Dear All!

Firstly HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all, welcome to 2007... as I am 11 hours ahead I can already tell you that it is a fantastic place to be, especially if you are upside down!

I had an absoloutely superb New Years Eve in Sydney with my friends from Manly and perhaps every other tourist/backpackers in Australia, there were no actual Australians to be found! We decided to get an early ferry over to Sydney as we were worried that we wouldn't be able to get a good spot. There were so many rumours flying around about places charging $200 to get in and ferries not running etc, it's amazing how many of these things turned out to be utter b*ll*cks! It turns out it was a very easyand by 2pm we were set up in a very good spot at Circular Quay, 2 minutes from the ferry next to the Bridge and opposite the Opera house. We tried to claim as much space as possible as we knew that other people from the hostel would be joining us as the afternoon progressed. I had a lovely afternoon catching up with the girls, playing cards enjoying the odd glass of wine :)

The evening came around very quickly and soon enough it was 9pm and time for the first set of fireworks. These were very good and I got quite emotional afterwards as there I was living the dream. We then headed up to 'The Rocks' where there was a huge street party going on, lots of loud music and dancing. The only problem by this time was getting to the facilities. There were people everywhere and then the queue's were 20mins or more, hence text messaging rather than partying. Also got very worried that I wouldn't get back to our spot in time for midnight. As usual with my worrying, it was completely unnecessary and had half an hour to spare. Midnight was announced by a chorus of fireworks from every direction that lasted about 10 minutes. They launched some from the top of the high rise buildings in the city for the first time this year which were right next to us. I got some pretty good footage on my camera that I am going to try and upload to the internet and will let you know the address. The only real disappointment was that there was no countdown at midnight, however the rest of the evening was fantastic. We headed to a party in the city afterwards and then had to run down the main street to catch the last ferry to Manly at 3.10 - Me in my pink dress, tiara and sandals - must have been a sight!

I am now staying here for another month to save some money before I head down to Melbourne. I hope that you had a fantastic new year and hope to receive emails about what you all got up to.

Lots of Love
Snaily Gaëley xxxxx