Happy new year!

So, new year! New decade, century and millennium (well, good as)! You may have seen Sydney's millennium fireworks on the TV - in Oz they had a continuous 28hour show which rather chaotically attempted to show midnight everywhere but frequently had to settle for Laplanders getting married in icehouses or Polynesians dancing backwards and forwards for hours on a beach. We turned it on when we got home, fell asleep, and left it on all day - we didn't do anything at all on 1st Jan!

We had been invited to a party up the coast, but we didn't really know them, and besides we really wanted to be in the middle of it all, to celebrate being in our new town for the millennium. They'd been warning about transport ever since we got here, saying plan plan plan, but there wasn't much we could do since the easiest route is by ferry. They were stopping those at 7.30, so we went down at 4.45, expecting there to be HUGE queues and a long wait. In fact we just walked straight on (although if we hadn't got a ticket already it would have been at least an hour).

The ferry was packed of course, and everyone was having a good time. The harbour was quite rough, and we went upstairs (the best place if you might get seasick). After a few minutes a voice announced 'Those on the bow of the boat, you may get wet if you don't move NOW.' About 30 seconds later we plowed into some huge waves which just drenched them all, much to the amusement of us upstairs.

We could see the shore as the ferry reached Circular Quay - it was packed from water to wall: I've never seen so many people. I'd noticed a good grassy spot in the Botanical Gardens a couple of days before which would have a good view to the Bridge (essential) and the Opera House (desirable), but I could see that there was no room there at all. We joined the crowd and slowly milled round to the Park gates - only to find there was a 'no alocohol' rule on the entrance, which seemed a bit daft on NYE. The winebox we could have taken apart and hidden the wine skin, but we'd have had to open the champagne (two pounds fifty here, the cheapest champagne) and drink it at 6 - not right at all. So we had no choice but to follow the crowd down towards the Opera House, which was obviously completely full. With nowhere to go, we just sat on the edge of the sidewalk and hoped that the stream of people currently treading on us would jam up and stop eventually. It didn't, but shortly afterwards a girl in a wheelchair with a very dubious looking foot injury was wheeled forward, leaving (I know not how) some space in her wake, which we pounced on. Good spot, and plenty of room.

The noise was unbelievable. From six o'clock when we arrived, it sounded like it was already midnight. I couldn't see how the noise could keep up, but it did - constnant cheering, and everybody talking and meeting people around them. We'll have lots of pictures with people we have no idea who they are. Most people around us were British, but some were Korean, Japanese, a Thai guy, a Russian girl, some Americans, even one or two Australians I believe. We got on to the serious business of lightening the winecask.

Going to the toilet was a problem. Dee tried at about 7.30, and that was the last I saw of her for nearly an hour, which was worrying at the time. We didn't know that the area had got so crowded that the police had closed the Park and set a cordon behind us, and when Dee had gone out, she nearly couldn't get back in again. The same thing happened with me later - I walked through the cordon by mistake, and when I realised I was on the wrong side, went to dart back and they wouldn't let me. No no no I said, I just came through, I said, but no sir, noone can go through. After five minutes of unsuccessful pleading I saw two girls manage to get through and I virtually piggybacked them to slip through. Even then I had a hard time finding Dee again - I'd 'landmarked' a tree, only to find there were actually about twelve identical trees all the way down the road. Still, just as well, since trees were the only toilets available for the one million people on the quay.

At 8.30 we were back together waiting on the ground for the 9 o'clock fireworks. Suddenly a line of police walked right in front of us and made a three foot channel of space across the whole road. Then they led - from where I can't imagine - 10 or 12 mounted police on huge chestnut horses to form a barrier in front of us, and with a line of foot police in front linked arms, they started moving the crowd back up Macquarie Street. We were the very front line, and it was amazing! It was like being in a movie about the miners' strike or something, and while everyone else was moaning about being moved, we were laughing and holding hands and trying to feed the horses, which didn't go down too well with the foot police. Then I saw a camera and a boom mike over to one side of the police line and I thought wow, cword control problems on the streets of Sydney, this is bound to be on telly. So then we (just Dee and I really, I think we were the only people on top of the situation enough to be enjoying it) starting dancing around singing 'We're gonna be on telly, we're gonna be on telly' and I was waving at the camera so you could see me, and we found a man with one of those huge silly felt hats and pulled him in because we thought he's be more likely to get on telly, and soon there were quite a lot of people joined in, dancing around in front of the horses.

They did keep pushing us all back rather far, and suddenly both Dee and I felt it was turning a little unpleasant. A few people in the crowd started complaining that we were now so far up the street that we couldn't see anything, which was true. Dee and I immediately headed for the side of the road where there was an alcove for a hotel entrance, hoping the line of horses would sweep by and leave us on the right side. It didn't, the foot police were trying to clear us, so we huddled in the corner of the alcove and made out we were a bit alarmed by the possible riot situation, which was not at all unrealistic at this stage. But one guy was still insisting we leave. Then I remembered I had my press card, but that didn't work either. 'Look,' I said, 'we could easily be hotel guests, just let us into the hotel.' No, he said, his boss from the hotel wouldn't like that. I hadn't realised he was from the hotel, I thought he was with the police. So I just went, oh heck you're with the hotel? Wow, this is all really intense, eh, with the horses and everything... And he was like, Yeh, isn't it scary... and in a couple of minutes I got through to his boss, who waved the press card through.

One more line of foot police and since we were now on the quay side of the horses, they let the press card through too, and we were through! Right down to the front, smack bang in front of the Bridge and the Opera House, with loads of space thanks to the police, and what an experience we'd had! We were just laughing and hugging about it when BOOM! the first burst of fireworks lit up the sky; amazing timing. It was jus too extraordinary to be true; the whole thing was like a crazy dream sequence.

And of course those were only the 9pm fireworks. We sat on the steps of a fountain playing with some Asian kids for the next three hours, bonding with the people round us. 'You're great people,' shouted one (the noise was getting even louder), 'where are you from?' Turned out he was from Redditch, which was quite a coiincidence, so we had a little 01527 party...

Then midnight, which was just - indescribable. That many people all going completely bananas and I have never heard noise like it. The fireworks were a mere backdrop really - normally for that sort of thing, you go to see the fireworks, but of course the fireworks were only part of the event this time, and the predictable bit really.

The Eternity thing on the Bridge was nice - for years, or years ago I'm not sure which, there was a reformed criminal in Sydney who found God or something, I sdon't know, but he used to write 'Eternity' in this grand flowing script as graffitti all over the city, on sidewalks, on walls, and it became a local legend. And in December the Sydney council was getting a lot of flak for bad organisation and just going for the tourist dollar etc for NYE. But when the 'Eternity' sign went up on the Bridge, everyone was so touched and felt it was a real thing for the people of Sydney, and it really turned the whole thing around. Now they're having a vote on whether to leave it up for ever - as Dee says, how can you take down a sign that says Eternity?