31/12/08 New Years Eve

Having been out the night before till quite late we were all quite sleepy and tired. Mel had returned from some shopping about 2pm to find Caz and I still in bed! Whilst she had been out she had spoken to several people about tonight and getting to watch the fireworks from the quayside. We had wrongly been told my our hostel reception that it was fine to walk down leisurely at 8pm ready for the midnight display. However the story now was that the rules had changed this year and the gates to the quayside were to close at 3pm and prevent anyone else enetering for the rest of the day. Great!!

We quickly grabbed some food supplies from the kitchen, i.e. our left over bread and a plastic knife and rished down to the quayside, stopping at a supermarket on the way. When we arrived at the circular quay we found that one of the gates had already closed. I spoke to the coordinator who thankfully directed us to another entrance but explained once we entered we would not be able to leave!

We entered the fenced off quay area and wandered along looking for where we believed the best spot would be. We were all keen to be right in amoungst the crowd over near the operah house infront of the harbour bridge. Some people had clearly been there for hours already, filling up the best spots, the benches, curbs and walls! Near to the operah house we found ourselves in a queue to allow us to enter this sectioned off area. We queued for 20 mintues or so and then had our bags searched to ensure we weren't trying to smuggle alcohol in!

Once in we viewed the steps to the operah house and decided that the view was too restrictive. So we continued round and took at seat in between the operah house and harbour bridge. What a fantastic view! Unlike many prepared and organised people around us who had tents, umbrellas, camping chairs etc, we had only our material thin sarongs to sit on the concrete floor! Not the most comfortable seat i've ever had but after being there for 9 hours we all felt quite attached to it!

Looking around it was literally a sea of people all camping out in the scorching sun for the whole afternoon, waiting for the NYE celebrations. Near to us were 3 elderly Italians who had emmigrated to Australia about 20 years ago! We were chatting to them and enjoying their company! One of the women was telling us to get up and dance to the music that was being played from large speakers. The place really had the feel of a festival, we even had lovely porta-loos!

The first set of fireworks were let off at 9pm, music was played at the same time. But it was the midnight fireworks which were unbelievable. There were images being projected on to the harbour bridge and as it got closer to midnight, a counter came up on the bridge and everyone started chanting 10, 9, 8, 7....Then massess of fireworks came shooting out from the bridge itself, from behind the operah house, from behind the bridge, from the boats sailing on the water and from behind the skyscrapers. WOW!! We were cvompletely immersed in the display. We shouted happy new year to each other and then started jumping and dancing to the music, which was synchronised to the display in terms of the pace of them going off and the type of displays. Kings of Leon, Somebody was played at one point that made me feel extremely emotional.

The fireworks went on for some time, the intensity of them building up and up until the finale! Everyone was amazed by them, i have never seen anything like it! We cleared up our things and joined in the crowds trying to leave the quayside area. As we walked away from here, the roads were lacked full with people celebrating, it was a reallly nice atmosphere.

We returned back to our hostel for a quick change in to our gladrags and went out at 2am to the club that we had tickets for, a HedKandi night. And that was a late night!!