Waiting

Monday 31st December 2007

We spent the morning at Shark Beach on the harbour today. Shark beach is usually a great swimming spot with it's clear and calm waters but today the swells were so huge you could have surfed the waves, which is really unusual. We were on the beach by 10am, neither of us feeling particularly energetic, just concious that time's running out.

In the afternoon we drove across the harbour to MacMahon's Point, which is where Steve and Scott have their rooms with a view; the only view you need for new years eve (if only the tower block to their right didn't obscure the view of the south pylon....). Driving into the area at 4pm we were greeted with traffic cordons and police and big flashing signs, all the way down to the waterfront. There wasn't a hope in hell of parking the car so we had to park a good walk away and trek over to their flat with our stuff instead; always a challenge when you combine a heavy toddler with a series of steep hills, but worth every bit of effort it took to get there (and back).

As promised, the police had closed the road they live on and a huge steel fence had been erected for the occasion, two security guards checking we were residents before allowing us to pass through, which of course we weren't, but I think they assumed we must be given the number of bags we were lugging. And then the strata company had hired more security guards for the front gate (strata refers to the management company who maintain apartment buildings in Sydney; you pay them a fee, they forget to change the lightbulbs in the hallway. That sort of thing). To say the neighbourhood was on lockdown is an understatement.

Anyway, we passed all the security tests, including having our names on the list and henceforth spent a lovely early evening watching the preparations going on around the harbour, including the crowds in the botanical gardens with their picnics (tickets only; picnics provided) and the crowds lining circular quay and those on their boats moored up beside the bridge.

And it wasn't just the fireworks we were waiting for; Darren's brother was about to become a father and we were waiting for news from Birmingham too.