SYDNEY - While Pitt Island in the Chathams has been confirmed by United States naval experts as the first populated place on Earth to see the sun rise next year, Australia is also claiming a place in the sun The United States Naval Observatory - which argues that the nextmillennium will begin in 2001, and not the popular choice of 2000 - said the first piece of land on which the sun would rise was actually Australian.
But it will take some getting to: the spot is in Antarctica, on the headland between Dibble Glacier and Victor Bay, where no one is thought to have been near for years.
The observatory says the sun will set there just before midnight on New Year's Eve and rise again at 12.08 am local time.
The glacier was named in 1946 after a carpenter on a 19th century American ship. There is little evidence of anyone having been in the area since 1958.
The observatory's conclusion that Pitt Island will be the first inhabited place to see the sun rise in the New Year is the same as that reached by the Royal Geographical Society in London. - NZPA
