Melbourne, Australia to Tasmania

 We emptied the campervan of all our stuff and returned her to the depot at Auckland Airport by 10AM on September 30th.  After a month during which we drove her over 4,000 KM, that campervan was badly in needed of a bath both inside and out!  It was time to move on to Australia!!

Our Qantas flight from Auckland to Melbourne, scheduled to leave at 2:10 was delayed until 2:40, giving us plenty of time to spend the last of our New Zealand cash on lunch.  When our bill for takeaway was rung up, we were $1.40 short.  When Frank went to charge the total instead, the cashier just smiled and wrote off the difference.  Gotta love these Kiwis!

September 30^th

Qantas - AUCKLAND TO MELBOURNE across the Tasman Sea – 2,639 KM – 3 hours 36 minutes

The pilot had warned us at takeoff to expect some turbulence as we neared Melbourne.  He was correct!  We landed in some pretty nasty weather – heavy rain and strong winds.  The wind was so strong that it rocked the aircraft as it sat on the tarmac and delayed the arrival of the bridgeway!  The ground crew was getting drenched as they struggled against the wind to get out to the plane and unload the luggage.  By the time we claimed our baggage, cleared customs, acquired some Australian cash, and loaded a new sim card in the phone, the weather had improved.  Now to find our way to downtown Melbourne…

A long ride on the SkyBus to the Southern Cross station and another bus transfer to our downtown hotel – finally we arrived at the Budget Hotel City Center.  I was eagerly anticipating a nice long hot shower in a bathroom with a shower larger than the phone booth-sized shower that I had used for the past month.  Imagine the disappointment when we realized that Frank had unknowingly booked us into a hotel with no rooms with private baths!!!  The toilet/shower facilities on each floor were shared with the fifteen or so rooms on that floor!!  I am not proud to say that I had a major meltdown within hours of arriving in Melbourne . L  I reluctantly agreed to stay just one night here as Frank scrambled to find more acceptable accommodations.  We went out to find a bar, but no amount of alcohol was going to make this night a good one!  Things improved greatly the next morning after checking into the Marriott at the corner of Lonsdale and Exhibition Streets. J

 

But first a few notable facts about Australia. 

It is the world’s largest island and the only island that is also a continent.  Believed to be the oldest, flattest, driest continent, Australia is the original home of the world’s oldest Aboriginal cultures which can be traced back 48,000 to 65,000 years.  Prior to the arrival of the Europeans in the late 18^th century, there were over 400 different tribes living here as nomadic hunter/gatherers.

Australia is home to the largest living thing – the Great Barrier Reef, and the largest monolith, Uluru.  Eighty percent of all plants and animals that live in Australia exist nowhere else in the world.  And I see that as a positive trait since it is said that it has more things that can kill you than anywhere else.  For example, ten of the most poisonous snakes in the world are all found in Australia.  Sharks, crocodiles, deadly jellyfish, aggressive spiders, stingrays, puffer fish, cone shells on the beach are all to be avoided. Today about 90% of all Australians live in cities along the coast covering a mere 2.6% of the continent.  Much of the rest of the country is harsh Outback where the soil is poor, the rainfall is scarce, and the roads barely distinguishable. 

This is a vast continent – as big as Western Europe or the 48 contiguous U.S. states – and the cities are a long way apart.  If we are to see as much as possible in the month we will be here, we won’t be driving – we will be flying between cities.  This is the ‘lily pad’ method of touring!

Melbourne, the capital of the state of Victoria, has a population of over 3 million.  It is a cultural melting pot.  (Surprisingly, there are more people of Greek descent living here than in any other city except Athens.)  The city’s roots go back to the 1850’s when gold was discovered in the nearby hills, leading to a large influx of Chinese and European immigrants seeking their fortune in the gold fields.  Enormous wealth from the gold rush led to the construction of many grand public buildings in the elaborate Victorian style.  One of these buildings is the Old Treasury Building designed by a nineteen-year-old architect, J.J. Clark, in 1857 with vaults to house the treasury’s gold.  On display are replicas of some of the huge gold nuggets found in the nearby hills.

