A Tennessee Girl in Oz: More International Fleet Review

Saturday was the pinnacle of the International Fleet Review here in the city. I can't really over-emphasize what a big deal this was. Australians in general seem to have a lot of national pride in their military and their service men and women. That combined with the long weekend, school holidays, and amazing weather brought people out in droves to see all the festivities. A lot of the best vantage points were at Milsons Point so we had lots of activity in our area!

On our way back from Chatswood, we got off a couple stops early because 1) the train was packed with people heading in for festivities, and 2) we knew that some of the warships were docked at Waverton so we wanted to try and see them. We walked down to the water, and sure enough, we had a good view of some of the ships there!

Later that afternoon after we'd gotten back to the apartment, I went out to check on how things were going. This was the view of the park about 6 hours before the fireworks were supposed to start.

However, these people also got good views of the fighter jet and helicopter displays during the afternoon. We watched from our balcony and it was awesome!!

I had my good camera, so I was able to get some better shots of the boats out in the harbor.

We stayed in the nice cool, shaded apartment until that evening when it was time for fireworks. Then we jammed down into the park with everyone else to watch the laser/fireworks show. It was fantastic! Many of the boats that were part of the fleet review pulled into areas around the harbor and shot off fireworks, so it really felt like fireworks were all around you.

Of courses it's pretty much impossible to take good fireworks pictures with a phone, but in this one you can kind of see one of the ships that has pulled under the bridge to participate in the show.

But here's a pic from the website for the event that better captures the feel of the show:

In addition to all the ships, planes, helicopters, and fireworks, there was one other big deal on Saturday: Prince Harry came out to greet the crowd and inspect the fleet! We, of course, didn't see him, but apparently he was quite close to us.