I decided that it was time to escape the tropical heat of Brisbane and head south to visit Graham in Melbourne. I accidentally timed my visit rather well, with both the Australian Open and a Big Bash cricket game on while I was there.

We had general ground passes for the tennis, but found out Andy Murray was due to play and managed to upgrade our passes so we could watch his match too. We arrived quite early and watched a bit of Goerges v. Koukalova before briefly catching up with my friend Martin from Berwick, who is in Melbourne to coach cricket. Unfortunately he didn’t manage to get a ticket upgrade (although did manage to see Murray later in the week) so we left him to watch some doubles while we went to the Margaret Court arena.

The tennis was entertaining, as were the off-court antics. Matosevic (Australian) had a very vocal group of supporters in his box (the Bogan Box). We were also amused by the Ball Boys who had obviously been taught very specific ways of folding towels, positioning drink bottles and rolling the balls to each other. One of the most keen ones was filming the show with his GoPro. There were plenty of Australians and Brits in the crowd and a good atmosphere. Annoyingly the stadium was only half full, although the match had apparently sold out. It would have been amazing with full seats. Murray comfortably and quickly beat Matosevic, leaving us with plenty of time to see more of the Open.

We explored the grounds further and it seemed that a lot of people buy ground passes and then just hang out in the outside bars, where there are deckchairs and big screens. The sun was shining so we decided to join them for an hour. Once we were refreshed we headed to Show Court 2 to see Seppi v Chardy. Chardy has an amazing serve and the match was pretty even. I was cheering on the more attractive Frenchman whilst Graham supported the seeded Italian. We only managed to see the start of the match as it was time to head over the road to the MCG to watch cricket.

We were watching the Melbourne Stars against the Perth Scorchers. Perth finished with a score of 179. Melbourne were not looking good and it was a fairly boring match until the 16th over, when things suddenly changed and the Heat were in with a chance. With some excellent and exciting batting, Melbourne won the game in the final over.

Probably the most exciting part of the match though was when a seagull got hit with a ball as it was walking across the grass. It did not look good for the bird, and one of the fielders carried it off and laid it outside the boundary. The bird made the occasional twitch, and it seemed like someone should put it out of its misery. Very quickly though, it stopped moving altogether and the match carried on. At least twenty minutes later, the crowd started making a noise and everyone turned in the direction of the bird. The seagull had got back up and was once more walking around. Apparently this particular gull was a glutton for punishment and it wondered back on to the pitch, narrowly missing being hit by another ball and almost tripping up a fielder. It still seemed stunned and couldn’t fly, so was eventually removed from the pitch and taken away. Whether it survived to see another day is anyones guess!

After an action packed day of sport we were exhausted and headed home. The next day was spent at the beach. In the evening we participated in the Aussie favourite of Barefoot Bowls with Graham’s housemate, Phil. We had a great competition, with all of us veering from completely inept to throwing some great balls. We stopped mid-way to have a bbq, before finishing the game. Phil eventually won, and it should be noted that he is magnanimous in victory….!

• Melbourne