Tasmania - first impressions

Today I left "the mainland" and flew to Tasmania. My flight was scheduled to leave at 7:15, and I received a text from Tiger Air saying boarding started 45 minutes before take-off time and I should be at the airport early, so I left my hotel at about 5:30. I was also a little concerned about the weight of my bag. I didn't pay for extra weight, so I was allowed a maximum of 7 kg. I borrowed a scale (just the regular step-on bathroom scale) from the hotel desk, and it said my bag was less than 7 kg, but I didn't know how reliable it was.




I arrived at the airport with plenty of time for a breakfast latte, and my bag was indeed less than 7 kg, so all was good.

I had some Christmas goodies for Marcus and Millie and my hiking boots and runners, so I was pretty pleased to be able to bring everything!

The flight was about an hour, and I was able to pass the time speculating on the meaning of this sticker.

Please do not remove. The sticker? The door? The entire cabinet?

Marcus picked me up at the airport, and because it was pouring rain, we decided to check out MONA -- Museum of Old and New Art. The museum didn't open until 10, so we went grocery shopping and did a few other errands first.

 "Mona: a museum, or something. In Tasmania, or somewhere. Catch the ferry. Drink beer. Eat cheese. Talk crap about art. You'll love it."

The guy who created it calls it "a subversive adult Disneyland." I had read a little about it and saw that admission was $30. It sounded kind of interesting, but I thought maybe it would be a complete disappointment. After all, can a small city like Hobart on a remote island like Tasmania really have such a great museum? I don't know if I can say I loved it, but it was definitely worth visiting. The exhibits were different from any other art gallery or museum I've been to, and there was lots of food for thought. We didn't take the ferry, drink beer or eat cheese, but we did talk about the art!

One of my favourites was this exhibit of bicycles built according to random people's sketches made from memory.

My least favourite exhibit, not pictured here, was Tim. A bare chested guy, covered in tattoos, who just sat still waiting for people to check him out. He had his own bodyguard as well. I glimpsed him from an upper level and once I was on his level, I carefully avoided him. According to the website, Tim has been sitting at MONA since 2011, for over 3500 hours.

This truck is made from wrought iron balconies like the ones I spotted while cycling in Melbourne.

After we'd had our fill of art, we drove to Bronte Park, the little village where Marcus and Millie live.  

By early evening it was raining less, so we went to a nearby park at Lake St. Clair, where platypus live. A short walk through the rainforest, and we came to a little bay where a river joins a lake, and sure enough, we saw a platypus or two swimming and catching fish for their dinner.

a pademelon

Also on this outing, we saw an echidna on the way to the park, a pademelon nibbling on leaves at the entrance to the woods (well camouflaged in the photo on the left), and a wombat burrowing in the ditch as we were leaving the park. 





Driving home, we had to stop for this wallaby, and then just up the hill from the house, we saw a whole group of wallabies enjoying the long grass.

Not bad for my first day on the island!