New Year's Eve in Sydney

We drove to Sydney Thursday down the Pacific Highway, the equivolent to driving from Portland to Ashland on 99. It took 7 hours. But, we didn't know any different so it was all good! Oh, and on THE LEFT SIDE OF THE ROAD!! Not only does one drive on the left, but the car is designed with everything on the left. So weird - wait, we've been teaching the kids to say, "So different!" So the rearview mirror is on the left (which means you have to look that way - I knew that . . . ), the gear shift is on the left, you get the idea. The family knows that back-seat driving is perfectly acceptable since the round-abouts and intersections take extra brain cells to navigate through, and the more heads, the better!! In Sydney it was particularly dicey, but we made it, and it was definitely a team effort!

We visited the Aquarium (home of a platypus and incredible sea horses, including one that looks exactly like floating sea weed, and a Sea Dragon of irredescent rainbow colors that looks like it's from a Pixar movie) and the Maritime Museum. Pat just finished reading Dixon's copy of Blue Latitude (thanks Marilyn!), by Tony Horwitz, who traced Cook's voyage on the Endeavor a few years back. Pat's wish for the day was to get aboard the Endeavor right there in the harbour.

On the afternoon ferry ride around the harbour, we saw the fireworks barge setting up for the night right out in the middle. Pete, you would have loved it. We watched the 9:00 fireworks from the ferry landing and then stayed on for the midnight celebration. I cannot describe the number of people, but I'll try. Imagine downtown Seattle closed off to cars for maybe an 8 block radius. Then put people like it's a Where's Waldo? picture. We were actually blocked in at the ferry landing, which meant we could have left, but no one else could come in. We decided it was an unanswered prayer, since we had a snack bar, restrooms, and security everywhere, to wait out the 5 hours right there! So as we looked up the street beyond "our gates," we saw the masses. But masses. Overall the crowd was happy and fun-loving. No hats and noise-makers, though. No one seems to do any of that here!
The fireworks exploded from the Harbour Bridge, from the barges, from the various suburbs. It was spectacular. As we left to catch our bus back to the hotel, the streets were a river of people flowing through the downtown. It was surreal!