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The plan was simple.
Get up really, really early, and grab an incredible spot overlooking the Harbour bridge.
Well, we had already done the reconnaissance - the spot was to be Balmain East, a location suggested to us by a work colleague of Alice's.
Waking up at 6.50, we assembled our pre-prepared picnic from our bnb fridge and popped it into our cool bag. The buses immediately tricked us though, they were on holiday timetables. How very dare they?! Not panicking, we stuck with our original journey plan, and took the 2 buses we needed. We observed that all the buses running around the suburbs were empty, but the buses heading toward town, not so. Ominous.
However, as our second bus entered the Balmain peninsula, the bus driver announced to us that he was stopping at a roundabout quite some distance from the park. As we had already been here before, we knew exactly where we needed to go and marched off quickly, leaving a dazed and confused group of German NYE backpackers in our wake. We had a spot to claim!
Walking the last couple of kilometres, our cool bag heavy, and regretting our flip flops as footware for this quick sharp walk, we arrived at Balmain East at 8.30. We were first!! Actually first!! So not being smug or anything, but the view of the Harbour Bridge was simply incredible. Now just the 15 hours to wait...
Our arrival beat another group of young English types, who promptly bagged the permanent wood/stone table and chairs in front of us, whilst we plumped for the front row, centre, elevated grass spot. We were very pleased with ourselves.
A few activities / observations we made in order to pass this time:-
- Did a quick crossword from the newspaper Alice bought whilst foraging for morning coffees and pastries
- Spotted Alexander the Ferry. Sydney have named all of their ferries, and obviously Alexander is the best name. Ergo, he is the best ferry, and worth spotting.
- Germans, everywhere. Other than British backpackers, the dominate foreign body here is German. Shouldn't they be trying to get a job back home for Angela?
- It's so sunny in our fabulous spot, that we feel the need to hide in the shade. Thus commenced high stakes game of maintaining our top spot in the sun, whilst sitting in the shade 20 meters away. Easier said than done.
- Our packed luncheon provided us much amusement. Cheese sandwiches are fabulous. We heartily recommend. Avoid the posh nosh, and go rustic!
- As we got closer to the evening, the Police appeared in the corners of our little vantage point. It was a little unclear how strict they were going to be on alcohol, but by the letter of the law, there was supposed to be no drinking in our vantage spot.
- So... do we buy booze?? Or not?? In the end, we noticed the police ease up on the trafficking of bubbly, so we went a bought a few rum and cokes
- 1-0 to England. Our spot was really quite well behaved, clearly family orientated The only drunken aberration seen was a young English man, who got arrested in front of us. He protesting was dramatic, but his crime was almost certainly minor.
- At around 19.00, some Tugboat Fire Engines showed off their water hose skill. It was quite pleasing
- When the sun went in it then got quite cold, quite quickly. It's amazing how this happens in Australia. We suppose it's because the sun is quite simply so strong! We were glad to have brought our jumpers.
- We enjoyed some more 'warm up' activities with planes 'stalling' up in the air. This is probably much less dangerous than in yesteryear, as you can hear the engine note all the time. i.e. They no longer actually stall, but appear to instead.
- We then had the 9pm 'family' fireworks. These did not centre on the harbour bridge... But we're probably as good as the ones you see in London?!
- Then there was a loooooong wait until the 'main' event, where there were lots of young children still around... Is it not their bedtime? They must be so tired!!
- ...and to slowly, and calmly entertain us before the main event, we watched a flotilla of lighted boats on the dark waters. Very nice actually! The star of the show was one 'tall' ship. It looked magnificent.
With 1/2 hour to go before the main event, the mood suddenly changed round us. People started to jostle in for a good vantage spot amongst us, but we were having none of it dammit. We were here first!!
And then it was the fireworks. Wowza.
Obviously the fireworks speak for themselves. But our main observation was how incredible the fireworks that went off around the Harbour Bridge were, and how this was used sparsely... only at the very start and very end. The rest was sent up from various barge boats up and down the river (I think we counted 5 from where we were standing), and that these displays from each barge were identical, and identically timed too. It was quite a spectacle.
The display lasted for 12 minutes in total.
Getting home could have been difficult, but I think we were very lucky with our buses. Against our better judgement, and having walked back down the Balmain Peninsula with everyone else (there was only one exit from this show), we took the first bus we could see. Usually, I would have plumped for the bus stops a little further away. But this was a sound choice, as the bus we got on decided NOT to stop at any further bus stops on the Peninsula, despite him being half full. ..we saw a lot of unhappy bus stop punters.
We eventually arrived home at around 3am, quite pooped, but very happy. Totally worth it!
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