Driving Makes Climbing a Mountain So Much Easier

Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Thursday April 21 and Friday April 22nd, 2011

Thursday was my last full day in Hobart and I still had the car (until later in the day) so there were a few things I decided to check out. The first was Mount Wellington.

Can't quite make out the peak because it is in the clouds.

It overlooks Hobart is is very often covered in snow.....even in the summer. Today there was no snow but the summit was totally covered in cloud. I still made the 15 minute drive up to the top only to be confronted with this when I got there.

The weather was not very nice inside that cloud but I still managed to run out of the car, grab some pictures of non-view and then headed back down.

If the clouds weren't there you would be looking at Hobart right now.

Lucky for me I didn't actually have to drive very far back down the mountain to get out of the cloud and back into some sunshine.

Much prettier down here.

Now you can see Hobart. Much nicer isn't it?

Oh look at that cute little kitty. Ok so it doesn't look so bad but this little fluff ball is no one's pet. This is a feral cat. Enemy number one of all wildlife. He was not very friendly either. I think he wanted to take a bite of me.

After driving back down the mountain (by the way you can take a 6 hour hike up but I opted for the 30 minute round trip drive) I headed out of the city a little ways to another one of Tasmania's most visited places, The Cadbury Chocolate Factory.

Yep, that's it. Not much to look at and certainly not Hersey World.

How funny is this?

You can't actually take a tour of the factory anymore and the shop is just a tiny little thing, but they do a few demonstrations and lots of tastings. The place was very busy (being just a few days before Easter). I did my share of shopping. Prices are much lower here. But I probably should have calculated in the amount it would cost me to mail it back to Darwin. Oh well. It tastes good. Plus this is the first place I've been in Australia that sells Mini-eggs at less than $9 a bag.

My next stop was at a fairly new museum in the area called MONA (Museum of Old and New Art). Now I have to say, if you don't like abstract or strange art, do NOT visit this museum. There are a lot of very interesting pieces, many of which are weird and disturbing and maybe even a little grotesque. Lots of highly sexual pieces as well. It seemed like everywhere you went there were warnings for people with children.

One of the pieces in the parking lot. Kind of gives you an idea that this is not your average art museum.

The museum does not have information cards next to any of the art work, and sometimes you maybe looking at something (like a group of benches that people are sitting on) and not realize that it is actually an exhibit at all. What they provide you with is a little device (like an I-pod) that has all the information on it. It's a smart little device too with GPS tracking so you can just ask it to show you the art in the area you are in and it will just bring up that information for you. It was quite nice. And in the end I could save my tour and have it emailed to me. Really neat. Anyway, here are a few of the things I found interesting.

In case you can't read that, it says "beat it lyrics". Basically this piece shows random Internet phrases in water droplets. It's called Bit.Fall by Julius Popp. It also showed things like "Steelers vs Jets" and "nfl playoff 2011". It wasn't that easy to get a picture. My timing had to be perfect.

This is an untitled piece by Juul Kraijer. Pretty toned down considering some of the others.

This is "Babylonia" by Montreal born artist Callum Morton. Not much on the outside. Not sure I get it.

This is the inside of "Babylonia". Yes this is an optical effect created with mirrors on both ends of a really short hallway, but so neat when you walk inside. Not at all what I expected.

From far away, she looks real but as you get close you can clearly see she is just a doll. This is Taiyo Kimura's Untitled Piece (known as Stool for Guard).

I love this little video.....for about a minute and then it gets annoying. This is "Am I a House" by Erwin Wurm. It actually goes on for 9 and a half minutes like this. I didn't watch the whole thing.

This is another Erwin Wurm piece called "Fat Car". That actually is the body of a Porsche covered by Styrofoam and fibreglass.

This is kind of how I felt in University some days. Like I was in a room full of books but there was nothing worth reading. This is "White Library" by Wilfredo Prieto.

I liked this little one. This is " You Asked Me to Come and See Your Routine, You Call This a Fucking Routine" by Winnipeg born artist Jon Pylypchuk.

The "old" art if you are wondering was interspersed throughout all the new art and from what I could find was usually Egyptian. Certainly the most different to any other Art Museum I have been to and quite enjoyable.

After that I headed back to the city, dropped off my car and it was time to do some packing. I headed back to Melbourne on Friday......Good Friday. Very interesting to note that in Hobart pretty much the only thing open on Good Friday is one or 2 bakeries, the airport and the church. Pretty much everything else is closed and the city kind of felt like a ghost town. Really eerie. Even the Asian food stores and restaurants were closed and they're usually always open.

Anyway, my flight left later in the day so I spent most of the day hanging around the backpackers I was staying in. I arrived in Melbourne expecting to find the same type of thing....a dead city. But I was wrong. The city was very alive well into the night. All the pubs were closed......but all the bottle shops were open....strange.

I have a few days left in Melbourne and then it will be off to Adelaide.

Julie