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Happy New Year, welcome to 2017 which will sadly be our last year of doing the Big Lap Around Australia. There are various reasons, we only planned to be away four years; travelling funds are starting to dwindle and (most importantly) Oma really misses the grandkids. As usual we start the new years blog at day 1, but in this case it's unusual because day one also coincides with January the first. Normally we go home for Christmas and New Year with day 1 starting somewhere in mid January. This year we decided to do Christmas away from home (which ended up being in Sydney). Therefore as we finish one travel year we go straight into the next. Last night we decided to go into the CBD and watch the New Years Eve fireworks. We had looked up on a website published by the NYE comittee to determine what we thought was the best viewing location for us. We also looked at the Opal trip planning app to determine what public transport we would need to catch to get there. We needed to decide what time to go. Going early means we will be sitting around for ages most likely in the hot sun, going late meant we may not be able to get a spot. We had heard on the radio that the more popular areas were filling up fast. Leaving at 4pm Johannes dropped us off at the train station and said he and Bernice would join us in town later in the evening. Catching the train in was easy, there was one running every 15 minutes and wasn't crowded. We thought about getting off at Town Hall, if we didn't find a good spot near there, we would walk across the bridge to Milsons Point. In the end, we decided we would get off the train at Milsons Point, walk across the bridge into Circular Quay and have a look around town. If nothing suits us then walk back across the bridge again to Milsons point. Getting off the train, the area around the station had changed its geography from what we were use too. There were now lots of gates (and security staff) and you were directed out of the station in one particular direction. Outside the station we could see, you were still allowed to walk across the bridge. A big flashing sign at the bottom of the steps said the pedestrian walkway would closed at 6pm. The only way to come out of the city then was via the train. We decided against walking into town and instead walked down to the viewing areas in Bradford Park at Milsons Point. The perimiter of the park was gated, at the entry your bags were inspected before entering. After entering, we walked around the park trying to find a piece of ground we could sit on. We ended up choosing a spot on the road which had a side view of the bridge. Here we would still see most of the fireworks. Other families had already setup next to us, this was 5:15pm and the fireworks were at Midnight. The view wasn't the best but we wanted to be part of the experience, be amongst the fireworks and people. If you wanted the best view, we should have stayed at home and watched it on the Tele. There was food on sale in our area, but the queues were long, no doubt the food would have been expensive. We did bring our own food. You don't need much, we just had boxes of different biscuits and a bottle of water. You wern't allowed to bring alcohol in, which was a good thing considering there was going to be 40,000 people around us. It must had reached that limit, we heard they had stopped people coming in, untill enough people had left. There was plenty of entertainment around us, especially in the form of people watching. Where we sat a small space had opened up in front of us. The family sitting there had made a decision to move somewhere else. Shortly after, along come another group of people and plonk their chairs right in front of us. We wern't too worried, all the action was suppose to happen above us, but they could have at least given us a little room. Anne said watch this, I bet they try to take more of our space. Sure enough, each time they got up, they would push their chairs back towards us. We ended up stretching out our legs so they couldn't come back any further. While waiting for the early fireworks, aeroplanes were performing acrobatic manouvers over our heads. We watched as the planes would zoom straight up, stall at the top of their climb, then fall back into a dive or roll. As the early fireworks drew closer, people from all over the park would come down to where we were sitting. They were just stepping over the top of those sitting, pushing towards the front for a better view, who cares if those sitting had been waiting all day. People were lying down or arranging strollers to build a barrier but people kept on pushing through. While there were a lot of stern words to my surprise, we didn't see one actual fight, although one guy near us looked like he was ready to go a few times. We all stood during the early fireworks. It was quite nice and lots of cheers from the spectators but we were waiting for the big event. After the early fireworks the crowds dispersed a little while others stayed and plonked themselves down where they stood. We ended up loosing our sitting position but the family who took it were kind enough to share with us and invited us to sit on their plastic blanket. The time was now 9pm, only 3 hours to go. To entertain the crowds, the larger boats in the harbour were decorated in lights and started to parade up and down the waterways. About 30 minutes before the main fireworks, the crowds would surge in again, more so than the first time. Some of the crowd, now saw it as their right to take the best spot no matter how late they came. Again you could see tension build but fortunately no actual fights broke out. Finally, the coundown was displayed on the support pillars of the main arch's. Starting at 76, when it got down to 10 you could here the roar of the crowd as they counted off. 10, 9,...3, 2, 1! then a loud chorus of, Happy New Year, similtaniously the fireworks exploded across the bridge. We could see fireworks exploding at various location above the harbour, the Opera House, along the main arch of the bridge and directly above us all at the same time. I took some video but it didn't really do it justice. Then after 12 minutes it was all over. We found Johannes and Bernice, they had made it to a position not far from us, lucky as they were our ride home from Pennant Hills. The walk back to the train station was just as eye opening. Milsons Point was the closest station but it was closed. The next closest was North Sydney. Although we waited at Bradford Park for about an half hour before leaving, we still ended up following a big crowd out of the grounds. I have never seen so many people in one place. As we walked along the roads which had been closed to traffic, we were a hundred people across and as far as the eye could see, in front of us and behind us, there where just heads of people all walking in the same direction. The police had created checkpoint barriers which they opened and closed across the road to slow the huge crowds down. I guess this stopped the train station from being over whelmed. It was all very orderly and I have to admit people were reasonably well behaved. By the time we reached the station we were lucky, most people were heading to City Central or the Western Suburbs. We were taking the north shores train where there were less people wanting to get on. Finally getting on a train we travelled the last hour and arrived home at 3am. The event was well organised, the way they moved large crowds of people was quite impressive. I would say 99.9% of the people were well behaved and we didn't see one fight break out. Would we go again? Proberbly not, it was one of those once in a lifetime events for us, tick it off the bucket list. If we were to attend NYE fireworks in Sydney again, I would proberbly consider one of the paid venues.
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Day 1 / 2017 - Happy New Year Sydney Style
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- Written by: Andrew
