Part 6 – Leaving Hobart

We added another day to Hobart to get to MONA (Museum of Old and New Art). Free to Tasmanians, tourists pay and its only open 4 days a week. MONA is located at the northern end of Hobart and is dug into a sandstone hill and has 3 levels below the ground floor. We are not sure of the real purpose apart from the art and employing lots of people as ushers and guides. There is an app for your phone that you download and use with their Wi-Fi to get info of the artwork and maps of where you are. There are many people walking around looking at their phones all the time.

The artwork is meant to be puzzling, amazing and a whole lot more – for much of it I need to be on the same stuff they are to get the messages… It was a mixture of traditional art, modern art, electric art, loud noises and light shows, a couple of the examples are in the pic’s where I have taken a pic of the artwork and a snap of the description, another example is a looping video of Linda Carter as Wonder Woman – there was more… There was a lot of art focused on women – years ago you buy a magazine from the back of the newsagent to see this stuff, today the Tasmanians can take their kids in for free and see the same thing, I suppose it keeps the costs down for the island parents.

It was impressive and the building would have cost squillions, but we are pretty sure that we won’t do that one again.

We left the comfort of our cabin with it flexible walls, hooked up the trailer and headed out to Queenstown and Strahan. The roads are still as slow as, with all the winding around they do. Another thing about the Tassie roads, you can find electric car charging stations in the oddest of places! The weather continued to be absolutely miserable with wind and rain being the norm for the day, and sadly the drive through the wilderness was marred by the weather. A good lunch of hot soup in front of the fire at Derwent Bridge pub was the highlight of the day – and the weather continued to ruin any chance of seeing the scenery heading into Queenstown -we didn’t stay long but were lucky enough to see the steam train come in. Off to Strahan next via the link road (38k’s and 40 minutes by the signs). Supposedly this road has 90 turns over the 38k’s, Jo’s count was 147…. by the time you get to Strahan (and after the rest of the roads) you are over corners!

Strahan was wet and windy (does it ever stop raining in Tassie?). Again we setup in a caravan park so we could use the camp kitchen for dinner, sleeping in the camper is fine, dry and warm – its just trying to cook (or even being) outside is the problem down here! There are a couple of tours out of Strahan, and we elected for the World Heritage Cruise which includes a tour up the Gordon River. Other options were closed on the day so it made the choice fairly easy.

The 6 hour cruise included a run around Port Macquarie up to Hells gates (a very narrow entry from the sea), a visit to Sarah Island and walk around the heritage forest on the Gordon River (and lunch!). The day was very well done with the info about the people who found the harbour (its huge!) in the early 1800’s. The tour of Sarah Island was an hour long learning about yet another convict prison – the tour could have been another 30 minutes longer, and along with it’s owns horrible history the convicts built the island up and reclaimed land on the island before they started on the other convict activities. Up the Gordon River while having lunch from Tasmanian sources (gluten free and not bad) before finishing with the forest walk before heading home. Apart from the pooey weather, its a good time of year to travel down here.

Apologies for the number of pics (I did leave some of MONA ones…), and don’t let the blue sky in some fool you – they were between squalls!

Next one – heading up the coast to the warmth….