Thoughts on Tasmania

Tasmania.

A very peculiar place.

The sights and landscapes are nothing short of breathtaking... and I mean the views from Mount Amos almost took our breath away as much as the climb up there did!

We went up another mountain as well while we were in the city.  Mount Wellington.  We took a bus tour up so there was a less strenous effort to get to the top and it was a good thing we didn't take the 3 hour climb up in the rain because the view from the top was not quite what we hoped for.  Maybe we didn't get to see the most perfect sight of the city, but can you say you've ever actually stood INSIDE a cloud!?  Although our tour guide seemed to be convinced he was some kind of meteorologist and fed us extremely false facts about the weather, he did leave us with some interesting information on Tassi. The island of Tasmania used to be a complete humongous rock that reached up to 2,000m above sea level which then eroded over time leaving behind the beautiful mountainous landscape. The highest peak of Mount Wellington with 26,000 squared metres of untouched land and eroded dolerite rock still would have been covered by 750m of this rock at one time.

The city of Hobart was nothing short of abnormal. We wandered the streets of the cute city and followed them down to the waterfront to look out across the water. Everything seemed normal but something about the whole place made us feel like we were in the Truman Show. We stumbled across a university bar where we got that great deal on beer like I mentioned, only to find that the majority of people were dressed up as pirates or had very eccentrically cut and coloured hair and even stranger apparel.  Weirder than that, once we casually left the bar around 7pm we found that the streets were eeriely empty, slient and everything was shut down for the night.

Then there was the MONA.  The Museum of Old and New Art.  That was definitely the cherry on top of this unusal town.  You could never get a real idea of what this place was like unless you go there.  The entire time we were there I had a weird chill and and uncomfortable, creeped out feeling... yet I enjoyed it? There were pieces of art that ranged from falling words of water to videos on the ceilings with flashes of bloody body parts mixed with tropical forest images all along with creepy background music.  There were paitings made with elephant dung and resin and a model of a little boy curled in a ball against a wall mumbling in french (which I initially thought was a real person).  After all that and more we turned a corner to be smacked in the face by a vial, putrid smell that we found to be a replica of the human digestive system that was circulating with actual shit and acidic juices.

each of those is a drawer containing a head and when you pull them out each speaks "i love you" in different voices

body parts knit from VHS film

Human digestive system

All in all, we had a great trip and I am pleased to say that I might not know anybody else who has ever been there.  So after my shennanigans at the airport yesterday I am safe and sound at home with the girls and we're working on some plans for the upcoming weeks before school starts.

Maybe we didn't have anything to do today besides laze around on a mattress on our front lawn and eat fresh nectarines we picked in Tasmania and fresh oranges we nabbed off our next door neighbours tree but for now all we can say is .......

Sincerely,
AUS