Hot and nearly sober New Year

Most of today was spent at Bondi beach, where we have an apartment 7 minutes away. It's a nice chilled, elongated u-shaped beach , with strong crested waves.
It is split into two swimming areas and two surfing areas. There are more lifegaurds than I have ever seen, certainly 20 or more, and they manage the whole thing with directness and aussie charm. The water is chilly compared with Queenaland, but it is still ok at 25C. The only impact seems to be that the kids spend 10% of the time in the water and 90% building sand constructions, whereas up north that was reversed.
A short nap at 1800, then we are off at 2000 to Darling Harbour, aka downtown Sydney. When we get there at 20:52, the harbour area has been closed off, as it's too full. So what now? Well, luckily , thanks to a couple we befriended in Port Douglas, we have a plan B and a plan C. At first, plan B seems impossible. "You need a car to get to the other side, but the roads are closed." Then I think for a minute and ask , what about trains, and yes indeed they are operating. So we make it to Outlook B, and that turns out to be great.

The only things missing were food and drink. For the drink, there was an alcohol ban, so it was water or gatorade. For food, we got crisps and biscuits from a small convenience store, the only one open.

Finally at midnight, we had ourselves and the crowd counting down the last 60 seconds, and then the fireworks, which are great in this setting, ( but don't tell the Aussies, that some places, like Edinburgh Castle can be as good or better).

Well, not finally actually, because since it looked like the trains would be overfull, we started plan C and visited the couple we had met in Port Douglas. They have a lovely apartment with a terrace overlooking a different part of the harbour. There, we finally got our New Years drink, or 3 to be precise.

The night was not over as we had to get home. Luckily, the trains ran all night, but that left us to walk the last 2km. At 330am, we all collapsed into bed.Read more