Week 15: Tasmanian Ain't No Devil

(*As I post this, I am actually back in Utah at my parents' house.  I know that I am posting this a bit late, but I figure it is better to do it now, than not at all.  I'll get back on the blog wagon when we get back to Virginia in a few weeks!)

Before I get started on this post, let me just say that our Tasmania trip turned out infinitely better than our New Zealand trip.  There were a few unexpected experiences in “Tassie”, but nothing that can even begin to compare with our time in New Zealand! 

LINDISFARNE

Sterling gets to book our accommodations from now on.   He arranged for us to stay in a nice little bed and breakfast just outside Hobart (the capital) the whole time we were in Tasmania.  (As we learned in NZ, it is exhausting to pack up and drive somewhere new every night.)  We got there around 10 pm and I was totally starving.  The nice girl who was running the place, let me get some muesli, even though it was late and they normally don’t just have food out for th taking.  So great.  There were probably only 8 or so rooms in the place, but it was like staying in your rich uncle’s empty old house.  It was super quite (no strip clubs next door, like we expereinced in NZ) and comfortable.  Free cookies and tea and fruit mentos in each room.  Heat lights in the bathroom.  Common area with a piano, magazines, and comfy couches.  Here’s a photo of the place.  Cute, right?

Orana Bed and Breakfast (Lindisfarne, Tasmania)

PORT ARTHUR

Sterling and I never go to historic sites, but we decided to broaden our horizons and check out this Port Arthur site that everyone had been telling us about.  Port Arthur is a former convict settlement that the British set-up for the criminals they sent to Australia during colonization. 

Our friends in the ward, the Viles, came over before we left for Tasmania, and helped us plan our whole trip.  Ann is from there, so we figured she would be a great resource—and she was!  And it turns out that her husband used to work at Port Arthur, so they were able to get us in for free.  Isn’t that awesome?  People are so, so generous.  It saved us over $60! 

When we got to Port Arthur it was absolutely pouring and kind of chilly.  Sterling suggested that we get bright blue plastic ponchos from the gift shop before our 45-minute, outside tour.  I really didn’t want to spend the money on ponchos, or look like a big blueberry.  On our tour, it rained even more than before, and I couldn’t have been happier to be a blue blob!  

Tour group and poncho at Port Arthur

But we didn't get wet!

Awkward standing-by-myself photo

Ruins at Port Arthur

Old Church at Port Arthur

View of Port Arthur from the Harbor Cruise (included with our free tickets!)

Cora at the end of the day.
It seems that most of our vacation days end like this!

BEACH

Fortunately, the weather cleared up and we were able to spend some time at a random beach we found along the way.  Sterling collects sea shells from everywhere he goes, so we searched for just the right shells to add to our collection.  Among the washed up jelly fish, crabs, and kelp, we found some pretty good ones.

Further along the road, we stopped at a blowhole.  To be honest, we didn’t even know what a blowhole was, but we were told that it was worth stopping for.  It totally was.  A blowhole, is essentially a former cave, formed by the ocean, that has had its ceiling cave-in.  The result is incredible, and you can watch the waves crash into the rocks. 

Blowhole

And just up a little bit further was the Tasman Arch.  Imagine an stone arch, like in Utah, but over the ocean.  Also really beautiful. 

Tasman Arch

The thing that really mesmerized us for probably a half hour, was a look-out point, just behind the arch.  I had never seen such beautiful water.  The blues were so bright!  When the water crashed, it got so frothy that the water actually looked like milk!  Bubbly milkly goodness!  And then when more waves peaked, the light created rainbows on the crowns of the waves.  This was definitely my favorite part of the whole trip.  I wish that our photos could do it justice…

Look-out at Tasman Arch

By the Tasman Arch look-out

Tasmania has quite the coastline!

Look at that water!  Talk about blue...

We had great plans to stop by this little town of Richmond on the way home, but by the time we got there everything was closed, except for a little pizza place.  (It was only about 7 pm!)  I wanted to see all of the little art galleries, lace shops, and antique stores.  Oh well.  Next time.

SALAMANCA MARKET

No vacation is complete without a trip to a market!!!  I have no idea how many markets we have been to here in Australia, but I never get sick of them.  This one definitely had more of a Portlandia/granola/artsy feel to it.  Hobart is a pretty hip city, turns out.  The Salamanca Market was right on the wharf and we were blessed with wonderful weather.  We seriously spent over 4 hours passing up and down booths of textiles, jewelry, gourmet jams, stuffed Tasmanian devils, and numerous sausage (hot dog) stands.

Salamanca Market

In the park next to Salamanca Market

For lunch we got pizza (again).  The last three times we have gotten pizza, we have ordered it with pumpkin on it.  It doesn’t sound that great, but we think it's pretty great.

Pizza with pumpkin on it.  Mmmm.

I love this photo of Sterling :)

For our Australian souvenir, we decided on some cloth napkins from India.  I guess that’s not very Australian, huh?  We spent a long time talking to the couple that was selling all sorts of Indian and Pakistani textiles.  If we just had $1,000 drop on blankets and textiles, we could have done so in about 2 seconds.  We settled on some napkins for a very small fraction of that instead.