On our walk to the Visitor Center at Federation Square we crossed Batman Avenue!?!  What’s up with that?  We came to find out that this street name is not a reference to the comic book superhero but to John Batman, son of a Sydney convict, who arrived in Port Phillip in 1835 and subsequently ‘purchased’ the land upon which Melbourne ultimately grew from the Aboriginal tribes of the Kulin.

Federation Square

Flinders Street Station

Federation Square is a conglomerate of modern buildings adorned with metal geometric shapes clustered around a piazza of misshapen pavers.  It seems a bit out of place surrounded by the enormous Flinders Street Railway Station and the towering Gothic Revival St. Pauls’ Cathedral.  Large crowds of people congregate here to enjoy free performances (on National Ballet Day, there were dancers on stage) and get their bearings for further exploration of the city. 

The Australian Center for the Moving Image (ACMI) caught our eye.  Who wouldn’t notice Melman, the large giraffe looking into the glass atrium?  He was there in conjunction with a DreamWorks exhibit. We joined a tour led by Paul, a former news cameraman, who enthusiastically shared the history of film, television, and digital culture ending with the question – where will the moving image go next?

Melman, the Dreamworks giraffe outside ACMI. . .

. . .and inside ACMI

 

The cavernous Queen Victoria Market is where all the local chefs and foodies buy the ingredients for their meals.  It is filled with dozens and dozens of small markets selling fish, meats, cheeses and a staggering variety of fresh produce along with stall after stall filled with made in China merchandise bearing Melbourne and Australia icons and embroidery plus a few thousand stuffed koalas and wooden boomerangs.

Melbourne prides itself as a culinary delight and there is an overwhelming number of restaurants and cafes to choose from.  While standing on a corner one evening scanning our city map, we were approached by a business women who asked if we needed any help.  On her recommendation, we headed down a nearby laneway, George Parade, to il Solito Posto where we were heartily greeted by Steve, aka Mr. Dreamboat.  Steve was a hefty, personable guy who made our delicious Italian meal all the more enjoyable.

Another night we sampled the schnitzel and wursts at Hofbrauhaus, Das Original und das Beste, on Market Lane.  The Oktoberfest oompah band was playing to a sold-out dinner crowd in the upper bier hall so we had to settle for the quieter restaurant.  The restaurant’s motto – Ve haff vays to make you happy!

Melbourne Star Observation Wheel

Downtown Melbourne from the south side of Yarra River

 

For our last full day in Melbourne we had an ambitious plan to bike the city.  So down to Federation Wharf on the Yarra River we went to rent two bikes and the required helmets.  There are miles and miles of dedicated bike paths throughout the city and, once you find them, you can safely pedal around away from the cars, buses and trams.  The trick is finding them!  All started out well as we rode over one of the many bridges that crisscross the Yarra River to the Docklands area.  The 394-foot Melbourne Star Observation Wheel with 21 air conditioned glass bubbles dominates the skyline here.  Then we retraced our path back to the city in search of the bike path that would lead us to Port Philip Bay.  We pedaled aimlessly for a while before deciding to follow a group of pedalers who seemed to know where they were going.  And the path did take us to the bay where the ferry Spirit of Tasmania was docked.  Several container ships could be seen out in the bay waiting to unload their cargo.  We continued along the bay to St. Kilda and beyond – but only because we missed the turnoff that would take us back to the city.  We finally found our way back after multiple stops to check the map, an unplanned trek through Albert Park, and a mildly intimidating ride alongside city buses and a horse-drawn buggy.  After four hours and 20 miles of pedaling, we rewarded ourselves with a late lunch at the Meatball and Winebar where patrons are encouraged to ‘pick your balls (beef, chicken, pork, veggie), a place for them to rest (pasta, polenta), and a sauce (red, white, green).’ J

October 4^th

Virgin Australia - MELBOURNE TO HOBART, TASMANIA across Bass Strait - 1 hour 5 minutes

Only 6% of international visitors to Australia travel to Tasmania.  We are now part of the elite group of travelers who do go “under down under.”  The island of Tasmania lies 185 miles off the southern coast of Australia.  Hobart, its capital, is the southernmost city in Australia.

