Saturday 7 March, Melbourne

I left the ship about 8.30, intending to walk to the end of the pier to meet my cousin, Marylyn and her daughter, Charmaine. However, the Spirit of Tasmania was in and there was a huge traffic queue with cars and caravans waiting to embark on the crossing. This held up traffic heading for the dock to meet the ship, so I walked along to the tram stop and they picked me up there. We went to Marylyn’s place a nice little unit in a retirement complex in Brighton and had coffee, talking non-stop.

After that we drove to Charmaine and Jason’s for lunch. They've been living in Melbourne for years and have a lovely apartment, plenty of room for visiting family, children and grandchildren. It was such a lovely visit and so good to catch up. They drove me back to the ship, so I didn’t get to wander around Melbourne town at all, but that was okay; it was just delightful to be able to spend time visiting, particularly now that we don’t have Marylyn living close to Sydney anymore and don’t get to see her at reunions.

The kids spent the day in Melbourne, having lots of fun at the zoo which they said was much more animal friendly than Taronga, with better habitats for the animals. 

We sailed on time, onto the last leg back to Sydney.

More dancing tonight, although there was some “group dancing” which doesn’t appeal to me at all; a bigger crowd meant I got less dances too, so I didn’t stay long. Fairly late night reading, etc.