Happy New Year! (Dec 29-Jan 6)

 I have been wanting to go to Sydney for New Year's for over a year now... ever since we first started thinking about coming down here. We purchased a car and were planning on leaving the Gold Coast on the 29th and get to Sydney on the 30th, early enough to scope out a spot to view the fireworks. We would be downtown by 10am on the 31st to claim a good spot and wait for midnight. 

Our new car, a 2002 Ford Falcon. Her name is Merlot.

About 1.5 hours into the drive the car rpm's started flying up and down and as we pulled over the car died. It happened again several times on the way to the next town, Bellina. The garages in town were shutting down for the weekend so we booked the next available appointment for 8am on the 31st. We tried to book a rental car to go to Sydney and come back for our car after New Years but there were no cars available. We decided we’d have to stay in the town for the weekend and give up on the New Years plan so I  cancelled our hotel reservations in Sydney. Of course Bellina hotels ended up being arly fully booked and we ended up staying in this crap room for $185/night!!! On the morning of the 31st the garage let us know they were not able the problem and sent to Ford (we have an 02 ford falcon). Ford determined was able to determine which part needed to be replaced but the auto parts places in town were closed. Luckily they were able to call in a favor at one of the auto wreckers to get us the part off a used car. The car was finally fixed at 2pm and we made the decision to just try and make it to Sydney and hope we got a decent viewing spot. We drove the remaining 8ish hours to Sydney, parked and walked about 40min to a park on the water. We ended up getting a good view of the bridge. 

Kiss from the harbour bridge at midnight

Fireworks on the bridge as well as along the water

After the fireworks were over we still had to find a place a hotel but the booking websites would no longer bring up availability for the 31st since it was now technically almost 1am on Jan 1st. The night ended with us falling asleep at a truck stop type area, in our car, outside of the city..... which was actually full of cars.. Obviously we weren’t the only ones.. The next day we booked a hotel and begged for an early checkin; they said the earliest we could check-in would be noon so we went for breakfast at a nearby mall and ended up falling asleep in the parking garage at the mall... it was a long night/morning and it was humid so it was such a relief to have a shower and a bed after that!! Hahaha I know I’m tired when I fall asleep in a shopping mall parking lot rather than shopping!!  

So we slept for a few hours more hours in the hotel and than drove downtown to have dinner and see some sights that evening (Jan 1st). We went downtown again the next day to do a bit more walking around during the day and checked out China Town and a neat market they had going on.

Building downtown

Sydney Harbour Bridge view when standing at the Opera House

Seeing the Sydney Opera House for the first time!

The next day (Jan 3) we slept in and than went out to famous Bondi Beach for lunch and a swim. It was super crowded especially since it was a weekday!

Arriving at Bondi Beach there was a croud of people up on the grassy ledge over the sand watching cricket on a inflatable screen.

A crowded Bondi Beach

Surfing Santa at Bondi Beach

Delicious quesadilla lunch! 

 On the 4th we decided to head downtown and check out an area called Darling Harbour for a few hours and than head out of the city. Once we got down to Darling Harbour we realized we would need another two night's stay in the city and booked in the area.... We went to watch a 3D film on coral reef's on the world's largest IMAX screen (29x35metres). Than we went to check out the Maritime Museum for several hours. That night we went on a dinner cruise. The next day we walked around downtown a bit more and went to see the Botanical Gardens.

Giant Duck - part of a upcoming festival

Inside a submarine

View on dinner cruise

Cafe's along the pier at the Opera House

View of the city from the Botanical Gardens

 What we saw of Sydney was been really nice. Beautiful views everywhere! And lots of water everywhere; the ferry system is as good, as popular and as fast as the train or bus here. The city reminds me a bit of Seattle with all the little restaurants and piers. There are also many lovely old buildings everywhere downtown such as brick buildings or buildings with amazing sculptures and molding.