Jan 2007

This morning I caught a vintage bus (laid on free especially for Oz Day) to Sydney Harbour with Linda. We managed to catch the finish of the tall ship race and the army parachuting in to the harbour. The harbour was packed with thousands of people just laying on the grass areas with picnics and listening to different live music stages. Then on to Hyde Park where again there was loads going on, beer tents, food stands, music stages, people were dancing in the fountain in their green and gold colours.

Australia Day is taken as a public holiday so everyone gets in to it. The whole day had an amazing atmosphere. Back at the hostel I met everyone on the roof terrace for a bbq. Matt got his guitar out and there was a funny singalong session with tie me kangaroo down sport and waltzing matilda played over and over. From there we all walked down to Darling Harbour to watch the fireworks. The Ozzies know how to do fireworks like no other - the display was on a par with new years eve... there was a big build up to it with Ozzie speakers and special guests and then the National anthem played, 150,000 people in the Harbour cheering. Then the fireworks started, they lasted about 20 minutes and were set to music, with the bass vibrating through the ground. The grand finale was an army aircraft flying low over the harbour which shook the ground, and it was dowsed in fuel for a big burn off - you couldn't tell it was a plane, it just looked like a slow moving comet, just this masive loud flame flying over.

We rounded the night off with a boogie at ScuBar.