Today was very windy with plenty of whitecaps on the ocean, so we spent most of our time inside. Some decks were closed off. Malcolm decided today was the day to explore by walking every permitted corridor on the ship, starting on Deck 1 and climbing to Deck 12 via Stairway D at the rear of the ship. It took nearly two hours, so must have been 7 or 8 kilometers of walking. Lyn spent a lot of time in the Wintergarden which is a fairly quiet spot. Judith was there and they had long talks; Judith said she is our friend now. She is moving from Hervey Bay to Launceston and has invited us to come and stay with her in Tasmania.
We did not go to the talk by former English Conservative leader, R.H.Lord Michael Howard, but he filled the theatre, just as his namesake would do in Australia. But we did go to the talk on Bechuanaland, now Botswana, which was a great love story. Sir Senetse Khama was to be the King of the country when he grew up, but he did extremely well in school and went to Oxford for his degree. He met and married a white Englishwoman there and when he returned to his country they tried to exile him in what was dubbed a case of reverse colour bar. He was supported by Churchill and eventually became Prime Minister, then President and his son is now President. Both have done very well for their country through discovery of diamonds in the Kalahari Desert and their economy is possibly the strongest in Africa. The Bushmen are struggling, however, and the speaker compared them to the aborigines in Australia (whom our governments are pushing out of their ancestral lands).
In the afternoon we went to the next astronomy lecture by Dan Wilkins, which was mainly about Black Holes. He does not fill the theatre but has a keen group of listeners who grab him afterwards to ask questions.
Tomorrow morning we reach land after a week of sea.
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