Lots has happened since Koala Day!
On Sunday 28th we went surfing again on Flynn's Bay beach, just opposite the resort we were staying in - we'd bought the girls lilo-type body boards, and they loved swimming in the surf (it was especially hard to get Joanna out of the water). We tried playing tennis in the afternoon - not a great success - then went out for a meal in the evening. I think everyone felt that we were leaving Port Macquarie too early the next day.
The drive down from Port M to Sydney took an astonishing 4 and a half hours, all for a tiny hairbreadth of Australia's eastern coastline - it really is an inconceivably big country. Nothing happened of interest except for a break stop in Mosseret - think that was the name - where we were trapped in the car by an incredible storm. It started raining when Jenny and I were about 5 seconds from the car, and we were both soaked by the time we got in. The lightning, torrential rain and thunder were impressive, but the hailstones were something else. Trying hard not to exaggerate, the biggest were about the size of tiny button sprouts. So imagine being trapped in a car park with the water level rising around you, having someone hurling frozen baby sprouts at the car from above, and you've just about got it. Pippa wasn't too keen on the storm - we kept wondering if her Nanny would have enjoyed it!
The apartment in Sydney seemed superficially really nice, although we soon discovered lots of things weren't working (showering in the dark with half the door missing has been a highlight). Still, the location has been excellent - a few km from the city centre. On the first evening we went down to Circular Quay and took a ferry across the harbour and back. Watching the sun set over Sydney Harbour and the lights come on, with the harbour bridge and Opera House as a backdrop, I kept thinking that this was about as good as it gets (so good, in fact, that we did the same thing the next night, although in the other direction).
On the Tuesday Jenny took the girls to a museum and various other activities while I worked, then in the afternoon we met up at Circular Quay and watched a street performer squeeze herself into a small glass box (she spent about 45 minutes building up to this): it was uncomfortable to watch, and almost impossible to believe if you weren't actually seeing it in front of your eyes. The girls had also just watched a unicyclist doing his stuff (unicycling, presumably) before I got there.
Wednesday was New Year's Eve, and probably the most memorable day of our trip so far. We'd decided to watch the fireworks from Mrs. Macquarie's Point, a spit of land sticking out into Sydney Harbour. Lots of official observation areas like this are dotted round Sydney, each having a pre-set capacity (ours was 20,000 people). Once the area is at capacity, no one can leave and no one can come in. In total I gather about 1.5 million people watched the fireworks that night.
We got to (or rather, towards) the park at about 10am, and saw a crowd of people milling round. This turned out to be the end of the longest queue of people I've ever seen. It snaked down and round and back and through and along a park in bright sunshine (the forecast was about 85 degrees, and I can believe it reached this). The best way I can describe the queue is to say that one energetic person kept trying to get a Mexican wave going, and eventually succeeded, and it took about two minutes to reach the end of the queue (or at least, as far as we could see). While Jenny and I took it in turns to queue up in the sun (and battle queue-jumpers), the girls sat in the shade. We reached the front of the queue at 2.30pm. At that point they'd let in about 7,000 people, and there were (they said) about 10,000 people in the queue behind us, which by then stretched out of the park onto the road.
Once we got in, we had 6 and a half hours to kill before the family fireworks and 9 and a half before the final ones. We found some shade to lie in (along with 19,995 other people in the end), and managed to while away a few hours reading, playing Nintendos, going for walks, swimming in the harbour (well, I did) and getting something to eat. About 7pm we went to the end of the point, and luckily managed to squeeze in next to 2 French girls, one of whom proved to be one of life's most annoying people. She chain-smoked, kept giving huge Gallic sighs, kept singing happy birthday drunkenly to a friend all night, and when the fireworks finally happened leapt up to block people's views. Even her friends were close to disowning her by the end.
The family fireworks at 9 were OK - by some way the best fireworks we'd ever seen, but I think Jenny and I were both a bit disappointed. There was then a procession of boats along the harbour, each having coloured lights on the side. Jenny then took the girls away to the toilet through the tightly-packed, drunk crowd, in the dark, while I watched the security guards and (occasionally) police battle to keep people out of our small, enclosed bit at the end of the park. When Jenny got back (about 11pm) the security guards wouldn't let her back in, and I had just packed all our stuff up to move out when they relented and we could all squeeze back onto our little sloping foothold on the damp grass, sandwiched between drunken French singing Happy Birthday. At this point Pippa and Katy were in floods of tears!
And then the fireworks started. If ever you go to Sydney for new year, know that the family fireworks at 9pm are a pale imitation of the real thing. 12 minutes of oohs and aahs, with the trademark effects on the Harbour Bridge (half of which we could see), and a final minute which took the breath away. I remember watching the whole thing with a smile on my face. If you have a fast broadband connection you can see a video of the fireworks at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfTBG3htPIc&feature=related (among other sites), and we'll try to remember to add a video Jenny took some time. Some readers may know that Pippa has always been terrified of fireworks (most recently the box of Standard fireworks in Pete and Lesley's back garden), so we were a bit apprehensive about the night. At the end we asked Pippa if she'd enjoyed it, and in typically infuriating fashion said "Of course", as if to say, why wouldn't I?
We then started the trek back out of the park to find a bus - imagine a leaving a crowded football stadium by a single exit at the end of a game after your team have won, but when the floodlights have failed, it's dark, everyone's drunk and there are strange things underfoot that you keep having to walk over, and you've just about got the right impression. Everyone eventually got to sleep at about 2.30 in the morning.
And I would just like to add one more thing about the day: the girls stayed awake the whole time, barely grumbled and as far as I can tell enjoyed virtually the whole experience. We were VERY proud of them.
Sorry about the long post - just mention today. We went by car to the famous Bondi Beach (which was packed), then to a slightly less crowded beach for lunch, then finally to a beach Jenny used to go to when she was in Sydney, where we stayed the rest of the day. On the way back Jenny took us to the school she used to teach at ... but she can write about that. It's now midnight, and time for bed. Perth tomorrow! Thanks for reading this far.
