Queen Mary 2 at Circular Quay

Thursday 8th March 2012

To be honest I am a huge fan of grand sailing ships, especially of the Cunard line. Working in Sydney has given me a great opportunity to see the QE2, QM2 and Queen Victoria ships in Sydney Harbour. Out of the three, only the QM2 had not berthed at the Overseas Passenger Terminal. It would instead find a spot at Garden Island but on the 7th/8th March this changed.

When I was reading an online verison of a local newspaper I saw a video of them positioning the QM2 and thought it was fake. Sure enough, it found pride of place between the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Never to give up an opporunity I decided to pack the cameras to capture some pictures and video of its stay. The weather forecast for the evening of the 7th March/morning of the 8th March was for rain but the bureau of Meteorology said it was going to clear.

It turned out to be a great evening when I got down to Circular Quay by train. The station provides fantastic views over Circular Quay. The QM2 looked huge and the ferries moving past her were tiny in comparison. I took a few shots with the SLR and video before exiting and making my way up to the Cahill Expressway which runs along top of the train line. This too offers fantastic opportunity to capture images and video. I ended up spending around 90 minutes up there taking long exposure shots and ended with me capturing this final image of the QM2 with Sydney Harbour Bridge to the right and Venus and Jupiter in the top left. 

I have around 30 minutes to get down from the Cahill Expressway and take up residence near the Opera House for the QM2's departure. I walked along the East Circular Quay past the bars and restaurants and up to the top level of the Opera House. This gave me good views to the Overseas Passenger Terminal. Just before 8.30pm the tugs positioned themselves to help ease the QM2 into Sydney Harbour. She sounded her fog horn a number of times before getting out into the main channel and turning right to go past Fort Denison before turning left past Bradley's Head. It was at this point that we lost sight of the QM2 but are left with memories of a fine looking ship.

Here is one of the videos that I took....

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