We spent the first day at the Australian Open. We saw a number of matches in Margaret Court Arena and two matches in the Vodafone Arena, where we had excellent reserved seats behind one of the baselines - just a few rows up.  Vodafone was such an intimate arena that I thought it was a great place to watch tennis matches.  We saw a great 5-set match won by Juan Carlos Ferrero over Janko Tipsarevic, we also saw Martina Hingis easily win her second-round match.

One of the main reasons for visiting Melbourne was to see in person a long-time orchid friend Alan Blee with whom I had been in contact for a number of year. He was one of the very first orchid growers to contribute photos to my web site. 

Alan took us to three orchid nurseries on the third day.  Although this was the wrong time of the year to see native orchids in bloom, we still saw some wonderful flowers.  He also arranged for a wonderful BBQ lunch at The Hanging Garden nursery with his orchid friends.  After returning to Alan's place, we enjoyed a wonderful dinner prepared by Verelle.