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!

Vaucluse

On our trip to Sydney over Christmas we went on a couple of really good walks.  One of them, on Boxing Day when we happened to see the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, was through a suburb called Vaucluse.

Vaucluse is about 8km from the Sydney CBD.  It is on the southern end of the headlands that form the entrance to Sydney Harbour.  It is a beautiful area of Sydney, with views on the western side towards the Harbour Bridge with the eastern side looking out over the Tasman Sea.  The houses here are VERY posh, with lots of little beaches and places to swim. 

Maquarie Lighthouse, Vaucluse



The path we followed started at the lovely and historic Maquarie Lighthouse, built in the 1880s.  There has been a lighthouse in this place almost since Sydney was founded.  This lighthouse, replacing the original, was erected in the 1880s and is still functioning today!

The walk took us all along the coast line which, while breath-taking, is extremely treacherous and it is in this area that the worst non-wartime accident in Australia occured.  The ship Dunbar crashed against the rocks here in a storm in 1857 and only one person out of 122 people survived.

Vaucluse Coastline

Vaucluse Coastline

This is an older part of Sydney and there are lots of beautiful parks and viewpoints throughout the entire walk.  We were even lucky enough to walk past a nudist beach with one extremely un-shy man, more than happy to look up at everyone on the pathway above him.  He was clearly not concerned about sun exposure!

The coastline had beautiful views but the wind was constantly howling (as one would expect at this time of year and right on the water) so we were pretty happy that the last part of our walk took us to a little inlet called Parlsey Bay.  It was a lovely little beach (although there was a rather disconcerting shark net), surrounded by beautiful houses, with beautiful clear water and not a breath of wind.  It was a wonderful way to spend Boxing Day and it is a walk that we will definitely do again.

Parsley Bay

 

Aussie News

The blogger page won't allow us to upload any photos at the moment, so we will give you an update on the news out of Australia.  You'll just have to use your imagination until we get our photo problems sorted out!

The big news right now in Australia is the weather.  This week was the second anniversary of the devastating floods that cut across Queensland.  Those flooding events followed intensive rainfall throughout the spring and summer.  Now, two years later, rainfall has been less than normal, and there are fires burning throughout the counrty.  Many of these fires are caused by lightning strikes, some are caused by sparks from vehicles and a few are deliberately lit.  Any arsonists that are caught are in serious trouble with the law and are lucky to be in police protection!  In addition to the fires, they are expecting a massive tropical storm to wreak havoc in Western Australia. 

Right in Brisbane we are free of fires, but we have had two weeks of highs over 30, with humidity over 50%.  Some days it feels like trying to move around in a sauna!  We have finally had to join a gym so that we can walk on a treadmill for some exercise.  It has been weeks since we have walked to or from work, and the forecast is for more of the same this week ("cooling" is considered anything below 30, so we might have a cold day of 29C this week, but we will have higher humidity, so it is not really any better!)

In 10 days we head to Melbourne, where in one week they will have a temperature range of 20 - 40C...and that is sometimes all in the same day.  We will be watching tennis, so hopefully the roof is closed and the air conditioning is on!

Happy 2013!

We had a great trip to Sydney for Christmas and returned to Brisbane to celebrate the New Year.  Sydney was a great place to spend the holidays, but it really doesn't have the weather that Brisbane does.  Something has gone wrong with us that we now find 20C cold!

Christmas is really lovely in Sydney.  The city is decked out in Chrtismas trees and lights everywhere and the David Jones department store in the CBD had a fantastic series of automated Christmas themed scenes in the windows.  Even without snow it was very Christmas-y.

Decorated Tree in a square near Circular Quay

Some of the David Jones window displays

We tried to see a couple of new areas in Sydney and we were lucky enough to be walking around Watson's Bay on Boxing Day, which is one of the premiere viewing points for the start of the Sydney to Hobart race.  We had no idea that we were in such a great vantage point, it was just dumb luck!

Looking out over Watson's Bay towards the CBD

The start of the race (all the boats with sails are racing)

The Sydney to Hobart yacht race was started in 1945.  Yachts of different sizes leave the Sydney Harbour at 1pm on Boxing Day and race to the Hobart Harbour, 1170 km to the south.  It gets kind of confusing, becuase the speeds are given in knots and distances are sometimes said in nautical miles and sometimes in kilometres.  Landlubbers like us can't quite follow exactly how fast the boats are going or how far away they are, but we do know they go really fast.  The winner of this year's race, Wild Oats XI, took only one day, 18 hours and 23 minutes.  There are different categories of boats and there are hadicaps for the different categories.  Wild Oats XI ended up winning the entire race, both outright and with the handicap.

This is our last day off before we head back to work tomorrow.  It doesn't matter what you are doing, where you are or how much time you have off, the break is never long enough.  Luckily we are off to Melbourne in just 3 weeks, so we won't be waiting too long until we get our next break.  Happy New Year!