i have a hip hugging laundry basket

and a slight headache. let me take something for it and get right back to you.


so, where was i. oh yeah, headache. brought on in no small part by dehydration and probably from a bit of exhaustion, but i can guarantee it's not a hangover. or if it is it's a day late...

yesterday was NYE. Sydney is an amazing place to be on NYE because we have a beautiful harbour to sit around, and an amazing bridge, and we have some of the best fireworks i have ever seen, and i have seen plenty of fireworks, including NYC on NYE 2003.

i left home at 8am on NYE to head to the city to stake out my plot of land for maximum viewing pleasure. i was saving space for what would eventually be 7 of us, but was planned for a fluctuating 5. picture a harbour, now make it prettier, add friends and friendly strangers, some sun, some fun and you have NYE to a tee. in the 19 hours i was out i peed once, which is a skill well worth having when it's a 20min queue for port-a-loo's. i ate almost consistently, but no real meals were had, i went from being stretched out and spacious to sitting upright and perhaps just a little cramped. by the time the 9pm fireworks started i had my family and friends with me, and i had also met two lovely random strangers who became part of our party. Sydney does countdown fireworks, a couple of red bursts with 10 mins to go, then a little red shower from the bridge at 5 mins, and even a count down projected on the bridge. the 9pm (family) fireworks were good, but showed nothing of the spectacular that was to come. 10pm, one cracker. 11pm, another cracker, 11:30, a couple. then 15 mins, 10 mins, 5 mins, and an awesome gold pulsing explosion from one of the buildings across the harbour for the countdown. then about 15 mins of fire works, choreographed to music, ebbing and flowing, pulsing and growing, from the top of the bridge, the middle of the bridge, falling from the road base of the bridge, all along the full length, in canon and all at once, from 4 barges in the harbour (there were more, but i could see 4).

then the half an hour sit around and wait for the crowd to thin a little, the 30 odd min walk to the nearest train that we won't have to wait an hour to get onto, then the 15 train home. finally got home at 3am, having been out of the house for 19 hours. i had a shower and fell into bed. i have so many photo's and one story that ran all day to share.
i was sitting on a sandstone wall of a little bay that has been enclosed as a swimming hole. when i arrived in the morning the tide was high, the pool was full. the tide spent about the next 4 hours going down, leaving the pool as an enclosed sand pit essentially. high tide was due again at 9pm. people kept going to sit on the sand... we warned every single person that walked past us to get onto the beach that the tide would come up and they would get wet. most didn't listen, and from about 6pm we laughed as we watched them all creap further and further away from the rising water. it was just too funny, there were floating shoes, wet tripods, expensive camera's held aloft. we laughed every time a wave crashed over the break. we had warned them all and they hadn't listened. it was higlhy entertaining for those of us who had arrived at9am or earlier to get good spots with a clear view.

Happy New Year

that is all.