Coles Bay

It's only a two and a half hour drive from Hobart to Coles Bay, even if you follow the winding coast road like we did, through Orford, Triabunna and Swansea. Swansea looked like it had a bit more going for it than the other small settlements and we stopped there for lunch - checking out the picturesque Kate's Berry Farm......... 

.......and the spectacular shoreline of Great Oyster Bay, before finding a wonderful lunch spot where we enjoyed the best seafood chowder you would ever hope to find!

We're staying at "Dunwerkin" at Coles Bay, only 2km or so from the entry to the beautiful Freycinet National Park.  The house overlooks the beautiful Coles Bay, which is fringed by the spectacular "Hazards".

This is part of the amazing view from the front terrace and living room.......

 We went for a windswept walk late this afternoon further around this beautiful bay.

Hobart

Saturday morning in Hobart means the Salamanca Markets are in full operation.

A chance to see all the artisanal food producers in one place..........the hand crafted knitters, weavers, sewers, wood turners, jewellery makers...........

 ...and APPLES, pears and quinces, honey, jam, garlic, kale, potatoes and onions and every related value added food product you can think of............

 The Salamanca Markets fill twice the space they did when we last visited.......the place is packed.

We spent at least 3 hours there doing our best for the Tasmanian economy, before retreating back to our apartment overlooking nearby Sullivan's Cove for a cup of tea and some fresh Tasmanian fish and chips.

We then spent the afternoon exploring the Eastern side of the Huon Valley, driving through the mountainous roads near Mt Wellington and out to the fertile green farmland around Longley, Grove and Huonville.  We stopped at the Apple Heritage Centre and Museum at Grove and enjoyed learning a bit more about the history behind the "Apple Isle".  The region is covered with apple and cherry orchards, and the trees look to be loaded with rapidly ripening crops of apples in every shape size and colour.

Another fun stop was at Pagan Cider's cellar door outside Cygnet. We'd loved our Pagan Pear cider with lunch last Thursday and enjoyed hearing the story behind it and tasting some of the other Pagan varieties. We'll be sure to chase that up back in Canberra (at "Plonk" probably).

Our scenic drive took us as far south as Verona Sands and back to Hobart through Gordon and Kettering where we'd caught the ferry yesterday to Bruny Island.

We had a 7.00pm dinner booking at Prosser's on the Beach (at Sandy Bay) a top quality old school seafood restaurant situated right on the water overlooking the mouth of the Derwent River. We thought the seafood was wonderful - fresh, bountiful and beautifully prepared and presented - all served with top notch Tasmanian Rieslings.  The food here in Tassie is wonderful!!!!

Bruny Island

A day trip from Hobart to Bruny Island takes a bit of planning to fit everything in. We left Hobart a half hour later than we intended and ended up missing our car ferry connection at Kettering, 40 minutes south of Hobart.

That resulted in us having nil chance of catching our pre-booked 11.00am Bruny Island cruise from Adventure Bay - leaving us to rearrange our day a bit!

It gave us time for a leisurely drive down the length (mostly) of this beautiful island and a long lunch, picnic style at the famous Bruny Island Cheese Co. on Grand Bay (right near the famous oyster outlet - Get Shucked).

The hand made artisanal cheeses are absolutely delicious, but I think the wood fired sour dough bread is just as much a world beater as the cheese is.

We were lucky enough to be there just as the loaves were removed from the outdoor oven - Yum!

And time for a stop at the lookout over The Neck - the narrow isthmus linking the northern and southern land masses of the island.

The Neck is a fairy penguin rookery - not that we saw any in the middle of the day - just lots of evidence of their burrows in amongst the sand dunes.

I was interested to see that a memorial to Truganini has been constructed at the lookout - such a tragic story from Tasmania's undeniably violent past.

We got to Adventure Bay in plenty of time to catch a 2.00pm cruise - plenty of time to find one of the island's famous white wallabies in the surrounding bushland.

 We were thrilled to have made it and be on our way!

