Blue is the hue in Sydney this New Year’s Eve

Soulful, sexy, sophisticated – they say these three words sum up the spirit of Sydney!

And the colour that reflects this incredible spirit is of course blue – the colour of the shimmering, sparkling waters of the Sydney Harbour and the varying hues of the Sydney sky - from a pale, clear, translucent blue to a deep, intense, velvet blue!

People of Sydney will awaken to and rejoice in this amazing spirit this New Year’s Eve by wearing blue for the celebrations. The celebrations are focused to awaken the spirit of the land, water, sky and people of Sydney - true to the aboriginal beliefs!

So what will you wear this New Year’s Eve?

Something that resembles the azure of the sky with pearl-white clouds scattered all over?

Or the cobalt blue waters of the sea besprinkled with colourful yachts?

Or the silky sapphire night with stars like diamonds strewn across it?

Oh! Well! Whatever! Wear your own touch of blue to add to the mood of the hour and enjoy the spirit of Sydney!

Family Fun Day at Coogee

Christmas is here and it is time for loads of shopping and a lot of fun with family!

This is precisely the right time to take a weekend break with your family as a prelude to the heaps of fun you are inevitably going to have for Christmas and New Year’s Eve, if you are in Sydney especially! Coogee Beach would be an ideal choice of place and the 5th of December – the Coogee Family Fun Day – would be the ideal day.

With heaps of shopping, live entertainment, numerous rides and a variety of food stalls, both adults and kids can have a lively and interesting weekend at the Coogee Beach! Santa’s appearance would be the highlight of the weekend and kids can have fun with Santa and take snaps with him to preserve the memory of the day until next Christmas!

Nickelodeon Slime Time Show is a major feature of the day, all profits made from which will go to Sydney Children’s Foundation, Randwick.

If you can’t make it for the Family Fun Day, go on any other day, for, Coogee Beach is full of fun on any day! Surfing, swimming and trying out some of the exciting eating places will take care of your whole day, but you could always stay back for more! There are accommodation facilities available to suit all expectations!
While daytime in Coogee Beach can be enjoyable with coastal walks, lazy strolls in the lush parklands and umpteen picnic activities, nightlife is thrilling with exciting bars and hotels!

A Film Festival right in the middle of Bondi Beach!

Windsurfing, waterskiing, sunbathing, beach volleyball, trendy eateries, buzzing markets – that’s not all that’s exciting on Bondi Beach!
Bondi Short Film Festival is a major cultural event that will take place on November 28 on the Bondi Beach.

The Bondi Pavillion, which sits right at the centre of the beach, has an amphitheatre which will show a total of 15 exciting Australian short films selected from a total of 190 entries. Every year the festival attracts movie buffs in large numbers resulting in a quick sellout.

The festival presents films belonging to a wide range of genres, styles and schools of thought.

The event, which allows healthy competition among good films made by both new and established movie makers, has been a stepping stone to many a budding film maker’s success.

The festival is also noteworthy for its impressive panel of judges.
So, all ye film enthusiasts, whether films be your hobby, passion, life or profession, beeline to Bondi for an amazing experience of films in the most outstanding of locations!

For more info regarding the event and availability of tickets: http://www.bondishortfilmfestival.com/

The irresistible beaches of Sydney

Any time is beach time in Sydney except during extreme winter. Its climate being warm generally, what with the sun shining bright sometimes even in winter, Sydney attracts people to its beaches throughout the year. Sydney has both ocean beaches and harbour beaches. Of its beaches, Bondi, Coogee and Manly are the most popular both internationally and locally.

Sydney is lined with beaches on the east. Indeed, wherever you may be in Sydney, you are never far away from a beach, except if you are in the far west. There lies a string of beaches from Palm Beach in the north to Cronulla in the south, facing the pacific. On the western side, across Pittwater, lie the Great Mackerel Beach and the Currawong Beach.

The harbour is the greatest attraction in Sydney and along the foreshores of the harbour stretch the Redleaf, Nielsen Park, Parsley Bay and Camp Cove beaches. Though without surf, these beaches are still highly frequented. Lady Jane and Obelisk are nudist beaches on the Sydney harbour. These are but a few of the irresistible beaches of Sydney!

