Sydney Harbour NYE 2015/16 ... Photos

Wow!

The fireworks were AWESOME! No other word for it. Katherine gave it 10/10.

Our location was superb and was further enhanced when the (really nice) people on a yacht immediately between us and the bridge had their anchor drag at about 7pm after having sat there happily since 6am. They did get it reset, but this commotion moved them out of our direct line of sight - we weren't complaining!

OK, so here are the photos. I took 521 of them! I've tried really hard to whittle them down, and have got them down to the following 42 (less than 10% of those that were taken). Remember, these were taken hand-held off a moving boat. I'm pretty pleased with what I got. For the technically inclined, most of the fireworks photos were taken on a DSLR with a 50mm f1.8 lens. It helps that they were close to us - no zooming required to get them to fill the viewfinder!

TIP: to view the images best, use a computer and click on the first image to open a full screen image window, I reckon some of them are worth it!

The fireworks were very impressive. We were only about 200m from the nearest fireworks barge and the thumps of the large fireworks exploding were physical and made the deck bounce under our feet! This was all a bit too impressive for Arthur who went to bed half way through the "family friendly" fireworks at 9pm.

Intro and welcome to country

Welcome by the Port Authority

Our (old fashioned) NZ flag flying proudly.

Ditto for our HBYC and QCYC burgees

To give you a sense of scale.

Check out the images (and movies) projected on the bridge piers

The Opera House looked simply magnificent throughout. You'll notice I keep coming back to it...

Family (9pm) fireworks

Sydney, very thoughtfully, puts on two fireworks shows on NYE, the first at 9pm and the second at midnight. Even the 9pm display was pretty spectacular - too spectacular for Arthur who decided that he preferred to watch the fireworks from downstairs in the comfort of his bed!

The Opera House and Bridge through the twinkling lights on our radar arch

Arthur, before he retired to bed

CaBOOM! Right overhead

I'm sure this is how the Hubble Space Telescope photos are actually taken!

Sensory overload!

Video here. Just remember that the tinny-sounding "pops" in the video were actually boat and body shaking BOOMs...

Light ships parade

To fill time between 9pm and midnight there was a parade of lit ships up and down the centre of the harbour. They looked quite spectacular, although quite eerie I thought. Having run our one little string of Christmas lights we appreciated the effort that must have gone into preparing these much larger vessels.

Very spooky ships gliding silently through the night.

Still looking good!

What the skateboarding lady in the bikini has to do with spooky ships I have no idea

Ditto for the surfer, but he is HUGE. I reckon the ship is the James Craig in fancy dress.

 The main event - the countdown and midnight fireworks

 This is it! We all made it to midnight, with the exception of Arthur, it was well worth the wait!

30 seconds to midnight!

Midnight! and the action begins on the bridge

At our location our attention is dragged back and forth from the bridge to our left and the nearest fireworks barge slightly to our right (down-river)

Actually blowing up the bridge wouldn't be half as spectacular as this!

The waterfall. For some reason I just wanted to try sailing through it - don't think that would be good...

And it's done

The smoke slowly clears away from the bridge

 The morning after... 

At the end of the fireworks the maritime exclusion zone is lifted and a mad migration of boats takes place in the dark. We decided to avoid all that by staying exactly were we were until the morning. Seems like quite a few others did the same. We woke early - it was great to see the city so quiet and still, before the cleanup began. We had a cleanup of our own - sweeping and washing a large quantity of ash and firework paper shreds off the decks and out of the dinghy.

The CBD from our anchorage in Farm Cove (note the fenders still on the rails from last night)

The Bridge - looking all very innocent, as if nothing spectacular had happened last night at all...!

At 7:30am we set sail and drifted back down Sydney Harbour - probably for the last time - and went and found ourselves a beach to swim at which wasn't littered with Champagne corks. Balmoral Beach has served that purpose very nicely.

Drifting down Sydney Harbour on New Year's morning

Still looks busy in Athol Bay - these boats all still anchored - looks as tight there as Farm Cove

Must be fun in those moored boats with the Manly ferries passing by...

Harbour Hangover - spot the Champagne corks in the foreground!

Tomorrow we head back further south to Cronulla where we'll have a few days on the beach before Lauren and the kids head back to Melbourne by train on the 9th. It's sad, but our year away is coming to an end...