South to Bruny

Today marks the start of our journey south from Hobart. Not sure how much we will get done in the time, but you have to start somewhere.

We started at the Shot Tower south of Sandy Bay. An impressive structure designed with a single purpose – to produce shot for canon and pistols. I imagine it was a valued piece of infrastructure and it was certainly built to last, even if some wondered at its placement so far south of Hobart. Alas, the pleasure of climbing it was denied us as we chose not to spend $28 on the five minutes of entertainment it may have provided us.

So we continued down the coast, in and out of the bays, over the hills. Tasmania isn’t big on roadside lookouts and each time we went investigating a side road we wound up down the hill in somebody’s driveway.

The town of Snug had an intriguing name and an intriguing butcher. I had no idea you could buy a mutton bird even though they were considered good eating by early sealers and whalers, and so in the tradition of trying new things on holidays we now have one in the fridge awaiting an opportune moment.

From there it was a short hop to the Bruny ferry and the island that was our target for the night. For us, famous for food, and so we needed to stop at the smokehouse, then the cheesery (not a word I knew before here), but avoided the chocolatier. Lets say the prices hurt enough to curb our spending but we still had a rich set of appetisers for the night.

To work off some tastings we climbed to the top of the dune at the north end of the isthmus that joins the two halves of Bruny for some stunning views, and then down to the south east corner for a bit of a walk. While the coastal scenery was lovely as expected, the narrow rocky ocean between Bruny and Penguin Island turned up some remarkable sea life at the bottom of the tide.

From there it was somewhat west to our campsite, via a tall hill affording great views. The pines campsite is near a beach near the south end of the island. For us, a quiet camp and our first opportunity for a campfire. I had other plans so the muttonbird stayed in the fridge while we had pan seared salmon fillets with twice-cooked potatoes au devondale served with beetroot relish. Yum!

 

I am sailing

Sailing morning today. We had booked “passage”, if you can call a 90 minute river sail such, on the Lady Nelson for 11am. Having arrived early to ensure our spot (turns out we were 5 of the 7 passengers and they have lifejackets for 50, although that would be somewhat squeezy) we had a chance to go around and inspect more of the arrived Sydney – Hobart fleet. And, as it turned out the Melbourne – Hobart also there, but in somewhat smaller numbers.

While there were already about 40 boats home, it was pretty much peak arrival time, with probably a dozen or more sailing up to the line and dropping sails while we were out and about on the river and on the wharf. Already in port were the big names with big boats to match, Loyal, Brindabella, Wild Oats, but the vast bulk of the fleet are not well known. The “Clipper” round-the-world race makes the Sydney – Hobart one of its legs and it would appear that these boats are all of an identical construction, making quite a sight as they line up in the marina together.

The Lady Nelson was built in the 1980s for the bicentennial celebrations as an external replica of the namesake which operated in these waters in the early days of settlement. Below decks were some modern concessions to make her safer and more comfortable, including three watertight sections separated by bulkheads, berths for 18 and modern galley facilities.

We were lucky in that the prevailing wind allowed us to sail out of port and into the river. We were able to watch many finishing racing yachts as we snaked our way down the river for about an hour before motoring back. The wind, quite calm in the early morning, picked up to a pleasant 20 knots just before we left, and allowed us to make way at over 6 knots with only two of the available sails set.

The Lady Nelson is a sail training ship with trainees able to earn skills recognition at one of several levels. A qualified crew of volunteers oversees the ship’s operation. A minimum crew of six is required to go to sea and I suspect we had about that or maybe a couple more today. I imagine with all available sails set (we used no jibs or mains today, so it was a very minimal set) they would be busy.

The original Lady Nelson was lost in the 1830s. It was suspected, based on charred wreckage found later, that she was taken by pirates and burned near Indonesia. The current Lady Nelson lives a calmer life around Tasmania, having only occasionally crossed Bass Strait.

