A cracker of a night

31st December in Sydney implies you better pack a picnic hamper and start camping from 7 am to grab a front seat display for the midnight fireworks. Yes, you read that right - people are crazy enough to even start camping two days in advance. But we were too lazy and impatient for this sort of ardent lingering. So at 6 pm we nonchalantly packed a small dinner and set off for one of the farther and lesser know parks of north Sydney hoping that most tourists would hanker around the iconic Opera House region, leaving a lot of breathing space in the vantage points farther away. But then, to be honest, the wait - 2 hours or 2 days - was worth it. Seeing the full pyrotechnics for the first time, I can only say it  took away my breath (and a lot of camera card space). Ostentatious, overwhelming, grand are but a handful of adjectives that I can use to describe. It will be hopeless to paint this picture in words, so I have posted a few of the 700+ photos that I kept clicking in absolute bewilderment during the 12 minute show at midnight. But before that, a few facts for the fireworks:

• An estimated 1.6 million people flooded into central Sydney to watch the country's largest New Year's Eve fireworks display - this viewership beats London, NY, Paris, Berlin or Dubai

• The fireworks apparently cost a staggering AUD 7 Million for the 12 minutes of display. Contrast this to the GBP 2 million spent for an equally flamboyant firework display over the Big Ben in London - well, the Englishmen definitely got more value for money. Dubai spent similar to Sydney for setting aglow its new year around the Burj Khalifa

• The Sydney fireworks focused on the red color as a tribute to its aboriginal populace

• There is a kids fireworks display at 9 pm so that kids can see them and go to sleep, without needing to wake up till 12 night - now that's called catering to all age groups

• Approximately 11,000 shells, 25,000 shooting comets and 100,000 individual pyrotechnic effects were used in the display, made up of seven tonnes of fireworks!

Ok...enough of trivia, lets get down to the pictures

The fantastic view from Yurulbin Park (hush...wanna keep that a secret)

Woohoo...and here it begins