We set off from the campsite in Moss Vale pretty early and drove the final part of our journey to Sydney, or so we thought! After an hour on the road, we pulled up at Narellan Motor Inn. We quickly checked in, showered and changed and went to meet the others. Simon & Adam had been in the queue since 9am & it was now almost 1pm so they had made it to the front much quicker than expected and the others had joined them and they were already in the park! This meant our plan of them queuing for a while and us joining them to let them go off for food and drinks was now foiled. It turned out that our desire to find somewhere cheap to stay meant that we weren't actually anywhere near Sydney and it took us a taxi, a train & almost an hour to get into the city! We finally arrived in the city centre at about 2pm and set about finding the Botanic Gardens. We had a horrible feeling we were going to be joining the end of a huge queue and would be standing outside for the next 4 hours! However, the queue was moving swiftly and we were in the gates within 20 minutes! This was an amazing stroke of luck. Finding everyone though proved to be very difficult and the next 30 minutes were spent searching the crowds until Chantell had the bright idea of going and standing next to something obvious so we could find her and then she guided us back to the group! The gardens holds 17000 people so we may have been a while if not.

Once we'd been escorted to the group we were introduced to some of Simon and Chantell's friends, Megan, Megan and Trent . Soon after the introductions, drinks were placed into our hands. The boys all with beers and me with a glass of the cheapest champagne you can imagine, except it wasn't cheap with the beers costing $7 a can an the champagne costing $40!! The only plus side was that if you returned the empties you got $1 per can and $8 for the champagne bottle. This meant that when the boys went back for more drinks they even grabbed empty cans out of the wheelie bins where others clearly hadn't found out about this deal yet! They also got lots of laughs and people asking why they had their arms full of empty cans whilst standing in the line. The drinks flowed all afternoon and we had a brilliant time sharing stories, taking photos and generally being silly.

The only downside to spending the day in a park with 17,000 people, most of whom are drinking is the toilet facilities! The organisers had tried hard and had ordered in a huge number of portaloos but inevitably the demand outweighed the number available massively! While the girls had no option but to stand patiently in the queues, the boys came up with a genius & hilarious plan and went off 'dolphin spotting'!!!! This was were they went and stood up against a bush slightly out of the way and shouted DOLPHIN! as they pointed at the harbour . Believe it or not, this idea actually caught on with lots of random men unzipping there flies whilst running to join them in spotting these elusive dolphins and the security seemed fooled by their cover story!

At about 9pm, the first set of fireworks went off, this is the display for the children as many of them don't make it all the way to midnight and it was surprising how much the park cleared after this as the families made their way home. A few hours later, our patience was rewarded when the most spectacular fireworks display I've ever seen started! It was incredible! We all rushed forward to get a good spot, Megan & I had a perfect view between two trees (sometimes being short has its advantages!) and we were able to get some brilliant photos! They call it 'blowing up the bridge' and its pretty obvious why! The harbour bridge was quite literally set ablaze in every colour imaginable! You could feel the excitement of all the people around you and the 'oohs & aahs' were so loud!

With the fireworks now over it was time to leave the garden . As all the hordes of people all walked out we decided to stop for a group photo, this then ended up with the drunk and childish boys finding it hilarious to take immature semi naked pictures in front of the big lights on the side of the art gallery. Of course this was rather amusing so even us girls got stuck in in the end, although we did keep our underwear on! We then had to make the long walk back across the city to the others' hotel room. This took about 40-45 minutes, possibly even longer as we all joked around and me, Matt and Gareth took in the sights as we'd never seen Sydney before. Once we arrived at the hotel, Matt then decided to crack open the goon we had bought to take to the park but left there as you couldn't take any in. This wasn't his best idea as by the time we then left for the train at 3:30ish he was even more drunk! We made our way across the city by tram to Central Station then set about finding the right train back to Campbelltown. This was actually much harder than we had anticipated as, according to the screens, the next train didn't leave until 5:50am!!!!! We hunted about for anyone who worked there and may be able to help but other than the cleaners & security there was no one!!! We tried looking for a night bus but with no luck! In the end we found a volunteer who assured us there were other trains running and we just needed to get to platform 23! When we got there, we discovered the next train was leaving in 15 minutes so we were very relieved! Eventually we made it back to Campbelltown and jumped in a taxi to Narellan, making it into bed just before 5:30am!!!!!

Needless to say, the next morning, none of us were very keen to get up and it was gone 11 before any of us managed to get out of bed! Matt had the genius idea of going for a swim to try and wake himself up a bit but once under the water, he soon realised that drunk swimming really wasn't a very clever idea and quickly relaxed by the side in the sun . Returning to try and motivate me and Gareth!

We had arranged to meet some of our fellow travel buddies at Coogee Beach for a BBQ so we dragged ourselves out of bed, got a taxi to the station and jumped on a train to the city! This wasn't a very pleasant journey with us all feeling a bit worse for wear. At Central Station we had to change trains and head towards Bondi Junction before climbing on a bus to Coogee! We really hadn't anticipated how long that journey would take and how difficult it would be: the barrier ate our tickets at Bondi Junction and the bus ticket machine ate our money! We couldn't believe it was already 5pm by the time we got to Bondi Junction! With a dinner reservation at Darling Harbour for 7pm there was no way we could get to Coogee and back in time so we made the tough decision not to go! This was especially difficult as we'd dragged ourselves up specially when we really could of stayed in bed or by the pool. Gareth, however, had arranged to meet his friend Pip at Coogee, she was already there and was on her own so he had to go and miss dinner!

Matt & I had a quick wander around Bondi Junction before jumping back on the train and heading back to Chantell, Simon, Adam & Megan's hotel! Once there, we got changed and then headed down to Darling Harbour to meet Megan & Trent at Blue Fish restaurant right on the harbour's edge next to Pyrmont Bridge! It was a lovely evening and a delicious meal! Gareth made it back just in time for dessert which was lucky as his favourite, Banana Split, was on the menu! Although he wasn't too impressed when we ordered it for him then after eating it he discovered it cost $20!

Still worn out from the night before, we all decided to go our separate ways straight after dinner so we made our way back to Central Station and, now knowing our way about, went straight to platform 23! It soon became apparent that Matt had been much more drunk the night before than we had realised as he had absolutely no clue how to get to the station or where to go once we were there!! Luckily Gareth & I are more responsible! Haha!

Once safely back at the motel we were all glad to get to bed knowing there would be no lay ins in the morning as we had to be back up and in the road for 9:30am!!

The best New Year ever in my opinion and I'm very much looking forward to everything that 2013 will bring! Wishing all of our friends & family a year filled with love and happiness and we look forward to seeing you all soon!