Hello 2006

New Year in Sydney was fabulous.

The amazing weather we've had recently, combined with the overwhelming paranoia prevalent among the backpacker community about getting a good spot, turned watching the fireworks on the harbour bridge into an all-day affair...I was out of the house by midday. A big group of people from our street travelled across the bridge to the north shore to watch the fireworks from a place called "Bradley's Head" - it's a really nice place, a national park that leads down to the harbour with a view of the opera house and the city centre on the opposite shore. A bit of a trek from Newtown, but hey.

The day got off to a shaky start since transporting a ridiculous amount of beer, wine and food for 25 people across the city on a very hot day was fairly stressful, plus most people had hangovers since it was my ex-housemate Tim's birthday party the night before. We finally made it to the charming grassy meadow and beach which was our destination, and although it was already pretty crowded we did get a good spot. Then the realisation kicked in that there was 7 hours to go until the first firework display (at 9pm). 7 hours...it was about 35 degrees...there was no shade ANYWHERE...we were all hot, tired, lamed out and beginning to burn. We passed the time huddling into the single tent we had between us (which was mainly to keep the drink cool) and jumping into the sea (which was very pleasant til, whilst swimming, I overheard some guys talking about what a relief it was to wee in the sea. Grrr, that ruined that experience for me). So yes, a bit of a trying few hours: i knew it would be lovely from about 6pm when it had cooled down a bit and we could have a drink and watch the sunset, but the middle of the day was really unpleasant. I managed not to burn, with the help of liberal quantities of factor 40.

Anyway, as I had predicted, by the early evening things had turned around and it was absolutely lovely. The area filled up to a ridiculous extent, mostly with French people for some reason, who spent alot of time having very noisy photo opportunities which we just couldn't compete with. The fireworks at 9pm were fantastic - it's a really huge display, plus the city lights and the lights of the thousand-odd boats in the harbour really set a beautiful scene. Sydney is so strikingly picturesque. Photos will follow but I imagine they will fail to do it justice.

By 11pm alot of us were pretty knackered and ended up stretching out on the grass for a nap. This worked out very well for everyone except Tim - we just couldn't wake him up at midnight, so he missed the (even more)spectacular midnight firework display and countdown etc, and woke up about 20 minutes into the new year, very confused! haha.

I eventually made it home at 4am after a prolonged journey across the city (it wasn't as bad as it could have been as everyone was filled with New Year cheer), met up with my housemates (we somehow magically managed to all arrive home at exactly the same time) and sat about until about 7am. And I went to bed first. I still haven't recovered from the lack of sleep...

So a spectacular New Year. New Year's Day (sic -is that apostrophe correct? Australia's having a bad effect on my grammar) was I think one of the hottest days I've ever experienced...our friend's car measured the temperature at 47 degrees, but the news said 44 so I suppose we should compromise and say 45.5. It was damn hot, basically. I walked round to my friend's house and arrived as a sweaty mess...we spent the day having a barbeque, although how anyone managed to get close enough to the barbeque to actually cook I have no idea. We pretty much just flopped down and sat as still as we possibly could...in the evening I went into the city to meet up with Cath from back home, who is up for a visit from Melbourne, which was great: it was really nice to see someone I've known for longer than a month. The day refused to cool down, even as the sun set - we were sitting outside a bar and it was STILL ridiculously, uncomfortably hot at 9pm! A lovely evening, and it looks as if our travelling plans might converge later in the year which would be cool - we both want to head to Western Australia.

Yesterday I went to the Aquarium. It's advertised as "Australia's no.1 tourist attraction" a ridiculous claim (Uluru? The opera house?!) but it was excellent, with a really amazing shark tank...you kind of walk through, so the sharks and huge stingrays are swimming overhead and on both sides of you. Cool.

Job interviews start today...wish me luck.