Relaxing day in Cairns

The clouds cleared finally for a beautiful sunny day in the tropics.  Quite windy which actually kept the humidity down.  Did a real workout in the hotel gym.  Layed (lied) around the pool.  Had kind of snacky lunch in the hotel restaurant...

We watched the incredible women's singles tennis match between Francesca Schiavone and Svetlana Kuznetsova.  Nothing short of inspirational... nearly 5 hours of great tennis.  Schiavone finally won in the third set 16 to 14!.

I looked out our balcony and saw what I thought were hundreds of birds flying toward the jungle.  Wasn't birds but bats!  Big bats flying lazily from the city to the lush mountains across the bay of water the Hilton is on.  Wow!

Tennis

Our last day in Melbourne was spent at the Australian Open.  This was Marlin's first day at the Open.  The sun was out and it was heating up.

We got into the grounds at 11:00am, the start of the day.  The doubles competition had started as the men and women's singles continued round 2.

We watched a good doubles match but were starting to get fried in the sun.  Marlin and I headed to Hisense Arena to get a drink and find some shade.  Chris was going to watch another match.  We didn't all connect until much, much later in the day.

Marin Cilic

Marlin and I walked over to the other courts and watched a great singles match against the Russian, Youzhny, and Slovakian, Kavcic.  Again the sun was just so intense that we couldn't stay for the entire match.

It would really be impossible to find Chris but I knew he was going to the Marin Cilic match in Margaret Court court 2.  Marlin and I got a bite to eat and shared some shade with a couple from Miami.

I headed to court 2 to try to find Chris....which I did!  I figured he'd find a shady spot on the baseline side and I was correct.  I joined him.  Marlin was planning on going back to the hotel.  Chris and I watched the rest of the Cilic match...which he won.

Michael Russell

Chris and I and a couple from Melbourne that Chris had befriended stayed for the next match with Michael Russell, the American we had watched beat the Aussie two days earlier.  Russell was playing 10th seed David Ferrer of Spain.  It was a very one-side match for the first two sets with Ferrer easily beating Russell.  Russell rallied in the third but was still defeated by an amazing Ferrer.

The shade made it possible to watch both matches but I was fairly wiped out and headed back to the hotel for happy hour.  A cold beer and something to eat was welcome.

The heat and all had really gotten to me and I passed out after showering.

More Australian Open

 Chris and I headed over to the Open right when it was starting today.  Much bigger crowds today.

Our first match was an American versus an Aussie.  Big crowd and everyone but Chris, me and maybe 3 others were cheering for the Australian.  It was great fun.  A group of about 5 Aussies would start the stadium wave thing during the player breaks.  One time it went around a few times then for somehow turned into a slow motion wave.  It was hysterial.  Even the court judge started to laugh.  Then to conclude the wave before the end of the rest period,  the same guys got the wave to go double time.  Great fun.

I went back to the hotel to meet Marlin who was arriving today.  Chris stayed to watch another match.

Marlin arrived right about when I expected.  I had arranged with the hotel to greet him like an Amazing Race contestant.  He appreciated the fun.

He wanted to shower and rest up a bit so I went back to the Open.

I found Chris and we finished up the match he was watching.  We wandered around the Open watching people, matches and having a blast.

We ended up watching a beautiful Brazilian playing another not so beautiful Brazilain. The pretty one won.  But also this match was in the tennis players' practice area.  And who should be practicing by Roger Federer!  I snapped this photo of him using my camera's digital zoom.

Marlin and I ended up going to the commercial business district (CBD) for dinner.  But the restaurants were all closing their kitchens when we got there.  We ended up at an okay Thai restaurant....well, sort of Thai.

It was interesting going downtown.

Morning - second day

Chris and I spent the all of Monday after my arrival at the Australian Open.  The weather was over cast and at times spit some rain.  Regardless I have a sunburned face and arms.  My plan was to buy an Open hat to cover my head.  I should have bought it earlier in the day.

Andy Roddick

The Open is in a sprawling sports complex with twenty-some outdoor courts and two arena courts with retractable roofs.  We saw Nikolai Davydenko, Russian, get defeated by F. Mayer, German in an outdoor.  Davydenko is a seated player so that was an unexpected defeat. 

We strolled (snuck) into the Hisense arena and watched Andy Roddick (USA) easily defeat whoever he played (the scacrifical lamb).  The next match in the arena was Venus Williams (USA) against a cute Italian girl, Sara Irrani.  Venus was winning easily when we left.

It had cooled down even more so I had a hot chocolate.  I purchased my hat and we went back across the street to the Hilton to get our jackets.  Then back to tennis to watch Ferdando Verdasko (Spain) toy with Reiner Scheuttler (Germany).  The crowd was crazy loud and boisterous for this match.  It was tons of fun though the umpire (head judge in the chair) was not too happy with the loud crowd but it didn't seem to bother the players.

Venus Williams

By late evening it was legitimately cold.  I was shivering.  We headed back to the hotel for a birthday drink.  The staff in the lobby lounge, Alex and Jon, were very attentive.