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G'day again from down under! although this is listed as being in Melbourne i'm actually back in Sydney, it's just i spent so long at melbourne park i thought it deserved a mention!

ok since my last blog i have been pretty busy and covered around 3000km, which is pretty far in 2 and bit weeks! i'm making use of the free internet and getting all done now as these will be my last blogs in Oz - so apologies for the long read, but at least you didnt have to write them!!

Ended up visiting canberra twice, one on the bus to melbourne and on the way back. i found it to be a rather strange place. it was a purpose built capital city, so it was all nicely laid out and very green but it almost felt like it was a decade or two in the past, cant explain exactly why, just the streets, the way shops etc shut really early and a few other touches. Did the whole tourist thing there, national museum, war memorial and parliament. I didnt think the national museum was all that great but the other 2 were really interesting. i spent a whole day at the war memorial, and could have spent longer and not covered it all, it's huge!! really interesting to learn about conflicts from the aussie side and they had loads of interesting things to see - from planes to tanks to artillary and light shows.

Next was Melbourne, which aparently was nearly called "Batmania" - obviously they chose the wrong name! Cant really tell you much about Melbourne except its very different to sydney, more european and good trams. This is mostly because in 7 days in melbourne i spent around 100 hours of it at the Australian open! most days leaving the hostel at 9 and getting cack well well after midnight! the only day i had off, i took the hostels free tour to various beaches. With Cat, a mate i met way back in thailand, i bought a 5 day ground pass for just $99 (40 quid!!), this covered all courts except rod laver and vodaphone (like centre court and court 1). However... we managed to get tickets to see matches on the rod laver arena for every session we were there! thats day and evening - it's amazing what you can get when you ask nicely in a polite british accent!!:)

We saw some truly awesome tennis, and often from great seats! Ironically probably the best tennis we watched was on the day it rained, which we got reimbersed for because "we didnt see any tennis"! (hence we got 6 days of tennis! both rod laver and vodaphone have roofs) That day we watched the entire Federer vs Tipsarovic match that went 5 sets from prbably the best seats in the stadium - i kid you not, check out the video on facebook! and then after that the Hewitt baghdatis match that went 5 sets and finished at 5am!! both were amazing! and free! and all that after watching Andy roddick get knocked out in 5 sets by Kohlschreiber which finished at 2:30am! 3 of the best matches i've ever seen!

On top of that, we saw all of the top 9 mens seeds and over 20 of the seeds in total. including Andy Murray getting put out by tsonga who lost in the final and Djokovic in the quarterfinals who won the tournament. 8 of top 10 women, including the williams sisters in the doubles, and lots more! I had such a fantastic week there, the atmousphere and the people were great too.

1 blog down, 2 to go!

David/Lofty

ps. my phone stopped working the other day, so i am phoneless until i get a new one in New Zealand.

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