If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s being caught up and pushed around by crowds of people feeling like you don’t even have the space to breathe. And yet there I was leaving my hotel room at 5.30 in the morning to see the Sydney New Years Eve 2013 fireworks. There were literally hundreds of vantage points throughout the city where you could watch the fireworks, and the most consistent advice I’d received from the Aussies was to choose somewhere further away, and less popular. Of course, being an overexcited tourist in Sydney for the first time, I went against all advice and chose Mrs Marcquaries point as my base. With views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, this was possibly one of the most popular free vantage points in the city, and had a maximum capacity of 17,000 people. Continue reading →