And Nyperold even saw some of the New Zealand ceremonies on TV!

On the morning of Jan 1, I realised another great thing about living here. Being the first major (relatively speaking, of course) country to get to the New Year, I could enjoy the fireworks etc here in Auckland, see the most hyped sunrise in the last 2000 years (which did not in fact occur as planned, but we did get some very mystical-looking mist and cloud effects instead), and *still* get home in time to watch live TV coverage of all the other big events around the world. The biggest global party the world has ever known, and I didn't miss ANY of it! Cool.

So what did I do? Well, on New Year's Eve I headed down to my boat at about 6pm, hoping to avoid the traffic later on as the entire population of Auckland headed for its nearest volcanic cone to nab a good fireworks-viewing spot. As I was rowing out to the mooring, the skies opened. Torrential downpour. So anyway, I put up a tarpaulin over the boom to make myself a nice little rain-proof back porch, cooked some dinner, and sat there enjoying the cool air until it got dark around 8-9pm. I was planning on sailing around to the inner harbour area at midnight to watch the fireworks, but by 11.30 it was still raining and the wind was pretty strong, so I decided not to risk it on my own, and stayed on the mooring overnight.

So I missed most of the "official" fireworks (I could see the higher ones behind the headland, though) but there were plenty of unofficial ones going on all night which I could see and hear, not to mention the cannons from the naval base and the concerts all over the place. I took two rolls of photographs, a lost cause I know, but I had to try. Most of it seemed to be over by about 1.30am so I went to bed and then got up at 4am to see what was happening about the sunrise. I could hear that 2000-person haka all the way from Okahu Bay. I waited a while longer for the visibility to improve a bit, then I sailed around to the city and up as far as the Harbour Bridge just to see what was happening. By about 6.30-7am the mist and rain was gone and it was turning into a beautiful day. It was a pretty good way to start the New Year. Around 9 or 10 I got back home and settled down to see what the rest of the world was getting up to.

Like I said to some people in chat, once I get my photos developed I'm going to put them on a web page somewhere for you all to see. This is assuming any of them come out at all, which is unlikely, but you never know. The ones I took in daylight should be OK, at least.

And as for my New Year's resolutions, I resolved that in my first post here for 2000 I would tell everybody my real name and gender. I'm sure you're all happy to know that this year's resolutions have already gone the way they usually do. Gosh, it only took me ten minutes to finish typing this message and decide I wouldn't after all. :-)

Happy New Year, everybody.