One of the item on Frank’s must-do list for Tasmania was the Hobart Historic Pub Tour.  Within two hours of arriving in Hobart we had joined tour guide Jonathan who walked us through the growth of the city from the drinking perspective – how the growth of the pub establishments coincided with the arrival of the convicts, the whalers and the ordinary thirsty citizenry. 

Overnight, Tasmania changed its clocks to daylight savings time so we lost another precious hour of touring!  We had a day full of sightseeing when we joined Ian from Under Down Under Tours at 8AM.  Our first stop was at Bonorong (‘native companion’) Wildlife Sanctuary, a rescue service for injured and threatened native animals located just 30 minutes from Hobart.  Here we were introduced to:

Wombats – They grow to three meters long, have square poo, and have thick cartilage in their bum.  When pursued by a predator, they enter their burrow and plant that armored bum snugly and firmly in the entrance hole.  Wombat 1 – Predator 0.

Wombat

 Tasmanian devils – (Surprisingly, they do not bear much resemblance to Taz, the Warner Bros. Tasmanian Devil.) They have the running speed of a chicken and really poor eyesight but look very formidable with pointy teeth and strong jaws.  The wild population is being decimated by a virulent cancer that makes it hard for the devil to eat and it ultimately starves.

Tasmanian Devil

Koalas – These cute, cuddly creatures have the smallest brain to body mass ratio of any marsupial.    They have two thumbs on each front paw enabling them to hang on tight to the tree limbs while they sleep away 20 hours of the day!  (Reminded us of our Bassett hound grand dog Daisy!) They spend the rest of their day eating.  Their food of choice is eucalyptus leaves, a very low energy food.

Luanna the koala

 

Kangaroos – Lots of kangaroos just waiting to be fed the roo food that each visitor is given upon entry to the sanctuary. 

Kangaroo and joey

This kangaroo enjoyed a chest scratching

Breakfast at Bonorong

 

Tawny frogmouths – They are often confused for owls.  These birds at Bonorong are blind in one eye and cannot be released to the wild.

Tawny frogmouths

Funeral cockatoos – We swear that one of them kept repeating, “Hello, hello, comeback, comeback.”

Along the road outside Bonorong we passed large fields fenced off with warning signs that read – ILLEGAL USE OF THIS CROP HAS CAUSED DEATH.  Tasmania provides 45% of the world’s legal opium supply and these were some of the very regulated fields where it is grown.

We followed the road along the Derwent River through the town of Bushy Park.  No opium fields here – this is the largest hops growing region in Australia. 

Hops field at Bushy Park

When we arrived at Mt. Field National Park the tour group disbursed for a nice hike through the Land of the Giants where the world’s tallest flowering trees grow.  We felt mighty small and insignificant standing amid the towering, fast growing eucalyptus trees.  Further down the trail we came to the base of Russell Falls.  This 148-foot waterfall is supposedly the most photographed waterfall in Tasmania.

Towering eucalyptus trees in Mt. Field National Park

 

Russell Falls

 One of the must-sees that has put Hobart on the map is MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art.  David Walsh, the 53-year-old gambler who built the country’s hottest museum describes it as ‘a subversive adult Disneyland.’  He used his rare gift for math and counting cards to become one of Australia’s biggest gamblers, claiming to win $8 million a year that is funneled back into MONA.  He became an art collector in 1992 when a gambling buddy won $20,000 in South Africa.  After discovering that such a large amount of cash could not be taken out of the country, Walsh suggested that the money be used to purchase an old Yoruba palace door that he had admired while in Johannesburg and bring it back to Australia.  That marked the beginning of an eclectic art collection which grew to include Roman mosaics, Egyptian mummies and ancient coins.  But that was just the beginning!

Mona Roma Fery

 A twenty minute ride along the Mona Roma ferry up the Derwent River from downtown Hobart brings you to the dock, 99 steps below the MONA building.  After a vigorous uphill climb in a brisk, cold wind we arrived at the $100 million museum building.  A dark, cavernous, three-story warehouse-like interior houses a strange collection of art.  Funeral dirges substitute for muzak.