Folks in Sydney just love the sea, the sun and the sand. Come leisure time, they head straight for the beach. Of course, beaches in Sydney offer endless opportunities for interesting activities! The main things to do would be surfing, skiing, sunbathing and playing beach games. Scuba diving, if you are the adventurous kind, or fishing, if you are not so, are some of the other activities. There are trendy restaurants and boutiques and immense opportunities for nightlife on the Sydney beaches. And don’t resist, just give in to the temptation of a barbeque on the beach!

To put in a nutshell, without enjoying the Sydney beaches, the Aussie experience would never be complete!

Wine, dine and romance on a Sydney Harbour Cruise

It’s Christmastime and the New Year’s almost here! This is the time you think of your loved ones the most.

What gifts would you buy them? How would you spend some invaluable time with them? What exclusive occasion would you organise for them to be remembered for the rest of the year?
Would you (but then who wouldn’t?) love to steal away from the hustle and bustle of daily routine to a special place with a special person and then treasure those special moments in your hearts for the rest of your lives?


Good time spent in good company over good wine and good food would be the most memorable of all gifts! There are restaurants galore in Sydney that cater to all kinds - in quality of both food and ambience. But none of them can give your occasion that romantic feel as the Cruising Restaurants of Sydney who offer lunch, dinner and special event cruises around the Sydney Harbour!

The wine, the food and the ambience in the setting of the beautiful harbour give your perfect love story just that right touch of fantasy, not to mention the music!

So what would be your choice? A cosy lunch or a romantic dinner on a boat that cruises lazily across the waters of the harbour in careless abandon?

Spring in Sydney

While spring is the best time of the year anywhere in the world, spring is rather special in Sydney. Spring is generally cool, though towards late spring, it grows warmer.

During early spring, the weather is just great in Sydney for a walking expedition. At The Rocks, at the southern end of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the buildings remind one of a historic past, and the souvenir shops reflect a cultural past as well as a glorious present!

Explore Chinatown on foot! Gorge on a wide yummy variety of Chinese food at restaurants that stay open late into the night! The Chinese temples are worth a re-look even if you have seen them before.

Head for the beaches, for this is the best time for trying your skill at surfing and skiing! Play beach games or just laze around and enjoy the sun – there’s nowhere like the beaches in Sydney and that too during the spring!

Take a ferry ride or enjoy a romantic cruise around the Sydney Harbour!

Take a monorail tour of Darling Harbour before you choose just where to step in – a restaurant, a coffee shop, or a boutique?

Most assuredly, in Sydney, one finds a spring in every step!

When’s the best time to visit Sydney?

The New Year’s Eve, of course!

The New Year’s Eve celebrations around the Sydney Harbour are the best in the world. Sydney New Year’s Eve is famous for its fireworks and the light decorations on the Sydney Harbour Bridge that display a specific message every year!
There are several other reasons too as to why it is best to visit Sydney during New Year’s Eve.

Sydney’s celebrations of the New Year precede those of most of the other major cities of the world, as Sydney is ahead of them in time.

In Sydney, New Year’s Eve is right in the middle of summer and so the weather is quite pleasant and comfortable enough to let you stay up the whole night and watch the spectacular fireworks as well as dance well into the New Year!

A cruise boat on the Sydney Harbour that is also part of the Harbour of Light Parade gives the best New Year’s Eve experience in the world. The best views of the light decorations of the Harbour Bridge and those of the Opera House and other prominent buildings are from the deck of a cruise boat. The cruise boats sail past these iconic structures allowing views from different angles. The fireworks on the Harbour Bridge are seen closest from a cruise boat that is part of the Parade which is just another reason to be on the cruise boat! Besides, one can dine and dance away into the dawn of the New Year!


There is a small catch here, however! The bookings for New Year’s Eve boat cruises begin early in the year. Sometimes the seats are sold out months in advance!
So make a dash for it, you could be just lucky!

