think waiting from 10 o’clock in the morning till 12 that night is excessive, it is; and in hindsight I wouldn’t do it again. Don’t get me wrong, the fireworks where very pretty, but I guess I’m not 10 years old anymore, so loud lights is all they are. Very pretty I might add, but nonetheless just lights.
Like all of these things, TV is probably the best way to actually ‘observe’ the spectacle. But of course, much like ‘live sport’ you might get to see everything, but you don’t get the atmosphere. This for me was the best bit about celebrating down by the Harbor.
People from all over Australia, the world even; waiting all day to watch 12 minutes of fireworks.
From where I was the atmosphere was like a great big ‘bring your own’ tea party. Of course very much like back home in England, it rained a couple of times at the party. That alone was a sight to behold. Several thousand people scrambling in and out of there poncho’s as the weather broke and closed back in again. Of course I’d opted for humble and considerably cheaper ‘bin bag’ option. You know the one, two holes for your arms, one for your head and hey presto you are just as waterproofed as the fool next to you who paid $5 for his ‘poncho’. Some people might think you look ridiculous, but your dry, its New Years Eve, let them laugh!
Now Sydney had tried its best to organize the night as one big free ‘event’. So pretty much every vantage point throughout the City had been allocated public conveniences, police and a quota of how many people was considered a ‘safe’ number inside each area. In short they’d fenced off every patch of grass with a view and operated the night as a free festival type ordeal.
Some areas had food and drink stands, some had bars, some were ‘bring your own’ alcohol, some were alcohol prohibited. The area that I was spending the evening was pretty small in comparison to many of the more popular spots and very residential, as a result alcohol was not allowed. Of course, pretty much everyone had brought their own, and considering they didn’t start checking bags at the entrance until well into the afternoon, plenty of booze was around. The police wondered around checking people’s bags, and confiscating prohibited items.
There was no fine or slap on the wrist etc. In hindsight I’m pretty sure actively searching people’s bags without prior notice is a violation of some sort of basic right, but hay it didn’t happen to me!! Confiscating ‘contraband’ that is in plain sight is a different kettle of fish altogether of course; and boy do some people not grasp the meaning of subtlety?!
There were two sets of fireworks that evening. One display lit up the sky at nine o’clock, known as the ‘family’ fireworks, they were not as long as the main celebration, but certainly entertained the masses. When the main display was set off at twelve everyone was well into party mode.
As I’ve already mentioned, the fireworks were very pretty. Lighting up the Harbor Bridge and the City skyline with dramatic effect. The only thing I thought was really lacking was music. Other than that, a great way to ring in the New Year.
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Sydney is behind me now and with it New South Wales; I and a friend took an overnight train south to Melbourne, Victoria. The reason for this was in the name of work or at least in the ‘hunt’. The overnight train was fully booked for standard economy class so we ‘had’ to take first class. For $30 more you get well, a tiny bit for leg room and few more degrees of seat recline. Money well spent??
However, we were meeting people in Melbourne so had appointments to keep, so the seats were booked and the journey taken.
From Melbourne we travelled to the town I’m now at, Shepparton.
It’s a big harvest town, smack bang in the middle of the Goulburn Valley, often called Victoria’s fruit bowl. So hopefully, fingers crossed, I will find work.

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