HAPPY NEW YEAR from Sydney

For once we were close to the action on Sydney Harbour.

Midnight is normally way past our bedtime.

If Mevrouw T and I ever bother to celebrate the changing of the calendar, it’s usually a nice dinner with family and friends, switch on the telly to see the children’s fireworks at 9pm and that’s about it.

This year, a friend won Sydney harbourside tickets and kindly invited us along.

SAILING SYDNEY, FORMULA 1 STYLE

The America’s Cup Experience – now for everyone. Photo courtesy Sailing Sydney.

There are many ways to get out on Sydney Harbour, all of them good. You can take a ferry ride to Manly or (my preferred option) Watson’s Bay. You can scream in a jet-boat, paddle a kayak or cruise on a party boat with DJ and bar.

Or you can do as I just did, and take to the water on a thoroughbred racing yacht designed to win the America’s Cup. Thanks, Sailing Sydney, for having this landlubber aboard.

TREKKING SYDNEY HARBOUR – write around the edge

Bushland with a view - Bradley's Head.

The account of my epic trek around Sydney’s greatest tourist attraction has now appeared in print.

Yes, I know yesterday’s news is today’s fish and chip wrapper, but for those who were unfortunate enough to miss the relevant edition of the Sunday Sun-Herald, here’s what I wrote…

SYDNEY HARBOUR WALK – an historic finale

It's pretty damn spectacular when you reach the Pacific Ocean.

Soon after he landed with the First Fleet in 1788, Governor Arthur Phillip decided he ought to get to know his neighbours, the Aborigines.

He liked the look of the ones he’d seen around North Head. He’d even named the area Manly, after the manly specimens of the species that camped there. So Phillip kidnapped a gentleman called Arabanoo and took him back to Sydney Cove. It was the sort of thing governors did in the days before pesky human rights commissions made it all more complicated.

All went swimmingly for a while. Arabanoo learned English and taught the new arrivals some of his Cadigal language. But a year later Arabanoo died in a smallpox outbreak, and Phillip himself was speared (not fatally) at Spring Cove, just round the corner from Manly.

SYDNEY HARBOUR DAY 12 – the best bushwalking so far

That's North Head in the distance. The end of the road is in sight.

If you want a nature walk by Sydney Harbour, this is as good as it gets. The ten kilometre track through the national park from The Spit to Manly is easy to walk if you don’t mind a few steps, gives lovely views out over the water and offers a useful coffee stop by the water at Clontarf.

SYDNEY HARBOUR WALK DAY 10 – the artists’ trail

The city viewed from the leafy North Shore.

I’m back on the track again, picking up my epic journey around the water. I went to the zoo, walking the 11.7km of coastline between the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Taronga. Along the way, I met some famous artists.