From there it was time to head into town to do the Mawson’s Hut replica Australian Antarctic Expedition museum, and the Maritime Museum.

Mawson headed a scientific expedition to Antarctica in the early 1900s. The science undertaken related to geology, mapping, weather, physiology, biology and the movement of the south magnetic pole. The expedition also included construction and manning of a radio relay station on Macquarie Island to give the expedition some degree of radio contact back to Australia. This was state of the art safety for the time. The settlement also constructed a pair of huts on the Antarctic mainland which would become home for some for the next two and a half years.

At the end of the mission, those remaining explorers walked out and left the hut and its contents to be preserved under the ice in one of the coldest and windiest places on earth. There it sat for over 70 years as a massive time capsule awaiting a more modern expedition who would dig through the ice accumulated in the doorways to find a trove of artefacts ready to give up their secrets. And thus the mission to preserve the Mawson hut began. This hut in Hobart was constructed of trees from the same Scandinavian pine forest as supplied the timber for the original hut and is built to the same plan only metres from where the original expedition set off over 100 years ago. The museum attempts to tell the story and recreates some of the environment indoors endured by the men of that expedition. All funds raised go towards future preservation efforts for the hut in Antarctica. We were lucky in that our volunteer guide was a plumber who had just spent an entire year on the Antarctic continent at Davis station.

From there it was off to the Maritime Museum. It covered in general terms the history of shipping in the Hobart area, from the earliest days of settlement right up to the collision of the Illawarra with the Derwent bridge, and how the ferry service so spawned gave rise to the modern catamaran building business of the area today.

The later afternoon was spent briefly exploring Battery Point and around to Sandy Bay before the kids decided it was time to see the new Hobbit movie. I went back into town to explore the CBD (now closed for the day mostly), Salamanca proper (similarly safely shut, except for the bars) and then around to the Macquarie Wharf. This area was the home of the original Henry Jones IXL factory which has been redeveloped as a funky arts precinct, Tasmania design institute concentrating on furniture, and a boutique hotel. Probably safest that this was all closed up for the day as well.

 

MONA

Not surprisingly it was not a rapid start this morning. The wind blowing the Sydney Hobart fleet apart produced a great drying day so while the washing was happening it was time to do a little shopping. A quick lunch and then it was off to get cultural.

MONA is a private affair. Not just a gallery, but a function centre, accommodation, cafe, vineyard and microbrewery. There is also a tennis court, soundshell for outdoor concerts and a ferry into downtown Hobart. The building is also an artwork in itself.  The overriding theme is bare steel, which has rusted to provide the characteristic colour of the centre. The grounds are landscaped to merge the grass into the hill in which the building nestles.

You enter at the top of the hill and go down a spiral staircase half carved into the native sandstone about three levels into the galleries. The galleries themselves have a complex (and I suspect changing) layout, and the lighting is in general subdued. It lends itself to an explored rather than ordered discovery and even after you think you have been through a level another pass will find more corners to explore.

As the name suggests, the Museum of Old and New Art contains art from man’s earliest times in Greece, Rome and Egypt right up to artworks being produced before your very eyes. Some are to be observed and some interacted with and it isn’t always easy to tell which is which. Some of the art is so utilitarian (eg benches to sit on) it is only when you peruse your guide you realise what you have been sitting on.

There really is no point in me attempting to describe the artwork. The combination of the huge diversity of items on show and my lack of language in this field would serve mainly to mislead. You’ll have to make do with some photos and imagine the environment in which you see them.

Tomorrow it’s back into town, maybe a sail on the Derwent and catch up on some more traditional museums.

Big day out

Today was always going to be about seeing how much we could squeeze into it. In the end we managed more than I could have possibly dreamt.

We didn’t stick around the campsite any longer than absolutely necessary. The late night bogans were in no mood to arise early, but there was a steady stream of early boat arrivals so I suspect it was to be a busy day. We followed the nearby campervan out around 8am. Given the limited time we avoided any further investigation of the Coalmines reserve.

