New Years 2012

In the van one last time to the airport, we were off to Sydney to catch the New Year early show. We had heard it was a pretty big deal there. After a near brush with fame (India's cricket team was loitering around at the airport... wait, who? Cricket, you say? Famous, you say?), we caught our transfer to the hotel right near the harbour.

Great location. Too good to be true, as it turned out. The booking agent had cocked up the reservation, and the suspiciously fantastic deal we had for all six of us in a rather nice hotel just a ten minute walk from the harbour (two bedroom suite, one queen, two singles, and pull-out couch) turned out to be just one room with two single beds. The hotel was fully booked. Hmmm.

We took Oli and Calla out for lunch while Codi and Rich got down to business with the hotel and nearly three hours later we ended up with two rooms for only slightly less than we would have paid normally, and only after a late cancellation popped up. We were lucky even to get that, being Sydney Harbour on New Years Eve and all.

With that sorted, we had a bit of a wander around before getting dinner, back to the hotel and then headed out to find a spot to catch the fireworks. Many of the main roads were closed so everyone was taking to the streets, and soon the roads were thick with party people in the place to be. 1.5 million people were surrounding the harbour, by official estimates.

We weren't totally sure exactly where we wanted to be, but had some ideas. On a whim we took an intriguing set of stairs cutting into a wall and eventually ended up in front of some appartments with a view of the bridge to our left and downtown to our right. For the really good spots you had to cue from the morning. This wasn't a bad view, and there were only a couple of other people there. It was still a bit early. By the time midnight rolled around it was shoulder to shoulder.

It was a pretty good showing. Fireworks from the bridge, or course, but also from barges on the water and, unexpectedly, from the roofs of many of the tall buildings downtown. We were surrounded. Everyone cheered loudly and mostly behaved themselves appart from the big testosterone sacks who decided that the trees that had grown there for years had no business blocking their view of the fireworks for ten minutes, and got to work at tearing off any branch within arms reach. Things like that have me seething. Then there was the young couple next to us that, no joke, were either gazing into each others eyes or swapping spittle from when we arrived to when we left. That's two hours. Two hours. Really. I had nothing to swap, per se, but was feeling compelled to contribute some bodily fluid of my own to their project. That aside, a thoroughly good new years.

New years day was to include the Sydney aquarium and a ramble around The Rocks. I'm sure you know all about aquariums, so instead I'll just say we saw:

Stripy fish:

Spotty fish:

Nemo's:

Sea gods:

Sharks:

Dugongs:

Giant stingray's:

Penguins:

Massive crabs:

Jellyfish:

and Moby Dick:

and many, many more things that I've never seen before.

I have, just this second, surrendered to the fact that I can't be bothered recounting the rest of what happened, due to being rather zonked, pooped, and straight tuckered out from a somewhat ambitious bicycle ride this morning, so instead I will just show you. We did these things too:

Walked

Walked some more

Gazed

Gazed in the other direction

Looked pretty

Touched things (no LSD required)

Got on a boat

Left the Harbour

Looked at things from the boat

Looked at rich people from the boat

Walked around the Opera House

Looked at the Opera House

Looked at hundreds of bats in a garden

Took a walking tour

We did some other stuff too, but my camera ran out of batteries. Sydney was pretty good to see. Not that we "saw" Sydney - we only saw one little area. We'll go back and check it out again sometime.