New Year's eve in Sydney is highly recommended - "junior" fireworks down by the Opera House & Harbour Bridge at 9pm, followed by the real deal (which we watched from the other side of the river, meaning you can take in all 5 riverside displays at once) at midnight. Got some OK photos of the pyrotechnics and some bloody excellent ones of many, many scantily clad girls. Not for my gratification of course - Hoopy insisted. Copies will doubtless find their way to the Chandler residence as well...
It would appear that our timing has once again proved accidentally exceptional - this year's fireworks were the most expensive ever as the harbour bridge is celebrating its 75th birthday. For sure we picked the right year to visit the places we've been.
We're already into our third day here. Time flies when you're getting pissed. Hoopy had the window seat on the flight up from Melbourne and I instructed him to take a photograph as soon as we left the ground. He did so, meaning that I now have a permanent memory of the view of Melbourne I like the most - behind me!
So far we've done the usual touristy thing of wandering around, photographing the bridge (which we're climbing in 10 days - eek!) and the Opera House, visiting the Australian National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour etc. etc. Of course, it is illegal to be here without actually catching a show at the opera house, so we're going to see 'The White Album concert'on Friday night. One of my favourite albums (though I still like Revolver best so far as The Beatles go), so should be a blast.
Exercising a little delicate footwork on the clutch (bit of a session last night...), I think we're dropping down a gear today. Liverpool FC are playing their New Year's Day match later which is being televised live here (23:30 kick off) and Hoopy wants to go and watch that at Cheers Bar, which endeared itself to us very nicely thank you on Saturday. We also have our last scheduled hotel move in Australia, basing ourselves in Chinatown for the next 12 days, so a bit of relax-a-vous over the next few hours is called for.
The final test match kicks off tomorrow, so we're going to be ensconced at the SCG for a couple of days. Hopefully it might last a bit longer than that, but given England's woeful performances to date, I'd be surprised if this one gets past day four. In any event, I'm going to bugger off for a few days on Saturday (the 6th, 7th and 8th represent my only window of opportunity around everything else we already have planned) so would miss day five were it to happen anyway. Still undecided as to where I'm going - a return to Tasmania is still near the top of the list, but I'm also looking at visiting Canberra, flying up to Cairns and doing the barrier reef, going over to Uluru or even a flying (obviously - it's a long way to swim) visit across to New Zealand, if only to collect another stamp in the passport. Knowing me, I'll make my final decision mid-way through the gig on Friday night.
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