First stop was to be Remarkable Cave. I do remember this place from a previous visit. The perfect place for an explore. Alas, not any more. It is now remarkable mostly for the degree to which we now dumb everything down, in the interests of “safety”. Remarkable Cave is now at the end of a set of stairs and well protected by a large fence on an elevated walkway, so to access it properly you need to scale the fence and jump down onto the sand. That is what the surfers do but it did deter us and so my children missed the opportunity to go out through the cave and investigate beyond, which I seem to recall doing last time. A shame really.

So back to Port Arthur, just around the corner. Having done the iconic parts you see in the photos, it was time to do the asylum, paupers home, separate prison, governors house and church. Many of these I don’t recall from last time so the exhibits are developing all of the time. The asylum now contains a small museum of artefacts mostly from the convict era.

The Separate Prison was considered state of the art for its time and was an example of one of the two different models for prisoner reform in vogue at the time. The model came from the USA and was adopted for Pentonville in England and again here at Port Arthur. The ideals were lofty. By complete isolation from one another and as far as possible their captors the inmates would have time to contemplate their sins, learn from their mistakes, and reform their ways by following the teachings of the Church of England, applied liberally from the pulpit of the chapel to the isolated prisoners, even in congregation.

Great plan, if your aim was to in fact turn relatively normal people into psychiatric cases. Fortunately, Port Arthur being a self-sufficient settlement, was able to accommodate the product conveniently right next door in the asylum. If, along the way, you exhibited any kind of recalcitrant resistance, there was always the punishment cell – a room big enough so that you could stand in the middle and reach no walls, but entered through a series of four doorways in stone walls all up metres thick, with no light, so the sensory deprivation was absolute. One prisoner, being a particularly difficult sort, scared the warders with his ways and so he was assigned a cell with direct access to an exercise yard without having to go through the normal prison corridors escorted by staff, and could also go directly to the punishment cell.

The system apparently works so well we have failed to markedly improve on it in 200 years, with the most recent example being rolled out in the maximum security facility at Goulburn in the last few years. At least, by isolation, you avoid the “school for scoundrels” model of criminal vocational education that the communal plan provided. Not sure too much else is good about it though.

So from there it was time to chase back to Hobart to catch the end of the Salamanca markets. Fairly typical I suppose for stall markets, with a Tasmanian feel. Lots of local produce and craft, and busy with people. Closes up around 3pm, so time to move on after sampling some of the local delights.

The Tastes of Tasmania is an annual festival timed to coincide with the end of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race. Conveniently located right next door to Salamanca it was out next port of call. Imagine an Ekka food pavillion but with more stall holders and many more tables to consume the delicacies. They expect 300000 people in a week, so the crowds are up there as well. Not cheap, but something to suit every taste. Seafood, steak, possum, dairy, wine, beer, ciders and sweets all there for the tasting. And when you get food fatigue, lots of street performers and buskers.

Also conveniently located next to the Tastes is Constitution Dock, the end point of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race. Having done our research, we collapsed watching a magician followed by a juggling unicyclist dealing as best he could with children running in his performance space. The expected completion for Wild Oats was 8:30, so at 7:30 we wandered over to investigate a vantage point. The distinct feeling of being a salmon swimming upstream was ominous. Wild Oats had in fact finished around 7:10 and was already alongside. Did give us a good view of the presentations though, and of the boat, but we had missed the final sail in.

So we decided to hang around for Loyal, due, we thought, at 9pm, in the last of the light. However, sailboats don’t run to timetables, so in the evening gloom, Loyal came in somewhat nearer 10pm. We could hear the sails being dropped but did not get a close look. I imagine it is no fun crashing somebody else’s party late so it appeared they may have been anchoring in the bay to commiserate. In any event, we gave up just as the predicted weather change came through and so we had a rather damp and tired trudge back through town in search of the car. Home late and tired around 11:30.