Vivid Sydney!

We happened to be in Sydney when the Vivid festival started this year.  We hadn’t planned it, but I am so glad we were there for it!  Vivid is unique to Sydney and it’s just spectacular. There are several aspects to Vivid.  We came into the city one evening to view the light installations.  Since it’s winter it gets dark before six, so we came into the city early.  Even with that, it was a very late night for us.  The kids didn’t make it into bed until after midnight, something that doesn’t happen very often for them.  We made it, public transportation and all! There was so much to see and we didn’t try to see it all.  This building had moving images projected onto it, like a video showing on the side of the building.  It was very creative, all kinds of creatures and landscapes. We rode the ferry over to Darling Harbour since there were a few light installations over that way.  We also wanted a chance to see the bridge from the other side, since that was the side that had lights on it.  As we left the dock we were treated to a beautiful view.  Many of the buildings are lit up during Vivid with all kinds of colours.  See that building on the lower right?  It was another building with moving images projected onto it. Aren’t the lights pretty?  See how the colours changed from the picture above?  I was happy we rode the ferry at night and got to see this pretty view of the buildings at night. Being on a moving ferry some of my pictures inevitably came out blurry.  I like this one, though. Here’s the opera house which had moving images projected onto the sails.  It was quite interesting to watch.  I had a hard time getting decent pictures.  That #ilovesydney is on a boat in front of the opera house. Another view of the Sydney skyline as we moved further away.  So pretty! As we went under the bridge we happily watched the lights dancing across the bridge.  Many colours and many patterns.  Also a few trains, can you see it in this picture?  TurboBug watched intently for trains and happily pointed them out to us whenever he saw one.  That #ilovesydney boat changed colours and was also headed under the bridge. Here’s Luna Park, all lit up at night.  The white lights were very bright and make it look quite pretty. Look, now the bridge is purple!  And there’s a vivid! boat. Once we got to Darling Harbour we discovered that we had just missed a light show but another would be starting in twenty minutes or so.  We got some gelato and joined the crowd. We didn’t quite know what to expect.  We were treated to a light show complete with laser lights, music, and water fountains. Then we were back on the ferry to Circular Quay to view some of the light installations over that way.  This is the maritime flag on the ferry.  We were sitting right under it, I knew the picture wouldn’t turn out well, but at least you can tell what it is! One of the stops our ferry made was right at the Luna Park entrance.  I must say we all thought that face was pretty spooky at night, up close, with teeth that were changing colours (I’m assuming that part was for Vivid).  The face has eyelashes.  Long eyelashes.  It was spooky. Another shot of Luna Park and the bridge, see how the bridge isn’t lit up from this side?  This is the side closest to the opera house.  I’m wondering how they do the lights for New Year’s Eve, if it’s all on one side like for Vivid. This is one of the light installations we could see from the ferry.  See the image above the lights that looks like people?  That was being projected onto the side of a building. We stopped at this building to watch the show.  There was music playing and a large crowd watching.  The images change and it’s really fun to watch.  We’ve got a video of this that I’ll upload later. Then we had a look at a few of the light features nearby. These changed colours if you held your hand in the right spot.  The colours would climb the tubes to the next globe. They even had glowing swings that we had to try! These were boxes that you could tap to change the colour. After all this we headed home.  I couldn’t believe how late it was.  As the night wore on we saw fewer and fewer kids out and about.  Two trains and a walk back in the dark to our caravan park.  Definitely exhausting, but definitely worth it!