There’s a vivid festival of light. At night the opera house becomes the ‘screen’ for many images. Custom house lights up and installations spotted around the harbour do their thing.

So Andrew and I went during the day!

Courtesy of a public holiday, an RDO and me just being tired enough to put in for another day, I’ve got 5 days away from work. Mister decided that he’d surprise me on my first day off with an unexpected outing. Only problem was that I had a massive headache and was very cold, so the first part of the outing was me behaving like I’d drunk too many the night before… at least until the headache tablets kicked in.

‘And where are we going?’

‘To see the Sea Shepherd! And to the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art)! And then boot shopping!’

Yes, girls. A man volunteering to take me shopping. I swear he’s the woman in our relationship. He cooks. He cleans. He complains if I put something someone it’s not supposed to go. He’s eager to go shopping – IKEA, freedom, shoe shopping – all good things. Lastly, he sings while cooking breakfast – this morning he had a duet with Billie Holiday.

Meanwhile, I groan at the thought of shopping. I’d like it if I could remove all the people and find shoes which fit my feet!

Sea Shepherd Crew Member. Circular Quay, Sydney.

Sea Shepherd

It was a boat.

I find it hard to get excited about boats.

They are big things which float (or not if it’s the titanic), rock and generally make me want to throw up over the side.

Yet I can understand Andrew has a particular passion for this boat and it’s mission to stop Japanese Whaling. It was clear that passion was present in the gaggle of Sea Shepherd Crew members scattered around the harbour.

I don’t have any decent photos of the boat. I did like it’s adaptation of the ‘pirate logo’ and the painted shark jaws on the front.

Vivid Festival

Viewing the vivid festival in the daytime was not such a silly exploit. There are many installations aside from the light shows, not least of which is a giant chandelier built around a pole near the jetty.

It’s not often you get to photograph the Sydney Opera House with a giant chandelier in the foreground

Light source or UFO?

A giant cube of colour

The opera house taken through an installation of metal and green string

High in the air: a metal and balloon bridge

My favourite – the white bubble poles