Sydney Harbour is simply stunning, especially at dusk…
We arrived in Australia two days in advance of the new year, just enough time to sleep off our jet lag before it was time to ring in 2009.
We’ve been staying in Curl Curl, near Manly, a laid back beach town north of Sydney. On New Year’s Eve, just before sunset it was all aboard and onto the harbor for sunset cocktails. I’ve seen many ports of call in my 29 years, but few with a metropolitan skyline. From the silhouetted skyscrapers and the flamboyant Opera House to the “old coat hanger” as the Aussies call their famous bridge, it was a treat to take in the Sydney Harbour skyline from the water.
The fireworks got underway at 9pm for families, and then the real show came on, shooting off an unrivaled spray of color and light. 
You can watch the whole show here on YouTube.
The $5M ($3.4M USD), 12 minute show took 15 months to plan and set up, and its theme was kept secret until midnight ~ creation, whose interpretation in this particular manner still eludes me.
A dozen computers ignited more than 100,000 individual fireworks from the bridge, the tops of skyscrapers and six barges around the harbor.
It was unrivaled, drawing more people than the fireworks in New York City and London!
I haven’t seen fireworks from the water since I was little, at the 4th of July on Lake Winnipesaukee, where I remember being able to feel the explosions in my tummy! Strangely, the booming doesn’t feel quite as loud from my adult’s perspective.
In looking up the stats on Sydney’s show, I stumbled across this write-up on some new research about the toxic effects of smoke generated during fireworks.
And in other environment news, Sydney’s mayor has promised to audit and offset carbon emissions from the event, making this the city’s first-ever carbon-neutral New Year’s Eve… except for all the carbon generated in transporting 1.5 million onlookers to the waterfront (including Ethan’s and my flight from New Hampshire to Vegas to L.A. to Melbourne to Sydney).
Next up: Tomato sauce, chips, capsicum and Kumara