At the market, we came across local musicians playing and selling CDs.  Jed Appleton was a guy, maybe in his early 20s, that we listened to for a bit.  We loved his voice and one song in particular that he was singing.  We got his CD and “whaaa, whaaa,” 3 of the 4 songs on the CD are totally not our style.  They are definitely a little too hard core for the Larsen’s.  You win some, you lose some J

MUSEUM OF OLD AND NEW ART

Don’t go!  Really.  Ever.

Sterling and I love museums.  He studied art and volunteered at a museum growing up.  I studied art history and then did a graduate degree in museum education.  Museums are kind of a big deal to us. 

That said, we decided to go to one.  We had already expanded our horizons by going to Port Arthur, so we felt like we could do something we always do—look at art.  (We didn’t want to get out of our comfort zones too much, right?!)

After debating if the high museum ticket price was worth it, we decided to go because our Port Arthur tickets were free.

The architecture of the museum is incredible.  It sits right on the water (you can actually take a ferry to it, but we just drove) in the middle of a vineyard and resort.  The day we went, there was jazz outside and a fancy-shmancy art market. 

Museum of Old and New Art 

When we bought our tickets, we were each given an iPod.  There are no text panels on the walls, but the iPod has a GPS of sorts and can bring up information on the artwork around you.  Pretty awesome. 

Unfortunately, the first gallery we went into had absolutely the most obscene, horrible, pornographic, vulgar “art” I’ve ever come in contact with.  I couldn’t believe that a museum could just show stuff like that without any warning.  When Sterling and I walked out of that gallery, we consulted our map, and realized that we had walked into the area colored bright red and marked with a warning of explicit images.  “Okay.  Fair enough”, we thought.  It was our fault for not consulting the map beforehand.  So we decided try the other galleries.

As we wandered in and out of the other galleries, it quickly became apparent that they all contained, what we considered, extremely offensive pieces.  It wasn’t just one or two.  And these weren’t “classical nudes” we are talking about here.  We both felt sick to our stomachs.

Here is the one cool piece from MONA.  Various words were created by carefully timed drops of water to comment on the "flood" of information available through the internet.  

Because we paid so much for the tickets, we debated giving the other 2 floors a chance.  But, why?  Sterling said that he would just see if we could get our money back. 

Sterling is really good about being nice, articulate, and keeping his cool.  I, on the other hand, am not so good at those things in a situation like this.  He talked to a manager, and we got our money back!  The manager said that they normally wouldn’t refund money because the museum has the reputation for being edgy and people know that coming in.  But Sterling explained that we it wasn’t what we expected in a very respectful way and it we got our money back.  Woot, woot!  We felt so much better about life when we walked out of there…

Sterling walking away from MONA

CHURCH

Sunday morning, we went to church in the Rosny Ward.  We were told that their meetinghouse has an incredible view of the harbor from the Relief Society room.  That’s how we chose which ward to go to.  They did have an incredible view.  See?

The view of the harbor in Hobart from the Relief Society room.

In Sacrament Meeting, (which we thought started 30 minutes later than it actually did—whoops!) we sat next to this nice older woman.  She held Cora the whole time J   After the meeting, we found out that she lived in one of the areas that was really affected by the bush fires a few weeks ago.  Many of her neighbors lost their houses and land and were evacuated.  Fortunately, her house was still there.  It’s crazy how fires skip around.  On our way to Port Arthur we drove through Dunalley—the town that was practically burned to the ground.  We saw ruins of the school, bakery, and homes.  Often chimneys were the only thing poking up amidst mounds of rubble.  Really devastating stuff.  Trees lining the road were totally charred.

Dunalley, Tasmania after the January bushfires

Dunalley, Tasmania after the January bushfires

Meeting her made the devastation of the fires even more real.  At the end of the meeting, we sang the Australia’s national anthem, to commemorate Australia Day (Jan. 26^th).  She had a hymn book all ready to go on the right page and handed it to me.  She, naturally, had it memorized.  By the end of the hymn, her eyes were welling up with tears.  I told her that I thought the anthem was beautiful and she apologized for being weepy.  Then the stories about the fires came out. 

MT WELLINGTON

After church, we went on a Sunday drive to Mt. Wellington.  As a kid, I don’t think I appreciated the beauty of a Sunday drive, but now, as an adult, I went according to my own free will.   Sterling and I were expecting to drive up to the top of the mountain, pullover, take a photo, stand there for a minute, and be done.  We were pleasantly surprised to find multiple scenic look-outs, lots of trails (that we weren’t really prepared to do and it was freezing), and an observatory building.  There were lots of people up there—and with good reason, despite the cold. 

On top of Mt. Wellington

Beautiful view 

Another incredible view of Hobart and surrounds

In the early evening, we went to visit Ann’s mother, whom we had met at church.  (Ann is the woman from our ward in Canberra that helped us plan out trip.)  We enjoyed talking with her and playing the piano.     

The next morning, we woke up at 4 am to catch our plane back to Canberra. We didn't see any Tasmanian devils, unfortunately, but we still feel like happy, successful, fufilled individuals.  (Well, Sterling did see one as road kill...  Does that count??) 

All in all, it was a wonderful trip.

And here's a random photo of Cora at the B&B to end with!