Aussie Open

We just got back from four great days in Melbourne.  We had tickets to the quarter finals of the Australian Open, and were lucky enough to see lots of big names (Federer, Djokovic, Williams, Li, and lots more) and some really great matches.

We arrived in Melbourne on Monday evening and had two fantastic days of tennis on Tuesday and Wednesday.  The hardest part was sitting in the hot Melbourne sun.  It was only possible to sit in the sun for about an hour before it was necessary to take a shade break.  Even with being covered as much as possible with light clothes, hats and copious amounts of sunscreen, we were still a little burnt at the end of each day and completely exhausted.  It is a full time job just trying to drink enough water to stay hydrated!  The organizers of the tournament are well aware of this and they have amny areas to get shade and a cool drink.  There are tents where you can sit in easy chairs and be misted by water and big fans lining walkways that spray a mist of water (the most popular brand in Queensland is called "Fog Frogs").   (We're complaining about sitting in the sun, we can`t imagine what it would be like to play tennis in this het!)

Cooling mist from the Fog Frogs

The day matches were very entertaining and really full-on, as there are three matches each day starting at 11 am.  The real excitement for us though was watching the two night matches.  The night matches have a different feel from the day.  The REALLY big names play at night (we saw Djokovic vs Berdych and Federer vs Tsonga).  These guys hit the ball so fast that it is hard to follow with your eyes, we have no idea how the other player manages to hit a ball back at 150 km/h, while running at full speed!  It was pretty amazing to see.

Men's Champion Djokovic

Serving Federer

Night game

Ladies' Champion Azarenka

We arrived back in Brisbane on Saturday morning, just in time for the deluge of rain from ex tropical storm Oswald.  We are currently on a day off in observance of Australia Day (26 January, a Saturday this year) but instead of relaxing at a pub or heading to the beach, all of Queensland, including Brisbane, is on a flood watch.  The northern parts of the state are seeing the worst flooding in many areas in more than 50 years.  We think we will be okay in the city as the prediction for the peak flood level is about 4 metres lower than it was in 2011, but we still need to be on alert. 

In Brisbane we have had 260mm of rain in just four days.  We have gone from burning to flooding in less than a week!  We are really lucky in Milton though, our suburb had all of the storm drains upgraded in the last two years and only the lowest lying areas should be in danger of minor flooding.   Our fingers are crossed that the lower water level predictions are accurate.  We don`t want to go through what we did in 2011 all over again!