Out with a bang!

We arrived in Sydney and we were staying in Potts Point, right on the edge of Kings Cross. For those of you who don't know it, Kings Cross is a loud and colourful part to the city. A symphony of cackling drag queens, slurring drug addicts, gruff bouncers and querulous drunks.

The boys took themselves off to a T20 match, while we had a girls night in a quaint, Italian restaurant down a quiet lane, escaping the heady and hedonistic din of Darlinghurst Road. Maybe it is the contrasts that make Sydney such an intoxicating place to be, but I definitely felt its charm, even when walking through Kings Cross.

New Year's Eve was soon upon us, and we didn't have a plan. We could, of course, spend hours queuing to get into the Botanic Gardens, only to be sat with the crowds with no beer for hours. But, as luck would have it, we read a magazine that morning in our hotel room that suggested a couple of BYO spots (Bring your own alcohol) with uninterrupted views.

It was a gamble, we had never been to Balmain, let alone Birchgrove Oval on the other side of the harbour. But at 4pm we caught the bus through closed-off streets and to our relief, we had a perfect view of the Harbour Bridge right from the water's edge.

There were only between 100 and 200 people sat on picnic rugs in the oval, and we enjoyed a few drinks in the sunshine, a picnic tea and the tangible excitement from the crowd. After a few plane flyovers and messages in the sky, at 9pm came the children's fireworks. Brilliant, by even the highest standards.

Then at 10, 11, and 11:30pm there are little teaser fireworks so you can keep your excitement level up, synchronise your watches, and make sure your location is calibrated for optimal pyrotechnic enjoyment. We were perched right on the waterfront, setting off sparklers, drinking wine and eating strawberries. Soon came the countdown, a few eager party poppers and then there was a firecracker party in the sky!

Sydney has nine choreographed fireworks displays lasting about 15 minutes, which are physically close enough together that you can see several of them simultaneously. We had one right in front of us over the bridge, and one directly behind us. It's like 3-D with surround sound. Even the skyscrapers get in on the action, adding the icing to the cake, and the cherry too. Boom!!

After the last burning embers had disappeared from the sky, we wished everyone, including our newly-made friends, a happy New Year. Singing Auld Lang Syne, we toddled along with the crowds, merry, to catch the bus back to our hotel.

To blow out the cobwebs from a incredible night, the next day we headed on the ferry to Manly for an afternoon on the beach. It would seem many other New Year's revellers had the same idea, but we managed to find ourselves a free patch to bask until dinner. Sunshine and seawater does wonders for a hangover.

The next day was our last all together, so it was now time for some serious sightseeing. By serious, I mean open top bus. And by sightseeing, I mean the Opera House, Botanic Gardens, The Rocks, Harbour Bridge and Bondi Beach.

I have, of course, seen photos of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, but it's not until you're there that you appreciate their gleaming dominance on the busy harbour front. We walked and admired, taking in the sights and sounds of Sydney's finest.

Down by the harbour we listened to the boat horns blaring over aboriginal-meets-trance music, played by hopeful buskers. A few metres away in The Botanical Gardens the soundtrack is one of raucous cockatoos, camera snaps and murmuring lovers. Around Hyde Park, trams tinkle and the great bells of St Paul’s Cathedral clatter over the noise of a passing horse and cart. High on the Harbour Bridge, traffic hums, city workers pound the pavement and tourists point and shout out the names of places they recognise from up high. The sounds of Sydney are ever-changing.

Amidst all this, there’s even, shock horror, a slice of history that stretches back further than 50 years. The bright, white Sydney Opera House rubs shoulders with the redbrick, old convicts neighbourhood, The Rocks – one being the pinnacle of modern architecture, luxury and high-brow entertainment and the other the city’s first European settlement, initially designed to house a labyrinth of cramped lodgings, open sewers and spewing factory chimneys. Rampant disease and rowdy brawls are of course a distant memory in The Rocks today, where original facades have been polished and preened and interiors ripped out to make room for chic Italian restaurants.

After a hectic morning of sightseeing, we were on the bus to Bondi. Despite the crowds (which we'd come to expect after the day before), the beach itself was quite lovely - broad, clean, sunny and an almost painfully blue and bright sea. The air was filled with shrieks of pleasure and a sense of people having fun.

Despite it being a long beach, there were only two small strips of sea marked out for swimming by the flags. The rest of the sea is deemed 'too dangerous' for swimmers, which seemed a bit farcical to us having swam off beaches all over that had no flags or lifeguards whatsoever. But still, the lifeguards at Bondi are the gods.

The Australian media cover beach mishaps persistently, and Bondi has its own international television show: Bondi Rescue. We were treated to a live show, with lifeguards on jetskis providing as much pantomime as the viewer can handle as over-dressed film crews ran up and down in the hope of the next rating-boosting sea drama. As far as we could see, nothing serious happened that day, but I'm sure the TV show will have a different story.

After a fun-packed time in Sydney, the time had come for our last supper together, and I was desperately sad to say goodbye to my family. What an adventure we had on the other side of the world, one never to be forgotten. A big thank you to you all!