I've not been updating for a while due to Christmas and holidays but this is the second of three. New Years Eve is (for me) traditionally about not really organising anything until the last minute. But this year, being in Australia and one of the first countries to celebrate the dawn of a New Year and being in Sydney, I wanted to see the world famous fireworks and celebrations in Sydney Habour.
Most other people I spoke to were doing other things, like going to parties, go out for dinner or to watch the fireworks but from some place seculuded, with 100 times less people than I had chosen to mingle with. I'll explain. I went to a place called Kirribilli, pretty much in front of the bridge, on the right side of bridge's bay. A prime spot, and being free, made it even more alluring. Tickets to sit in the gardens near to Sydney Opera House were selling for $200, and other places near to the bridge were also charging for tickets. Mine was ticketless, basically the first there got the best views...but that came with a few conditions. It was an "alcohol free zone". This initially put me off a bit, so I turned up with just some food and no alcohol. Big mistake, as it had obviously forgotten this was Australia. There were none of the prescribed searches going on and most people were openly drinking alcohol in front of the cops.
So when I got there I found a place to sit and have a rest (it was a 30 minute trek to get where I was due to road closures and I was dripping with sweat), looked around, and decided that it was worth me giving up my good spot to go buy some alcohol. It was 7pm...the main fireworks were not until 12am! I walked, sweating buckets now, back to a bottle shop to join the queue to go to buy some alcohol. I eventually returned about 7:30pm with some bottled beers and cans of horrible rum and coke that tasted more of sugar than rum. I soon realised that no one at all had glass bottles, so i quickly downed all 4 beers in a panic for fear of being chucked out for bringing glass. I then waited patiently under a treefor the 9pm "family" fireworks and when a few people left at 10, I then got a brilliant position on the edge of a cliff with a great view of the bridge. It was quite a fun evening, and I got to meet and talk to quite a few people. One thing that was quite apparent was that the crowd that was there was probably 70% foreign (like English, Italian Swedish, French, German, Singaporean, Chinese and Korean). I sat next to a Swedish professional photographer who lived in Brisbane with his Italian wife, on holiday in Sydney to see New Years celebrations with his wife's family. Interesting.
There were also a few other conditions of entry. I checked the NSWs authoritative website for the Sydney Harbour fireworks and found out that the capacity of the place I was going to was 2,000 people. Not as bad as I thought. But the place next to me, connected to the same station,
was 50,000 people!
And it felt like 50,000 people. It took me 2 hours to walk a 45 minute journey to meet some friends after. I didn't arrive until after 3am, and there were still throngs of people milling about the city centre. To start my 2 hour journey I probably had to walk 25 minutes to make a 5 minute journey too. Ridiculous. And I still dripped with sweat at 1am. I finally met up with friends of mine, who were too drunk to fully appreciate that I was a few hours late! They did notice that I was pretty sober however, and took me to a party to have some beers.
A few more assorted shots:
Most other people I spoke to were doing other things, like going to parties, go out for dinner or to watch the fireworks but from some place seculuded, with 100 times less people than I had chosen to mingle with. I'll explain. I went to a place called Kirribilli, pretty much in front of the bridge, on the right side of bridge's bay. A prime spot, and being free, made it even more alluring. Tickets to sit in the gardens near to Sydney Opera House were selling for $200, and other places near to the bridge were also charging for tickets. Mine was ticketless, basically the first there got the best views...but that came with a few conditions. It was an "alcohol free zone". This initially put me off a bit, so I turned up with just some food and no alcohol. Big mistake, as it had obviously forgotten this was Australia. There were none of the prescribed searches going on and most people were openly drinking alcohol in front of the cops.
So when I got there I found a place to sit and have a rest (it was a 30 minute trek to get where I was due to road closures and I was dripping with sweat), looked around, and decided that it was worth me giving up my good spot to go buy some alcohol. It was 7pm...the main fireworks were not until 12am! I walked, sweating buckets now, back to a bottle shop to join the queue to go to buy some alcohol. I eventually returned about 7:30pm with some bottled beers and cans of horrible rum and coke that tasted more of sugar than rum. I soon realised that no one at all had glass bottles, so i quickly downed all 4 beers in a panic for fear of being chucked out for bringing glass. I then waited patiently under a treefor the 9pm "family" fireworks and when a few people left at 10, I then got a brilliant position on the edge of a cliff with a great view of the bridge. It was quite a fun evening, and I got to meet and talk to quite a few people. One thing that was quite apparent was that the crowd that was there was probably 70% foreign (like English, Italian Swedish, French, German, Singaporean, Chinese and Korean). I sat next to a Swedish professional photographer who lived in Brisbane with his Italian wife, on holiday in Sydney to see New Years celebrations with his wife's family. Interesting.
There were also a few other conditions of entry. I checked the NSWs authoritative website for the Sydney Harbour fireworks and found out that the capacity of the place I was going to was 2,000 people. Not as bad as I thought. But the place next to me, connected to the same station,
was 50,000 people!
And it felt like 50,000 people. It took me 2 hours to walk a 45 minute journey to meet some friends after. I didn't arrive until after 3am, and there were still throngs of people milling about the city centre. To start my 2 hour journey I probably had to walk 25 minutes to make a 5 minute journey too. Ridiculous. And I still dripped with sweat at 1am. I finally met up with friends of mine, who were too drunk to fully appreciate that I was a few hours late! They did notice that I was pretty sober however, and took me to a party to have some beers.
A few more assorted shots:
Comments
Post a Comment