27th December 1999 to 2nd January 2000 (Week 52)

We began the week by visiting Tumut 3,one of the hydro electric powerplants of the Snowy Hydro Scheme. The Snowy mountains usually get up to 1.6 m of rain and snow per year. All this rain and molten snow used to pass via the snowy river directly into the ocean. In the inland of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia a lot of Farmers were depending on constant water supplies to grow their crops. In these dry areas though they quiet often had to suffer from draughts. The idea was now to divert the water from the Snowy River into the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers, so that more water was available to the farmers for irrigation. As a result over 145 km of tunnels and 80 km of aequaducts were built to collect the water, store it in several lakes and pondages, produce electricity from it and then to release it in controlled manner into the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers instead of the Snowy River. The Snowy Hydro Scheme was built from 1949 until 1974 and consist of 16 dams, 7 powerplants and 1 pump station. The total storage capacity is 7'000 Gigalitres, which is 13 times the volume of Sydney Harbour, the worlds biggest natural harbour. Today approximately 1'100 Million liters of water are diverted per year and it became possible to grow and produce every year additional agricultural crops worth almost 2 billion australian dollars.

Next we visited some dear friends in Canberra, and as well the parliament buildings on Capitol Hill and the fountain. As the next destination we drove on towards Sydney were we brought the car to a thorough checkover to TCC. In the meantime we visited our favourite spots around the city and found even some new ones. Sydney was preparing for the New Year celebration of the new millenium. Since months the Campgrounds, Motels and Hotels were solidly booked because a lot of people specifically come to Sydney to view the spectacular fireworks over Sydney Harbour. In the end we were once again damn lucky, we found a room for the 28th and 29th and after somebody had cancelled we could even stay on till the 1st of January. At Cremorne Point, where we stayed, the first people made camp already in the afternoon of the 30th December 1999 to reserve their viewing spot. In the Afternoon of the31st the Ferries stopped their services, roads were blocaded into some locations. People were roaming the streets in a very relaxed and a a joyful mood. Thousands of ships ankered in the inner Harbour to watch the fireworks from their boats. Around 1.5 Million people were located around the vantage points of the inner Harbour. Punctually at midnight the Fireworks started and the Champagne Corks flew. The Fireworks went continously for 25 minutes. An absolutely unforgetable event.