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Published: January 5th 2009
What you don't see is us laughing like school kids when trying to come up with titles for the blog! It keeps us amused!!!
New Years Eve can often be one of those evenings that has a big build up only to turn out to be a bit of a disappointment. The pressure was on for a great New Years Eve particularly given that the plans to be in Sydney for New Year were made six months ago.
New Year's Eve and the alarm went off at 5.45am! It was only 18 hours to go until the big one. We loaded ourselves up with the essentials for the day; FOOD and a lot of it. Leaving the hotel at 6.30am with no-one around we started to think that maybe we were being a bit dramatic leaving so early, that was until we saw some people piling into a taxi with their esky's (cool boxes) in tow, we stepped up the pace! Our early wake up call was justified when we saw the orderly queue forming, at 7am we were already about 2000th in line and like any good Brit's we can queue with the best of them. The gates
to the park were due to open at 10am, as the minutes passed the queue grew as did the anxiety levels, with a maximum capacity of 20,000 no-one wanted to be 20,001st. After 3 hours of sitting in a relaxed queue, the gates opened and there was a sudden surge of people, at this point our Britishness went straight out the window it was every man and woman for themself. We had ensured our place was secured having befriended a large Samoan family (who had so many esky's they were loaded on a trolley) only the very big or very stupid would have tried to have pushed in! New arrivals were attempting to join the front of the queue, the 3 hour queue formers (who had by now formed a bond) gave out a loud boo, embarrassing those who had attempted the faux pas, ensuring they headed back behind the masses!
Every person was security checked, that's a lot of people to check! We made it through to the park at 11.30am and found our pitch in a cordoned off area that had limited numbers. Out came the picnic, sun cream, playing cards and draughts, this was everything we
needed for the next 13 hours. The day went eat, play cards, eat, play draughts, eat, talk, eat, eat, eat, chat to people on neighbouring rug, eat, soak up the rays; it was a great day so far. All sorts of entertainment went on in the harbour throughout the afternoon as the party atmosphere grew amongst the revellers, there were various renditions of HAPPY BIRTHDAY which involved huge crowd participation, the mexican waves were building height, even mother nature got in on the act by providing a clear blue summers day and finishing with a beautiful sunset and a fruitbat aerial display at dusk. This led us to the family fireworks at 9pm, these were impressive on their own and this was just the warm up, at this point not a firework had left the Harbour Bridge. As we counted down the last hour to midnight we realised how lucky we were to have our pitch, there were about 500 people in the prime viewing spot and the other 19,500 behind the cordon with a limited view. The countdown came and the excitement built up, then it was
5,4,3,2,1.......HAPPY NEW YEAR the first fireworks went off the Harbour Bridge lighting
up the sky, then off the buildings on the City skyline and off the barges in the harbour. It was the start of the greatest firework display on earth. Have you ever been to a firework display and wondered what it would be like if all the fireworks were let off in one go? Sydney did just that again and again and again! The build up and the eighteen hour wait had all been worth it, we left the Bridge smoking and exhausted after one of the biggest bangs since the big bang!
Here's wishing everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR!
LOL
KIRO
xx
Can you believe it? You wait an age for a blog to come along and three come along together!!!
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Mum (Jean)
non-member comment
Big Bang - More like Big Beard
My Darling Boy get some sun to your face and have a shave or have you joined the hippy commune? Photos are fabulous - Alright we didn't have blue skys and sunshine but we did have a very big bang in London. Alright we never had a pic-nic but I did share a bag of nuts at the local. Couldn't play any board or card games but we did enter in the "How many can you get in one pub for midnight" Did not manage a sing-song but there was some very friendly banter trying to get a drink at the bar - I think it was friendly????? Love you both - Happy New Year - Stay Safe Mum