Sunday 31st December 2017 – New Years Eve at Sydney Opera House

The day started off like clockwork.  After a 7am alarm call, we caught a bus to circular quay in a repeat of yesterday’s activities.

We reached the end of the queue for the Opera House by 9am as the predicted rain began to fall.  We donned our rain macs with the masses and took out the massive golf umbrella we’d borrowed from the flat.  When we got through the security checks we kept on walking and managed to get into the cordoned off area right at the very tip of the point in front of the Opera House!!  People had already set themselves up for the day in the equivalent area to their lounges at home it seemed, but we found a space and took command of it with our newly purchased chairs.  It was tipping down with rain for a while, but this turned out to be in our favour as, with umbrellas open all around us, everyone had taken up more space than usual.  The rain having passed and umbrellas stowed (hopefully for the rest of the day) we then had plenty of space around us and it turned out that they had closed off entry to our area early.   

The chairs are in position... we are not moving come rain or shine!

The weather improved rapidly.... that's a great view of the Harbour Bridge for later tonight

How close to the SOH were we?  This close...!

This was it for the rest of the day.  They could’ve fitted loads more people in, but thankfully they didn’t.  We had our hands stamped so that we could feel extra special as we waltzed in and out of the restricted area (though we weren’t allowed to bring any alcohol in!).  What a result!

We met our neighbours, from Taiwan and Korea on one side and China on the other. I thought that we had prepared well by bringing sandwiches from home, but one family even brought lunch in a slow-cooker!  We had charged all of our electrical items to the max so we were able to watch some TV on Simon’s iPad with some of the 8GB of extra data he’d been gifted to use today by Vodafone – so, Happy New Year to them!

Yes, that's a slow cooker on the floor for lunch... and a portable changing room/tent!

I was worried that it was going to feel like a drag, but the day went relatively quickly.  I managed to get some images of the Opera House from the non-water side though you weren’t allowed inside today.  I even got a couple of hours of blogging done when the weather allowed!

It began with a flypast...

We’d only been waiting a mere eight hours when the events started at 6pm.  There was a fly past, then we had all of the activity in the harbour itself to watch as they finished preparations, followed by the kids fireworks at 9pm. There were many 'big kids' who also enjoyed these fireworks... they were pretty amazing already, how would the midnight ones compare?!

Back stage view of the party at the end of the point

Then the ticketed events started around us, we effectively had a back-stage pass to the live band on the point.  Lights came on, on the bridge, as darkness fell with messages playing on the surface of the pylons. The white lights on all of the ships passing in the harbour was a beautiful sight and as midnight approached, everyone started packing their belongings away and jostling for the best vantage points facing the bridge.

Shame they couldn't even spell the name of their city right.... oh, I see what they've done there!

Just one of many of the lit-up boats in the harbour

Our spot secured for the NYE fireworks....

Just because I was impressed how well my camera zoomed in for this shot of the luna park on the other side of the harbour!

We all did the countdown together which was followed, as is the custom here, by an absolutely incredible firework display.  Just as we thought we’d seen the biggest and best explosions of the night, they took it to an even higher level.  The ‘ooh’s and ‘aah’s were off the scale! Hopefully, here's some video:

The display lasted for over ten minutes culminating in the harbour bridge being left rainbow-coloured in a celebratory nod to the recent vote here to allow same sex marriage. 

The rainbow-coloured Harbour Bridge heralds in 2018

Everyone whooped and cheered as the display ended.  As soon as you could say 'Happy New Year', the mass exodus began!

We were happy to sit tight for at least half an hour and let everyone else leave.  After all, we were right at the back of the exit queue having been at the front for the display.  But, understandably, the staff wanted to start clearing up and finish working so we were ushered out with the masses and walked into the City.  The majority of the roads near the harbour were closed to traffic, so we just had to keep walking until we started seeing buses and found the relevant queue for the ones heading in our direction.  

I have to say the organisation and security for the whole event was very well done.  We had so much space today and considering the volume of people attending we really haven’t been kept waiting for anything for very long.  We managed to get back to the flat shortly after 130am, completely exhausted from such a long day but still buzzing from a true bucket-list life experience that I had never imagined having the opportunity to witness.

Saturday 30th December – Exploring Sydney

Despite having been in Sydney for over a week now, we haven’t yet visited Circular Quay along with some of the main tourist attractions there.  Today we set to put that right.

We’d hoped to have heard from Motorhome Republic before we set off but with no fresh emails in my inbox it was not to be.  We headed into town and due to being very lucky to catch a passing bus we were at the quay in no time and instead of the thunderstorms we’d been warned about, we had brilliant blue skies.  We thought we’d better make the most of it and caught the next ferry to Manly, using our opal cards once more - cheaper than the fast ferry and we wanted to go slowly anyway to get the best pics of the harbour!  At the other end we disembarked and enjoyed an ice coffee by the beach before hopping back on the return ferry.  The return journey was much less busy and we bagged the prime bow-spot to get even better pictures. 

