Sydney to Hobart

The Sydney to Hobart boat race takes place every Boxing Day, so this was the first time we’ve been able to see it. We’ve been told that the best place to view it is from the water on a boat. However, we don’t have a boat (yet!), so we were restricted to land.

This year 117 boats took part, ranging from a 31 to a 98 footer and the winner was Wild Oats, taking 1 day, 18 hours and 40 minutes!
We decided to watch the start of the race from Bradley’s Head, as well as a load of other people, obviously, but it wasn’t as busy as we expected. We’d settled down (with the picnic as usual), but discovered from a ranger that the best view could be had from the beach just 2 minutes down the road. So off we trotted! The view point was much lower down, closer to the water, but you could see more – no trees in the way!

It was another scorcher of a day, so we had hats, shirts and sun cream. [As a side note, I caught the sun yesterday, even though I spent the majority of the day in our sun shelter – amazing!] There were hundreds of boats of all shapes and sizes – it was incredible to see so many together. We were a little behind the starting line and as soon as the horn went, all the boats disappeared into the distance following the those in the actual race.
Then we went back up to Bradley’s Head just to finish off the picnic and the usual……relax!! After a while, all the spectator boats started to come back into the harbour, which was quite funny.
Once all the snap was gone, we packed up and headed back to the city. We wanted to show mum and dad where we first started off in Sydney – at the Wharf, Woolloomooloo, so made a little detour there on the way home.

That evening, we went into Darling Harbour for dinner at Nick's Seafood restaurant. We had a fantastic meal overlooking the harbour. This was the last evening in Sydney for mum and dad, and it finished off the day and their stay wonderfully.