The boats take us south around the rugged coastline of the wild and isolated (and pristine) South Bruny National Park.

 past soaring Jurassic dolorite cliffs and dramatic cave formations...... 

 among the highest sea cliffs in the Southern hemisphere........

and past the dramatic "Monument" rocks.....  very fast actually...... in the narrow space between the rocks (with lots of squeals).

 The "breathing rock" turned on a great show for us.........

We eventually get so far South that we reach the Great Southern Ocean - which is much wilder than where we started (even though it's a "calm" day today). There's a large Australian fur seal colony here - all males feeding themselves to obesity ready for the seasonal trek back to King Island to breed with the females.

We get really close to them frolicking in the water....

 ...and lounging on the rocks of "The Friars".

It's a spectacular part of the world ........ and we saw sea eagles, rare black head cormorants, albatrosses and some very well fed garnets. ..the time just flies and it's easy to forget how really cold those fierce Southerly winds are. 

It seems like no time before we're back at Adventure Bay. It's a 40 minute drive back to the ferry and a good wait in the queue before we can catch the ferry back to the mainland. We count ourselves lucky to talk the guy working the coffee machine at the ferry stop into shucking us 2 dozen Grand bay oysters - harvested just this morning...wow!.... while we admired the sunset over the D'Entrecastieux Channel.

It's been an amazing day - and we ended it with a glass of Piper's Brook Riesling (from NE Tassie) with those astonishing oysters and more cheese and bread...lucky us!

Hobart - MONA

We're in Hobart, finally getting to see the infamous (??) MONA - Museum of Old and New Art, on the banks of the Derwent River, a twenty minute ferry ride up from Sullivans Cove in Hobart port.

Past the old (but still working) zinc refinery - looking pretty good under the clear blue skies of Hobart with Mt Wellington as a backdrop.

Then we disembark at MONA - a complex of monumental, contemporary and heritage buildings, housing a mind bending art collection around the themes of sex and death, and a full scale vineyard and winery - all the the grand vision of the extraordinary gambler-genius David Walsh.

After climbing the 91 steps up from the ferry the first thing you see is a tennis court??? constructed over the flat earth roof of much of the underground galleries - and this trampoline type object........

This young woman was taking selfies as she was jumping!!

......and this amazing cast iron construction by the Belgian artist Wim Delvoye - a real crowd pleaser. 

David Walsh bought the struggling Moorillo winery in 1995 (for a song apparently). It had two Roy Grounds designed buildings on the estate which had to be incorporated into the construction of the new MONA museum. David Walsh got around it by building a subterranean museum so the heritage structures still have their dominant place in the landscape.

 with some interesting contemporary juxtapositions......

We see another James Turrell designed Skyscape at MONA...but probably not at the best time of the day......

...and another Wim Delvoye structure.......

The chapel's stained glass windows incorporated X-Ray pictures of animal bones and other somewhat creepy biological references...

 David Walsh's humour (?) is evident throughout MONA.

But then this part of the vineyard probably looks just like it always has since the days when the Alcorso family founded it in the late 1940s.

We had lunch and a glass of cider/beer at the MONA wine bar..

.......before starting our visit to the underground museum - we had to stop and admire the entrance......

The entry to the collection is deep within the earth, at least three levels down in spectacular spaces carved out of monumental layers of beautiful sandstone rock.

It's David Walsh's personal collection of art work we're viewing - The Matthew Barney installation, documenting the visual journey involved in creating a 6 and 1/2 hour long film titled River of Fundament was pretty amazing as were the 151 plaster cast vaginas (can I say that on my blog?) all along one wall of one whole gallery.....

But showing my artistic conservatism I was probably most awestruck by the astounding Sydney Nolan work "Snake" filling one whole gallery........ a fairly traditional work in pastel, hand drawn of course - beautiful, and throbbing with life.

No matter what anyone says about this ideosyncratic collection we are all gobsmacked at the vision of the man, the bravery, the optimism and the extraordinary generosity in making this happen (over 200 million dollars worth so they say) just to share a love of art and ideas with his fellow man/woman. 

I hope your luck on the gambling tables continues David Walsh, to keep all this and the amazing MONA afloat for many years yet.