Australia Day

Usually Australia Day for me (when I was living in Perth) was all about the massive fireworks display over the Swan River. No events during the day, but an awesome night (making up for the fact there is no fireworks for NYE!) Sydney's Australia Day is so different - so many things to do, and we only saw just a little that was on offer..

I spent Australia Day with my partner, mingling along College St, Hyde Park and down towards the Quay.

There was lots to see.. and a HUGE amount of people!

I've never been to anything on Australia Day in Sydney - except for the fireworks in Darling Harbour in 2000. So needless to say, I was so surprised by all the activities being held during the day!

We decided to look at the vintage (and not-so-vintage) cars along the walk from Cook & Phillip Park, up College St to the Botanical Gardens.


It was a rev-heads delight. I'm not particularly into cars/bikes - only the green ones like here, here and here. (Though I do love this non-green vehicle too!)

My partner loves Porches - but despite our search we couldn't find them on the day. He was a little disappointed.

We made it into the Sydney Mint (very boring - nothing there!), and went down to the Museum of Sydney.

The exhibition, "Bridging Sydney" is on there and was quite fascinating. There are some amazing alternate Harbour Bridge plans that were considered, and it was quite thorough. I definitely recommend visiting the exhibition during the Diamond Anniversary year (75yrs) of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Next we hopped on a vintage bus once we reached Circular Quay and travelled back to Hyde Park. It was surprisingly fun, for such a simple thing like travelling on a bus. I have a bit of a liking for the old Sydney trams and buses, so maybe I'm just plain old strange...


Anyways, we headed home and decided to go over the bridge to the park lands next to Luna Park. There was some sort of Irish celebration happening there underneath the bridge. I had a vegetarian kebab, my partner a chicken one (which he gave all the chicken to our little dog, Icypole.) Icy had a Aussie scarf around his neck for the day.. I wish I got a picture - he was so cute.

After some walks around the park, we made our way home again, to watch some DVD's for the rest of the evening.

I hope next year to get the chance to watch the Tall Ships Race, and the Ferry-a-thon on the Harbour. I think it would be quite spectacular!

All I can say is Sydney sure puts on great Australia Day.

(PS. I'm sorry about the pictures being on their side - they are the right way on my computer.. dunno how to fix that on blogger!)