Thousands of people flocked to Wollongong’s coastline to herald the arrival of 2017, with many extending their New Year’s Eve celebrations overnight and well into New Year’s Day.
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North Wollongong’s Stuart Park began filling with tents from Friday afternoon, in preparation for Saturday night’s fireworks display.
Balgownie’s Luzaic family was among the crowd, spending Saturday afternoon barbecuing beachside with Cordeaux Heights’ Selak family.
The group had arrived at 11am in order to snag a good spot, said Alex Luzaic, tongs in hand.
“The kids are swimming and we’re waiting for a few more families to come,” he said.
“This is the third year we’ve done it. We started off right down near the Lagoon and we worked our way up this year. The kids are out of my hair. It’s near the beach. You feed em, then they’re gone away.”
“We’ll go home after 9.30pm and go to bed.”
Fifteen-year-old Iraqi refugee Yousif Odeesh travelled from Fairfield with 18 relatives to pitch multiple tents near the waterfront on Friday afternoon.
The family brought with them a seven-foot high stack of air mattresses, chairs, tables and a deck of cards to pass the time as they waited for the 9pm sky show.
It was a celebration a world away from his Iraq village home.
“We’re just playing soccer and going to the beach and having fun,” Yousif said.
While most of the crowd thinned out after the fireworks, the festivities continued well into Sunday morning for hundreds of campers.
At 9am on New Year’s Day, occupants of the makeshift campground at Stuart Park were sleepily waking up as early morning exercisers jogged past.
After a night in tents, or in the back of their trucks or cars parked along Cliff Road, campers puffed on hookah pipes, fired up coal barbecues and shared breakfast, while kids (and some adults) kept snoozing for hours on air mattresses and the camp structures still set up from the night before.
In years past, the council has attempted to enforce a no camping rule in the beachside park, with signs telling people they may erect shade structures – but not camping style tents – during the day and must take these down by 6pm.
This message, it appeared, failed to get through for 2017 festivities, with the groups – most from Western Sydney – settling in for the long haul.
A small group of rangers lingered at the far side of the park, showing no sign of issuing fines for illegal camping.
Elsewhere along the foreshore, where revellers had picnicked and partied the night before, was quiet and free from rubbish as the first day of 2017 began.