Thematic displays of Sydney New Year’s Eve

Sydney is rightfully known as the New Year’s Eve capital of the world, with its spectacular fireworks that surpass all of its kind in the rest of world and the thematic lighting and fireworks that leave the world gasping in wonder!

On the Eve, the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, the cruises that participate in the Harbour of Light Parade and each and every nook, corner and crevice around the Sydney Harbour is decorated with lights. Every year, the lighting on the bridge has a new thematic display. The cruises that join the parade also are decorated according to a theme chosen months before. The synchronised fireworks set off from barges, buildings and different locations on the bridge with wondrous precision also display a specific message every year. The message or the theme displayed by the lighting and fireworks on the bridge has been colloquially called the ‘bridge effect’ by the Sydneysiders.

The most famous bridge effects in the past years have been the ‘Smiley’ in 1998, ‘Eternity’ in copperplate writing in 1999, the ‘Dove of Peace’ in 2002, the ‘Love Heart’ in 2005, the ‘Coathanger’ and the ‘Diamond’ in 2006, the ‘Sand Timer’ in 2007 and ‘the Sun’ in 2008.

Every year, the framework for the effect is visible months before the event which leaves the public wondering and speculating on what that year’s would be.

As the day nears, the excitement, the anticipation and the suspense builds up as the world awaits the event with bated breath!

Sydney New Year’s Eve fireworks – a display of cutting-edge pyrotechnics

Of course, you would have heard of the New Year’s Eve fireworks in Sydney. And of course, you would have seen it – on television at least – every year, for this is one of the most, if not the most, famous and the most televised New Year’s Eve fireworks in the world.

The New Year’s Eve firework display in Sydney is known for its synchronised perfection and its technological precision. It has been an awesome show of advanced pyrotechnics every year. Fireworks are launched from barges and rooftops, and from various locations on the Harbour Bridge. It has been estimated that this year the show will use over 3000 kilograms of explosive devices including shells and shooting comets and other special features and effects!

WOW - to say the least!

Sydney Christmas - a feast of fish

In Sydney, it’s Christmas time and it’s summer! There’s neither snow nor snowman, and the Santa doesn’t come riding on his sleigh. Besides, who would want to stay indoors and roast the turkey when the weather’s warm and the outdoors inviting! Even the Santa is visualised as waterskiing, surfboarding, sunbathing and sporting trendy swimming trunks!

Australians generally prefer fish for their Christmas feast and not the traditional roast turkey. Indeed it is traditional to eat fish for Christmas in Australia! In Sydney, the Fish Markets in Blackwattle Bay are crowded with people shopping for fish during Christmas time. A Christmas feast in Sydney is typically a feast of fish, or rather seafood.

Christmas parties, lunches and dinners organised across the city of Sydney also offer seafood in its varied forms and kinds. In fact, the leading restaurants and other eating places in Sydney and around the Sydney Harbour vie with each other in serving a wide variety of delicious seafood which the harbour is famous for!

There are Christmas party cruises operated around the Sydney Harbour during this season. People enjoy these cruises which give them a respite from their usual mundane activities and from the arduous task of preparing the Christmas feast!Magistic Cruises and Sydney Showboats offer Christmas party cruises where vast spreads of choice seafood is freshly prepared onboard and presented with five-star flourish!

Little wonder Christmas is a celebration of seafood, summer and the great outdoors in Sydney!

Sydney Harbour cruise - A Sydney Showboat experience

Being in Sydney and not being to Sydney Harbour or on a harbour cruise is a sheer waste of a vacation for the Sydney tourist and an injustice to oneself, if one is a Sydneysider. A cruise around the beautiful harbour past the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House is in itself an experience of a lifetime.


Cruises around Sydney Harbour are available aplenty – Matilda Cruises, Magistic Cruises and many more t o mention. Magistic Cruises - are known for their superior ambience, fine quality dining experience and personal attention to guests.

