Sydney people gave visitors the warmest of welcomes. An army of 47,000 volunteers made the city a byword in civic duty. Whether in obscure railway stations or in the heart of live sites, there always seemed to be someone in a coloured uniform to give advice.

As an experiment, a radio show sent a researcher into the streets dressed as an American tourist, and each time he was offered help by passers by within an average of one minute and six seconds. The presenter Richard Glover was contacted by listener Edilia Ford, a third generation Chinese citizen, to complain that every time she stepped outside her house she was welcomed to Sydney.

The Games have produced a new generation of sporting heroes and heroines, well chronicled by my colleagues from the Irish Times sports department.

But for many the unsung hero of the Olympics was "Wally the fat-arsed wombat", the alternative Olympic mascot who did a lot to deflate the pretentiousness of the International Olympic Committee - which tried to ban it - and prove that Australians don't take themselves too seriously.

The satirical TV show "The Dream" which invented Wally put it up for on line auction this week and almost immediately received bids of more than £20,000. A "Wombat Cocktail" of chocolate and banana liqueur, vodka and cream (designed to induce more fat bottoms) proved more popular at a Sports Illustrated reception on Thursday than the official cocktails, "Screaming Orgasm", "Beyond 2000" and "The Olympia".

As the 27th Olympics end, Sydney faces the mother of all hangovers. The effect of coming down from a 17-day adrenalin-induced high is something that worries the city's psychologists. People will feel flat, depressed and lethargic, wondering what on earth to do with themselves, one was reported as saying.

The potential for emotional distress is being taken so seriously that Australian athletes and officials will all be offered counselling on how to handle the sudden emptiness in their lives. A flood of people with relationship crises is expected to descend on marriage guidance counsellors in a repeat of what Anne Hollonds of the Relationships Australia marriage counselling organisation called the Millennium effect, when people start reviewing their relationships after the distraction of a great event.

At the Olympic Village, the end of the Games means cleaning up as 16,000 athletes and officials leave for home. It has been a hell of a party out there what with the high level of sexual energy and tensions. Every athlete was given 51 condoms in a welcome pack but 20,000 more had to be delivered on Friday.

Olympic Village mayor Graham Richardson was quick to assure us that "there's not much evidence of open bonkage" in the athletes' quarters, adding however, "if there is, it's being done with great discretion."

The most distasteful job for cleaners at the Village is disposing of discarded hypodermic needles. These have been found in the living quarters of some 20 countries, with Bulgaria setting the record for irresponsibility; Olympics staff refused to enter their rooms after two cleaners were injured by used needles.

There's been a bit of pilfering too, with several athletes quietly sent home. Items ripped off by Friday totalled IR£10,000 worth of medical equipment, including heart monitors, £15,000 worth of athletes' property and £20,000 of shoes and clothing from the Olympic store.

And there is of course one last big blow out in the form of Sunday's closing ceremony. It will feature Kylie Minogue and other stars, and 200 drag queens will participate in a celebration of the Oscar-winning film, "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert".

It will be climaxed with what artistic director Ignatius Jones describes as "closure on a massive scale" (the psychologists will love that). Two F-111 jets will fly directly over the Olympic flame as it is extinguished and will dump and burn fuel, creating a dramatic "river of lightening" along a 14-kilometre corridor to Harbour Bridge through a cascade of exploding fireworks including two giant cannon shells. The Games will literally, it seems, end with a bang.