The outward journey - classic Sydney Harbour shot

A Jet boat - one of many different ways to experience the harbour

Manly Wharf and Marina... we didn't have time to stick around for long as we had much to see back in the City

View of Sydney CBD, assisting in showing the massive scale of this cruise liner.  What a gorgeous day.

Bee sculpture in the Botanic Gardens

Back at Circular Quay, we did a recce for our New Years’ Eve festivities tomorrow by the Opera House, so we now know exactly where we want to be and what time we need to get up to be there!

Next to the Opera House are the Botanic Gardens, the oldest in Australia, where we caught the tourist train for $10 each to do a 25-minute tour of the whole gardens to save our feet as we intend to cover a lot more ground today.

Had enough yet?!  This is a totally different view of the Opera House AND Harbour Bridge from the gardens

Next stop - The Rocks, a famous historical area of the city right next to the Harbour Bridge.  On the way there we received a phone call from Motorhome republic – the hire company called ‘Spaceships’ had sold the vehicle we’d hoped to rent but could offer us a very similar one for $100 more… the usual story, but we didn’t want to risk being left without wheels so we said a speedy ‘yes’ and left it with them to seal the deal.

I think those may be the start of tomorrow's firework display?!

Reaching Sydney Harbour Bridge, you are able to climb one of the four main pylons to get great views and learn about the design and building of the famous structure which opened in 1932.  This smaller climb costs only $15 instead of the $250 each it costs to climb the actual arch just a little higher up to the top! Our location even gave us a sneaky peak at the pyrotechnics set-up for tomorrow night! And we watched a massive P&O cruise liner navigate the tight turns out of the harbour.  It is extremely hot today, in the mid-30s Celsius, so we’re hoping it cools down a little for tomorrow.

What a view!

The view back towards the city and in between, 'the Rocks'

A P&O cruise liner doing the chicane through Sydney Harbour

To cool down, we treated ourselves to a Happy hour dinner and beer for only $20 each (about £12) before tearing ourselves away from the bars.  We had forgotten that we needed to buy cheap camping chairs for tomorrow to survive the day.  After some hasty online searching, we found we only had until 7pm (when Bunnings Warehouse closed) to get a bus across the city to make our purchase! It was very exciting and tight for time. We arrived at Bunnings at 645pm and despite being sent around the houses by various staff members we managed to find their stash of $5 camping chairs and grab two before the checkouts closed!  Leaving at just past 7pm we’d had enough of traipsing around today, so we ordered an Uber to get us back to the flat rather than navigating any more bus combinations today.

An early night was required, with bags already packed in preparation for a long day to see out 2017 tomorrow.....

Friday 29th December – A stressful planning day

We had set aside today for planning as we had somehow forgotten that, after December 2017, inevitably, January 2018 would follow!  And yet, we were still to organise how we would be travelling the east coast of Australia for our last three weeks here.  There was no way we would be able to benefit from a relocation deal this time… we were going to be taking our time to sample as much as possible.  However, there was a ‘gap’ between Sydney and Brisbane where there wasn’t a lot we wanted to see.  I looked at the possibility of getting a train from Sydney to Brisbane and then booking travel passes on Greyhound to reach Byron Bay, just to the South of the City, before turning back north and bussing it alllll the way up to Cairns. I kind of felt that we should experience some time on a Greyhound and traveling on the cheap as backpackers as part of the whole experience.  Simon was more resistant to this option but agreed that it may make financial sense, our last two months having broken the budget.  However, when Si went to book somewhere to stay in Byron there was nothing available for the dates we wanted…. unless you wanted to pay hundreds for a beachfront luxury apartment…. Er, no!  We started worrying about availability and all of the planning that we’d need to do every time we wanted to book on and off the bus and have somewhere to stay each time. We have just been used to driving ourselves where we want, when we want and having a roof over our head in the form of a camper as a back-up if nothing else was available!  The next three weeks on a bus was going to be very expensive nightmare if we either couldn’t find places to stay or they were too expensive.  Maybe that isn’t the cheaper option after all?  There was only one thing for it…. 

 I began putting together an intricate database to compare the costings of each of the different travel options we had!  This was stressful.  I had already started booking Greyhound bus tickets and now we were going to change everything! Could we cancel our greyhound tickets or were we committed to them now?  

I had to get out for a breath of fresh air as our plans were all over the place.  My database creation only went to confirm that, after taking everything like transport, food and accommodation costs into consideration, there really only appeared to be a few hundred dollars difference between all of the available options.  It really just came down to what we preferred to do and that, you may not be surprised to hear, is to travel in our own living space on wheels!  Simon got on the phone to motorhome republic (our camper brokers) and Greyhound.  Could we still get a camper this late in the day and from Brisbane?  He spoke to Greyhound about cancelling our bus tickets and how much we’d be charged in fees but we didn’t want to pull the trigger on this until we knew we had another option confirmed.  After hours of searching, phone calls and heated discussions whilst the credit card balance climbed ever higher, we are still in limbo - we haven’t got a camper confirmed yet but we also have two greyhound tickets to Cairns that will cost us $230 in fees to cancel!

Still, beats working for a living, eh?!