All good things must come to an end

Sunday, our final day of the voyage, dawned with a sparkle. Grey skies and oceans had turned blue. We had obviously cleared Bass Strait and were motoring parallel to, although not within sight of, the NSW east coast.

The topic of conversation today was crime writing, kicked off with a panel discussion featuring Fiona McIntosh and Paul Cleave, hosted by gritty journalist, Nick McKenzie. We found ourselves a table in the Golden Lion, having learnt that unless we wanted to get to the Royal Court Theatre at dawn, we were never going to get a seat in there!  The pub was perfectly comfortable with multiple screens and there was a barista to keep us caffeinated. The discussion was lively and interesting, both Fiona and Paul having a great sense of humour as well as being skilled writers.

Following this session, Graeme Simsion and his wife and co-author Anne Buist took us through their writing process, how they work together and remain married!  They shared many amusing anecdotes about the adventures that have become the subject of their writing and talked a lot about The Glass House, their latest book which explores the world of mental health through fiction.

What do you know, it was lunch time again!  We had a shared table today with the first Victorians we had met, a woman from Bendigo, another from Melbourne and the other couple were from Woollongong. The majority of people we had met to date seemed to be Sydneysiders. Anyway, we chatted pleasantly over lunch, before racing off to grab a seat in the Golden Lion again, this time for a presentation from Nick McKenzie on some of his biggest journalistic accomplishments, including the Ben Roberts-Smith expose. Compelling listening, which revealed the tenacity of journalists of his calibre and the danger they face when they are unearthing stories about famous and powerful people.

Finally, we bumped into a friend from Castlemaine who we knew was on board but proved difficult to find amid the population of 2000. We were both amused that it had taken the best part of 5 days before we so much as sighted each other. A promenade on Deck 3 was next, as the sun was continuing to shine, and the air was much warmer than it had been when we had last stuck our noses out in Tassie! It was then time to go and start the packing and sorting process, return the library books, collect our formal ship-board photos and get ready for the evening’s entertainment.

This time we did get a seat in the theatre for the ‘Great British Songbook’, a medley of songs by British Artists presented by the Queen Elizabeth singers and orchestra. It was a good session, and we followed it with dinner (yes, more eating!). The final author event was a Q & A author panel, with questions from the audience, no topic was out of reach apparently. The host, however, did spend a lot of time asking her own questions of the panel, which limited the time and scope of questions from the audience.

Our final night on board was coming to a close and we returned to our cabin to finish the packing and get ready to be rocked to sleep on the ocean for the last time.