Happy New Years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well looks like we have made it into the new year of 2008 and here's to a good one!

I hope everyone had a good time and didn't feel to ill on the 1st! Steve and I were frantically writing messages to as many people as we could get through, sorry if we didn't get to you but this message is for you.

So we ended up in the Harbour for the night getting there at pretty much 3o'clock and there were still about 100,000 people hanging around, tents already up and people falling over after having to much Goon. Goon by the way is a hideously potent type of cheap wine over here which manages to throw people into a weird state of conciousness. Anyway, we managed to find a spot in the middle of the road about 2 mins from the Opera House and in front on the Bridge. It looked more like a local 'Help the Homeless' event because everyone, including ourselves were just lying on the street on pieces of newspaper, nice. I've never felt more festive!! So the fireworks went off in true fashion and I have to put my hand up and say I was overwhelmed. I'm not a fireworks kinda guy but even I was stood there mouth wide open in awe at the show. I recommend anyone who can to come and see this if they haven't already!

Following on from the show we went to get our first pints of 2008 (no alcohol zone at the Harbour) and we managed to stumble on a little place called Club 77 which I can safely say is probably the weirdest pint I will ever have in my life! It started well with the happy girl behind the bar serving us our drinks and we sat on some pretty tatty yet comfortable red leather seats. I decided now was the time to go to the loo, massive mistake! Once I found the door leading to the toilets I was blinded by a blinding strobe light which would easily have made epilectics collapse. I managed to bump my way through hitting the wall frequently. I got to the loo seeing colours and dots, rubbing my eyes hard! The loo was disgusting. So I took a breath and made my way for the strobe hallway. To my horror, the hallway was covered in mirrors which I failed to notice on the way in when immediatley blinded the first time round. I was stuck. The door behind me had closed and I had no idea which was the way out. By this time I had only brief seconds of sight to try and find my way out which eventually I managed to do after again banging against every wall, God only knows what people thought was going on in there. Anyway I emerged however having rubbed my eyes so hard I can only imagine that I must have looked like I had some kind of Alergic reaction to something or Hayfever suddenly consumed my body! But this is not all, oh no! When I managed to get rid of the coloured dots in my eyes I looked up and noticed a girl in hotpants with a huge pink afro dancing with a guy with a hat, sunglasses and a BONGO?! who in turn was dancing next to a guy with dreads, a drumstick and a symbol. Now this may have seemed ok had the music been some kind of jazz or something but no, it was trance music which meant none of the instruments could be heard anyway. To the left of me was a guy asleep wearing checkered golf trousers and a guy dancing so very, very camply it can only be described as a type of contortion oh and then there was a guy by the bar with hooks for hands. We should have guessed something was up when the doorman asked if we had been before and said nothing when we explained we hadn't.

So me and Steve found ourselves with a tough decision coming up to the last week of our time in Australia. Do we book a trip to see Uluru (Ayres Rock) or do we go to Melbourne and see Ramsay Street. We only have the van until the 9th so we decided we needed to make the most of it and having already driven to Coogee Beach because there was a cliff walk to Bondi from there (we got a taxi back to Coogee) and then to Manly Beach today we still have some time with the van.

Well that has been the story of our new years and pretty much time in Sydney, it has been excellent to say the least and somewhere I will definately be coming back to in the future along with most of Australia in general.

We are off to New Zealand on the 11th so I guess that'll be the next time I write. Just want to say thank you to all of you who have left messages both on this site and the texts/voicemails me and steve have received, they are really great to get and hope that they'll keep coming while we are away.

Speak to all soon guys, oh and we'll say hi to Harold Bishop and Dr Karl Kennedy for you all when we get to Erinsburgh

'No Worries'