Finis.

Day 6. Time to go home. 

All good things must come to an end, but I was surprised at how sad I was that this adventure was coming to a close. As something that I imagined to be a long week of hard work, I would pleasantly surprised to find that it didn't feel like work at all. The people I met over the week were so smart, insightful and funny that I would have happily spent another week doing the same thing over. 

Another surprised was how close our group of students had become. On the second last day, after we nervously presented our awards to the writers and officially finished all lectures, we piled into two cars and drove out to the Perri Sandhills. The sandhill's are located outside of Wentworth, across the New South Wales border. For the first time, I saw the mighty Murrey River and wondered in awe at the long flat expanse of the Australian terrain that surrounded us. The earth beside the road was a rich red sand, and the fields were filled with orange trees and strange vines I had never seen before. The sky seemed to be this huge overwhelming blue; I had never been able to see so much of it before. It dominated the entire world, dictating all the colours below it. As we arrived at the hills, some of the smarter students had stopped at a bottle shop to get beer and cider and we wandered up to the top of one of the closer hills and gazed out at the strange land around us. The sand was a vibrant dark orange and the vines grew busily across the hills, sprouting small round melons. A few people tried eating them but to our amusement and their disgust, they were not edible in any way. We stood drinking on the hill, shaking off all our earlier nerves by cracking jokes and laughing with gusto. The sun burned hotly on our shoulders, easing the crispy cold winds that blew in our hair. The air was so silent around us that every breath felt loud and imposing and we laughed at the idea of filming a horror movie out in the sand. It was only after the sun had set and the cold became too much that we reluctantly returned to our cars and drove back to Mildura. We finished the night with dinner and more drinks at the only pub open on a sunday night and returned home when the barmaid kicked us out. 

The following morning we packed up all our stuff, went to our final class and eventually bid each other a final goodbye. If anything, I was sad to go home, sad that the experience was over and sad that I would probably never experience a writers festival in such an intimate way again. But I am excited to take everything I have learned from those 6 days and use it all in my own writing. I am excited to attend more writing festivals and I am excited to read everything I can get my hands on. 

I would like to thank Sue Gillett for creating this fantastic subject, it really was an amazing experience and Sue's enthusiasm for teaching is really exciting for students. I would like to thank all the writers, organisers and volunteers who worked on the festival and made it such a welcoming place to students, and finally I would like to thank Jenny and Brian Murphy who generously opened their home to me while I was at the festival and made sure I was fed and watered the entire time.