However, cruises like those on the Sydney Showboats provide not only superior dining quality and ambience, but also live entertainment such as cabaret, DJ music and dance, and magic! Sydney Showboats are also known for the attention and care rendered by their staff to the guests. Right from the moment they are welcomed aboard, through the entire course of the cruise till they are returned ashore, the visitors receive fabulous treatment!

Add to all this the sheer exhilaration of sailing, and one would find a Sydney Showboat cruise a unique, incredible experience! They offer special cruises in December for celebrating Christmas and New Year's Eve. There are cruises with spectacular cabaret shows and live jazz bands! So hurry up and book your seats lest you should be late and have to wait another year for this fantastic experience!

New Year’s Eve fireworks in Sydney

Have you ever been for the New Year’s in Sydney? The fireworks on the New Year’s Eve in Sydney are as famous as the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This is one of the events the world watches the most over the wires. You see it once and you know why!

The display happens in two stages – the Family Fireworks at 9 p.m. and the Midnight Fireworks.

What makes the fireworks so impressive is the “bridge effect” as the Sydneysiders casually call it. Every year the fireworks display has a meaningful theme and last year it was “creation.” The sun that was displayed on the Harbour Bridge during the fireworks, as witnessed by the whole world, was spectacular to say the least!
Fireworks are set off from the bridge, nearby buildings and barges on either side of the harbour to form a bright colourful message. There are fireworks launched from roadways too, and eco-friendly pyrotechnics is used for this massive display.

The best way to see the fireworks is to be onboard a cruise boat. From the boat, one can see the display and the lightings around the whole of the harbour from the best of angles. Magistic Cruises and Sydney Showboats provide great dining luxury with extensive deck area from where one can watch the colourful explosion that lights up the Sydney skies! These boats are also part of the Harbour of Light Parade, another spectacular display event on the harbour on the New Year’s Eve.

Don't cook, just party this Christmas!

This Christmas, have a lot of fun and only fun! Enjoy the love and the sharing! Give in to temptation – bask in the general festive spirit! Spend a lot of time with your loved ones and feel happy for the good things to come! For that is what Christmas is all about anyway!

This year enjoy Christmas without the encumbrances of planning and preparing. And shop only for gifts and not for the kitchen! Choose one of the umpteen options in and around Sydney to celebrate Christmas. Or just go for the best of them all – a Christmas cruise!
Indulge in the luxury of quality dining while gliding leisurely on the waters of the Sydney Harbour, and watch the world’s most beautiful icons and Sydney’s famous landmarks parade past you in a sashay!


There are Christmas Party Lunch Cruises, Christmas Party Dinner Cruises and Christmas Party Extended Cruises offered by Magistic Cruises with quality buffet and wine - and unlimited at that - with discounts for group bookings. For more exclusivity you can organise a private deck party or even hire a whole boat for the party.
The Christmas Party Lunch Cruises and Christmas Party Dinner Cruises offered by the Sydney Showboats are spectacular packages with live entertainment such as cabaret shows and live bands.

Gift yourselves a special gift for this Christmas – a Christmas cruise – and party on this Christmas like never before!

When the nation stops on Melbourne Cup Day

Australians not only in Australia but all over the world stop to watch and follow the Melbourne Cup, the famous thoroughbred horse race held on the Flemington Racecourse annually on the first Tuesday of November.

While folks from all walks of the society throng the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, people outside Melbourne watch the race on television. In New Zealand, the major tracks show the race live on large screens and people engage in heavy betting. In fact, Melbourne Cup is known to be the biggest betting event in New Zealand!

Sydney is alive on the Melbourne Cup Day and people generally are upbeat with lots of celebrations, partying, watching the race on television and betting. Fashion shows are held prior to the race to heighten the spirits of the celebration and warm up for the race.

There are exciting cruises around the Sydney Harbour that keep up the spirit of the day as well as augments the anticipation for and the excitement of the race. The Pre-Melbourne Cup Lunch Cruise operated by the Magistic Cruises around the Sydney Harbour is such a one that takes you around the beautiful harbour and returns you in time for the thrill of the race!

