Happy New Year From Down Under

There are many advantages to being in Sydney for New Year. Firstly you get to celebrate before most people in the rest of the world and secondly you get a great fireworks disply in a very cool spot. The downside is that lots of other people have the same idea and we all flock to the same spot. We decided to head to Mrs Macquaries Point which is the next point along the harbour from Sydney opera House. They let 25,000 people in to watch and unfortunately you have to queue...for quite a while. Luckily my mate Chris and his friend Dave got there at 11am and I did a bit of queue jumping when i got there at 12pm. Still it was another hour and a bit until we actually got in as the first poeple were there at 8.30am and the gates didn't open till 10am. It was amusing in the queue though as everyone is in the same boat trying to drink all the alcohol that they've bought which is not allowed into the park. One of Dave's mates arrived just as we got inside so had to queue all the way himself which was bit unfortunate, but the queue seemed to speed up and an hour or so later he appeared. Just down the hill was another Al, another mate from home so we said hi and then went to get some beer. For the first few hours the beer queue was about 5mins, but you had to allow 20mins for the lovely portaloo toilets. the queues for both got longer and by the end there was only champagne or low carb beer to drink which was only 2.7%. 2007 is the start of the 75th anniversay of the Harbour Bridge, so that had a big diamond on it and also a coat hanger which is the nickname of the bridge for a lot of the night.Many games of shithead later (it's a card game)and we got to 9pm and the first fireworks display which was about 10mins long and pretty impressive. The main display was at midnight and lasted for about 15mins. They have spent a ridiculous amount on the fireworks and were setting them off from around the bridge, on the north shore and for the first time off a load of buildings in the city which was very impressive. You can't really tell from the photos becuase my camera doesn't do dark very well though...
It was a really good night (and I guess I should say day as well as we were there for 12 hours+)and nice not to be freezing cold as is usual!
Hope everyone had a good New Year and has a great 2007.