Everyone should know how long I have been wanting to go to Australia and see the New Year celebrations in Sydney! Infact I have been going on about it for around 10 years! Sorry guys:) Well, now I have completed that mission and believe me it was a MISSION! lol

We had been informed of a good viewing point to see the fireworks ' Mrs Macquaries Point' and had to start queueing early to stand a chance of getting a spot. I never thought I could be patient enough to queue from 9:30am-2pm for anything! But we are English so we have had plenty of practice. Plus the sun was out, which kept Ian happy and I hid in the shade with our picnick so that the food and I wouldn't go funny :)

We finally got to the ed of the VERY long line and entered the Botanical gardens, which we were informed would eventually hold 20,000 people! So in a hurry we got looking for a good location to guard till 12am!

We followed a man and a family he had attached himself to when he cut in the queue behind us before. He had mentioned this was to be his 11th time seeing the display, so we thought he would have a good idea on where to go.

After about 10-15 mins they veered off towards a partially crowded area on the right surrounded by trees. Ian made the decision to keep on looking else where and thanks to him, we found a fantastic spot by the water on a hill side which had the view of the bridge and opera house! Bear in mind we were in a Botanical garden, so views like that are hard to find, without trees blocking the view. We only had the branches from one covering the bridge, but this was later not to be an issue....

We laid down our beach towels at the bottom of the hill and began to eat our picnic in the sun. This is where we remained sitting for 10 hours! Battling with the crowds to hold onto our golden spot.

Throughout our day we witnessed some organised and unorganised entertainment. At these types of events you expect to see a lot of drunken people and we certainly had one intoxicated quite large Australian lady behind us. We called her the 'rolly polly lady' because of her numerous falls from the top of the hill into an elderly english couple next to us at the bottom. It was all quite funny for everyone else to watch, but as you can imagine, the couple were getting quite irritated. Then after maybe the 3rd roll and her bag hitting the elderly man, enough was enough! The elderly lady shouted in her posh accent "For gods sake women! This is getting quite silly now!" The man took over "Everyone else seems to manage staying up there without a problem!". The roly poly lady tried to explain that it was quite difficult and that next time they will feel it! As promised, but not purposely, she fell again then immediately after came her flask! The elderly lady lost her temper and threw the flask onto the concrete ground infront of her! Eventually the roly poly lady sat behind her friend and the problem was solved, for the time being.....

Unexpectedly we saw Paris Hilton and co. criuse by, off to their new years party on an expensive boat. If only we had that much money for that luxury :)

It was quite uncomfortable sitting at the same spot all day, despite the Sydney Council's attempts to distract us. They had boats lit up with lights parading the harbour, old war airforce planes writing words in the sky (I managed to only see them when the words were fading away) and a family fireworks display at 9pm, we couldn't ignore the aching in our legs and bottoms! :( lol

The security guards had a real job on their hands, controlling the wild crowd. Some seemed a little confused and took photos for tourists instead of doing thier job, which caused mayhem near us, as the concrete road beneif us, designated for an ambulance in case of an emergency was filled with people. This strictly cleared access road was eventually where we ran down to get the best view unobscured on the stroke of 12am, when there was excitment and the security guards stood no chance of moving us on.

Earlier, around 11pm we had moved from our hillside vantage point to the concrete area with a better view, because we and many others thought security had given up. However Ian noticed they were coming back and quickly rushed to reclaim our original spot. But a Japanese couple were sat there and we only just managed to squeeze on the very edge between their feet. This proved to be very lucky as anyone on the concrete were cleared off and thrown out of the area! We then became the front row for the 12am dash from the hill to the gate, almost guarantying us the perfect view we eventually did get come 12am.

Because of the fantastic view, we got some great photos and videos which pretty much made the wait worthwhile.

On our way out, we noticed how lucky we had been, as tens of thousands had obscured views from the trees and wouldn't have seen a great deal. This was a once in a lifetime event we would never put ourselves through it again.