The MYERS Fashions on the Field held during the Melbourne Cup Carnival is actually only a link in the long chain of parades that are held throughout Australia during different events in the quest for the best dressed women of Australia!

Diwali cruise

This Diwali, if you are in Sydney and you don’t want to miss any of the works – the jewellery, the finery, the Indian food, music and dance - don’t fret. You can have all of it and more on a Diwali cruise around the Sydney Harbour!



Enjoy the festival in its entire Indian flavour on the shimmering waters of the Sydney Harbour! With the lights of the night reflecting on the waves of the Sydney Harbour, the Festival of Lights will take on a distinctively brighter radiance!

Hopping islands and walking bridges

How would you like to hop a few islands just for the heck of it? If you are game, October is the time and Sydney is the place for it. This is just one of the incredible and amusing events that are part of Crave Sydney. Sydney Harbour Island Hopping is an event where a hopper ferry will take you visiting several islands around Sydney Harbour in one day. The islands too gear up to match the occasion and the mood. While Fort Denison presents you with an array of delicious food, Clark Island gives you a taste of its art and culture and Garden Island lets you a glimpse into their naval history. Shark Island takes the form of a land of wonder and fantasy - a world of unrestrained imagination! Rodd Island will have fabulous music playing in its dance hall where you can dance away a few hours with your partners and friends at the Tea Dance. And then when you stop to rest your tired feet, you can have a light-hearted chat or a tete-a-tete over a cup of tea. For more of cruising fun, go for the cruises around Sydney Harbour that serve you food and wine, and loads of entertainment full of music, dance and magic.

Or are you the outdoors kind? The kind who can make your own fun? Then go for the Perfect Picnic at Clark Island and enjoy the day your own way! The Seven Bridges Walk is yet another option if you are the rugged, sporting kind. This is a community walking event that takes place on October 25, a Sunday, involving the famous bridges of Sydney, and the participants can choose their own start and finish time anywhere between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. from any of the seven villages along the course of the walk. The funds raised from this healthy endeavour goes to charities that support health causes, such as beyondblue, Diabetes Australia NSW, Cancer Council and the Heart Foundation NSW.

The fiesta of Spanish food, Latin bands and spicy salsa

October brings you all this and more to Sydney’s Darling Harbour Fiesta. The fiesta brings all the spice and sensation of Latin America – its music and dance, and its exotic food. It brings to Sydney the sensational Brazilian Carnival girls and the incredible performances of rumba, samba, salsa, tango and flamenco by the world’s best. From October 2 to 5, 2009, the festival will see an array of performances of all kinds of music, rhythm and dance. Shake a leg and move in step with the dancers of cha cha, jive, mambo, and hip-hop. And when you have danced all you can, let yourselves go at the Spanish food fairs!

And, friends, don’t miss the dancing girls of the showboats that cruise the Sydney Harbour and the exciting spread of food provided by the cruises - some of the sensational delights of Sydney during this time. Give in to the magic of music and rhythm and succumb to the fantastic fare of culinary delights!

Crave Sydney

Come September, folks in Sydney are gearing up for Crave Sydney, a festival that spreads across October, celebrating life in Sydney in all its moods, colours and emotions. The festival is full of fun, food, art, music, dance and entertainment , celebrating the unique lifestyle and attitude of Sydney and Sydney-dwellers.

Just in case there are folks out there who don’t know what this strange festival is all about, as the name suggests, the festival is a celebration of life and yearning. Food, art, music, dance or just plain fun - anything is available to your heart’s content. While the food fairs bring in delightfully diverse goodies from across the world, the art events present aesthetic images of life in Sydney and its various memorable moments. In October, Darling Harbour is the world’s hottest venue for live music, dance and entertainment, not to mention exotic food. The lanes and streets of Sydney CBD feature refreshing ideas of healthy and sustainable living with novel living style designs, landscapes, and what not. Seven Bridges Walk and Breakfast on the Bridge are some of the other fun-filled and sporting events. The Sydney Harbour has its own share of festivities and fun, including cruising, food, and music and dance.

So, folks, if you are footloose and carefree, there is no other place to be in like Sydney in October!!