Day 11

Day 11
Saturday
September 17
Hobart
44km
Sunny then cloudy 8 to 17 degrees (down to 5 on Mt Wellington summit, 2pm)... the wind stopped!

Feeling the buzz of the city.

You know when the kids wake you up early on Christmas morning so they can get their presents? Pat woke me up just as excited because she could see them setting up the markets and wanted to get an early start. She raced down and got some early morning fresh vegetables while I had a relaxing breakfast.

The view from our window of the markets.

And the view from our side window as I eat breakfast.

After breakfast we both went down and spent a few hours roaming the markets. I bought a hand turned fountain pen. Bumped into that presenter from the ABC show, ‘The Collectors’, but didn’t see ‘The Gourmet Farmer’ guy????? Really nice blueberry, cheese tart with our morning coffee.

Caught the 11am ferry, ($15) to the Mona Museum of Old & Modern Art.

Lovely sunny trip up the harbour going passed Government House, a massive Zinc Smelter and Hobart shipyards until we reached the Moorilla Winery on the Berriedale peninsula.

The exhibition - ‘Experimenta Utopia Now, International Biennial of Media Art’ or ‘Monanism’ – whatever that means. It is a privately funded museum from the David Walsh collection and cost $8 million a year to run. (He is a Tasmanian millionaire who made his money by devising a technical gambling system used on horse racing). The funds to run the place come from the onsite winery and brewery. The theme of the museum is based on the pursuit of sex and the avoidance of death which are, according to Walsh, the two most fundamental human motives. The architecture is amazing. The gallery was constructed by excavating under this famous architect designed house and digging down 3 storeys through the sandstone. So the roof of the gallery is the underside of the rock below the house.

The entry is a full tennis court.

In the exhibition we were guided by ipods which are wireless connected. The art work is bizarre and a bit lost on me.

From 150 casts of vaginas, blood dripping meat carcasses, heaps of dismembered bodies with their genitals ripped out, etc. The one I found really interesting is a pooing machine where the chemical processes of the human digestive system are recreated. Once a day food goes in one end, and moves through a series of glass bowls until, once a day, poo comes out.

After the return trip, we again revisited the Salamanca markets and then off in the car for the climb up Mt Wellington. Unfortunately, the weather changed. After climbing 1270m up the mountain. 20km of driving, the temperature dropped from 16 to 5 degrees and the cloud came over. It was bitter and our view was obscured by the mist. We could still get a bit of a view.

Next we visited the Cascade Brewery site but too late to enter. Have to leave that for another day. I think it is a really scary looking building.

So nice coming back to our Salamanca apartment that we decide to extend our booking for another night. We have the top floor two front windows and the side window.

Tomorrow, heading south down Huon for the day.