First things first happy new year to you all! Second blog( as Myles beat me to it) of the year! This is the same blog as Myles' just from my perspective as I didn't realise he had written one too! So here goes;
A wake up call from a nervous Myles started my day at 7am. Stupidly I hadn't put my phone on to charge last night so that was first on my agenda this morning, shortly followed by breakfast. That done and lunch made I watched a bit of the news and then Skyped the family with the poorest internet going. A short time after deb called it was my time to leave for the train. Tara the dog had to go to the vets today so I had to be at the train station very early! Once I got my ticket I sat down and started chatting with 2 American girls who were lovely but had no idea what they were doing for the new year so I chatted to them about general new year and Australia things until we got to Sydney. We parted ways in the circular quay where I went for a wonder about to kill some time before I had to meet Myles at 3. I'd had a good look around and was really surprised at how quiet it was, but it was only lunch time. By this point on the IFR the quay was packed!
Sightseeing done I headed back to Central station for some lunch and hungry jacks was the choice of the afternoon as dinner was going to be a sandwich. Cheese and onion burger which was standard consumed I started to look for the tram line to get me to White Bay where Myles was working. I found this quicker than I thought and was on a couple of trams earlier than I had planned. Next stop was the fishmarkets and on the way met someone who worked for channel 10 news who was fairly interesting & helped me to find my stop because it was the same as his. This was followed by a bus over the Anzac bridge as I couldn't see the walk way and it was rather hot too for my liking by this point. A helpful lady on the bus also helped me to find the street where I would be meeting Myles. I had a walk down the street checking out a prestige car market and not a lot else and was an hour too early still!
I let Myles know that I was early and we planned to meet at the time arranged an hour later. I sat outside in the shade nearby until it was time to be picked up. This came and went, turns out they had an issue with the fireworks time code for the evening which caused a delay. Another half hour and Myles had arrived. I was greeted by Tim who I had met with Myles when we first arrived in Sydney and thanked him for arranging for me to be there for the night. He explained a few rules and that was it until 6 when we would set off on our barge. The next few hours consisted of meeting Ian who took me on the roof for the IFR and most of the crew who we're playing cricket whilst waiting to go on the barge. This was fine and followed by lots of cricket jokes at our expense, all good banter. Once it was coming up for 6 I got our jumpers out of the car and met Myles on the barge. Our barge was relatively small compared to the others and the biggest shells that were on it were 6" shells. Bigger than I had been in close proximity to being fired anyways!
Slowey we were being tugged out into the harbour and gradually the harbour bridge came into view. Our firing position had our container facing the bridge which would provide a fantastic view!
The first show that we would be firing was a manual fire for the 'Smoke Show' this is a part of the aboriginal tradition for starting the New Year. It was lots of pretty coloured smoke fireworks all up the harbour and a few fireworks came off our barge. We were stood 2-3 metres from the first lot that was leaving which was pretty exciting! I loved the feeling of the shells leaving the tubes and informed Myles it was my new favourite fireworks thing. He said I should come do more shows then.
The next show started at 8:50 which was a family show, not much to get too excited about either. Once this was done with we had an hour to wait until the design show. Being that it's dark and cold all you seem to be able to think about is food and being hungry. So this filled a bit of time but John, who was chief firer of our barge bought his laptop full of music and films to keep us entertained which was lovely. We watched snowboarding videos, Swedish house mafia concerts and his own footage of the tomorrow land festival which was all interesting. This bought us up to the design show, which was based on this painting by Reg Mombasa. (PHOTO) It was a short show and not a lot to talk about, they should have cut him and just thrown it all into the midnight show! It wasn't very long and left you feeling like "was that it" Good but not spectacular.
Once again the waiting game started and john put on anchor man to watch which Myles and I had never seen. Whilst this was happening I suggested that the boys do a final test early just incase. Well I jinxed it, pressed the test buttons and the system said ALL of the fireworks were wrong! Big problem..
The boys ran into action stations immediately getting books and cables checking each point and retesting to find out where the problem was. With just 7 minutes to go and the time code sounding away like dial up internet the pressure was on and john was shaking like a leaf. He was giving up and did one final test and it was all there! He shouted lots and armed it as quick as he could throwing his torch in the process. This was followed by a can of red bull, like he needed it!
Headphones at the ready we had the countdown and could see it on the bridge, even if it was backwards. 3, 2,1 followed by lots of loud thuds. All was going well and I was stupidly jumping at the 6" shells more often than not but loving the feeling of being so close to the fireworks. Bit of a hairy moment and I ran into the container because a shell had flopped out of the tube and exploded on the barge which we later saw on Johns footage of the barge. It was all so beautiful and over so quick but it was amazing truly amazing. We took our headphones off and could hear cheering throughout the harbour which was lovely even for me to hear knowing it was for all of their had work. This was shortly followed by a late shell leaving. Shame but it meant we watched the footage before the boys checked the tubes just incase, and that's how we found out about what happened with the low shell. Because of this it meant lots didn't go and were still sat in the tubes. This was the boys next job whilst I pulled all the wires out of the grey boxes pictured in Myles' NYE blog. After this it was the same story as Myles' really about the chap falling between the barge. This was Myles' cue to go and hide me in the car. Sleep soon followed for me, only a couple of hours until the sun rose then I was awake and saw the boys come blaring into the bay. I was greeted by a VERY overtired Myles giggling like a school girl because they left 3 guys up on the harbour bridge. It was time for him to go say goodbye and sign out for the day. This took longer than I expected and went to investigate and thank Tim and Forche for the experience. I thanked Forche and he said to go in into the marquee to find Myles. Big mistake I ended up being centre of attention for being new and 'random' also butt of the jokes for having a sleep! oh well. We said our goodbyes and set off for the train station where I had arrived by 6:45 and was on a train home by 7:24. It was a great journey until I changed trains where there were 4 Pakistani blokes who we're shouting in Pakistani throwing nuts at each other and shelling them onto the floor. Totally disgusting but thought better of saying anything as I was the only other person there and was feeling a little worse for ware.
The train put me back where I started in good old tahmoor by 9:30. I called deb and she asked how it all went and what time I would be home. "I'm in tahmoor" I said, she laughed in disbelief and said she would come and fetch me. With this lots of explaining and chatting about both of our New Years shortly to be followed by bed as I was shattered! Within seconds I was asleep and that brings me to now where finally I have had a shower and feel a bit cleaner!
So a big happy new year to you all, hope you had a good one we certainly did.
Was very strange not to have spent it with you Rob and Sadie and hope you had a lovely time without us!
Hope you all have a good new year and we will speak to you soon!! X
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