MONA

Bit.fall  was a crowd favorite.  This huge installation briefly translates words from the internet into readable falling water droplets – a metaphor for the flood of information that we are faced with everyday. 

 

 

Bit.fall

Fat Car, the bloated red chassis of a Porsche Carrera, is a whimsical comment on the over indulgences of the 21^st century.

 

The Snake, 46 meters long and 9 meters high, was inspired by the Australian desert in bloom.  It is a mixed media composition of 1,620 sheets of paper, each depicting a different flora, fauna, or person of Australia.


The Snake

 

Hand of God was a short video clip featuring a hand superimposed over a busy intersection.  The hand controls the traffic flow and carefully shepherds the tiny people through the crosswalks, pushing along any stragglers.

The White Library contained blank white books and manuscripts - no written words!

 

Other pieces left us baffled – the glass urns and tubing that mimicked the human digestive system, producing plenty of bacteria that filled the room with a foul-smelling odor; a disintegrating Buddha composed of incense ashes; seventy-seven plaster casts of vaginas.  That’s just one man’s way of spending his gambling earnings!

Disintegrating Buddha

MONA certainly lived up to its reputation of dark themes of sex and death.  And if you buy an ‘Eternity Membership’ for $75,000Aus, your cremated remains can be interred in the Death Wall.  The MONA brochure proclaims, “Most museums offer lifetime membership.  Why stop there?”

Frank was ready to get behind the wheel again so we rented a car and drove to Port Arthur Historic Site.  ‘To grind rogues into honest men’ was the vision of the Port Arthur penal settlement.  This place represents a significant part of the history of Australia and especially of Tasmania.  It was much more than just a prison.  It was a complete community of military personnel, free settlers and inmates producing a large range of goods and materials – everything from stones and bricks to furniture and clothing, boats and ships.

In the 1800’s the upper class of British society did not wish to deal with petty criminals or violent criminals on home soil.  The solution was to send these transgressors – 162,000 men, women and children – to Australia and use them as cheap labor to build up the colony.  These transgressions might range from the petty crimes of a 16-year-old accused of stealing a gold watch and chain to a 34-year-old accused of stealing boots to men accused of murder and rape.  Once here in Australia, any repeat offenders were shipped off to serve their sentences in Port Arthur.  Remote, harsh, with no chance of escape, it was the perfect destination for these hardened criminals.  Between 1830 and 1877, some 12,000 men had passed through the prison here – many left broken but many left rehabilitated and skilled as blacksmiths, shoemakers, stone masons or boat builders.  It is estimated that 3 out of 4 present day Tasmanians have family ties to the penal settlement at Port Arthur.

Port Arthur Guard Tower

 I have to admit that the Port Arthur Historic Site, despite its status as one of 11 historic sites that form the Australian Convicts Sites World Heritage property, did not hold my attention for very long.  I could not understand how visitors could spend the two or more days suggested for exploring its thirty historic buildings and ruins.  I dawdled around the visitor center while Frank checked out the guard tower,  the penitentiary building and law court. 

Heading back to Hobart along Arthur Highway, we came to Doo Town where the summer shacks bear such amusing names of Dr. Doolittle, Doo Drop Inn, Xana-Doo, Much-Adoo and the food truck is called Doolish-Us. Down Pirates Bay Drive were the interesting rock formations of Tessellated Pavement, Tasman Blowhole, Tasman Arch and Devils Kitchen.  Viewing the scenery along the Tasman coast made the 1.5 hour drive out to Port Arthur worthwhile!

Tasman Blowhole

Tasman Arch

Tessellated Pavement

This week is Bush Fire Awareness Week in Hobart.  Tasmania, sometimes described by Aussies as the Australian New Zealand, is, unlike New Zealand, quite dry.  The stands of gum trees along the Tasman Highway bear signs of previous bush fires.  Despite their charred trunks, the tree tops were still bearing healthy looking leaves.