HOBART

Beneath Kunanyi (Mt Wellington), set beside and along both shores of The Derwent a city dreams of its yesterdays, imagines its tomorrows and lives its best life, night and day.

Hobart

2.5 hour drive south from Launceston

From early in our first visit to Hobart we knew that this was A Very Special Place. Over time and successive visits, that initial impression was confirmed and reinforced.

Flying in to Hobart International Airport your flight will approach from the north, over the Lower Midlands and the hills of the Coal River Valley, or from the south, over Dunalley, Primrose Sands and Tiger Head Bay. Either way the view on final approach always makes me smile. Though only about 12 kms from the Hobart CBD, the airfield is located in semi-rural land between wooded hills and lapped by waters to north and south.

Flying into Hobart, Tasmania, Plane window

The drive into town is a very different experience from any of similar distance I do from home to anywhere around Sydney, where the words ‘road’ and ‘courtesy’ don’t appear to have been conjoined to form a concept describing the conduct of too many sitting behind steering wheels. Whilst I doubt that Hobartians are any less engaged with their daily business, they just don’t have the same ‘bugger you’ attitude that so many in Sydney appear to have. To me, being and driving in Hobart is like a tonic. Add Gin to taste.

Driving in Hobart, traffic, cars, Tasmania

While driving around Hobart is easy and enjoyable enough, this city has the added bonus of being Goldilocks Sized: neither too big, nor too small. We’ve found that this makes walking a very agreeable way of getting around. We tend to clock-up rather a lot of steps per day around Hobart, which we choose to believe is adequate salve and penance for Our Daily Indulgences at favourite watering holes around Salamanca Square (upstairs loft window seat at ‘Jack Greene’s’), one in particular in Bathurst St (yes ‘New Sydney’, I’m looking at You!!) and several up along Elizabeth St in North Hobart.

Then there’s bars which are not pubs, like The Glasshouse (which is a restaurant) and Society (which isn’t, but where Gin based cocktails Rule) and Preachers, located in a heritage listed building, with an alfresco beer garden and a lounge area disguised as a bus for all-weather lazy afternoons idled away sharing craft beers, relaxed chat and cheer.

The Glasshouse, restaurant, wine, Hobart, Tasmania

Think of a prominent Tasmanian Distiller and they’re bound to have a Tasting Room down around the CBD somewhere (looking them up is half the fun). There are several around the Davey St, Constitution Dock and Parliament Square area.

There are some places we haven’t been tempted to walk to, such as the summit of Kunanyi (Mt Wellington) which is daunting enough driving to. I have been oft amazed and astounded to observe those indomitable souls who walk, run or bicycle up that mountainside, oblivious to the gradient and the change in climate from base to top, careless of the snow drifts in the roadside scrub, stretching away patchily across the rock-strewn heather. Mad as meat axes.

Driving up to Mt Wellington, Hobart, Tasmania

Mona Ferry, Hobart, Tasmania, canapes, VIP

Another place we’ve never been tempted to walk to is MONA, also a bit over 12 kms from the CBD, up river, north of Risdon Bridge. Why walk when you can take the MONA Roma ferry, enjoying a nice glass of bubbles whilst sitting on a sheep on the outer deck, or enjoying several glasses of bubbles and some Very Lovely Canapés in the Posh Pit?

Indulgent? Yes, but there’s lots of walking to be done when you get there, commencing with the 99 steps from the ferry wharf to the entrance, which I regard as the visitors’ first moment of confronting artistic truth. Art expresses many things through creative processes which are rarely ‘easy’ or ‘comfortable’ to the artist, who are driven to ascend the craggy heights of their own disciplinary and aesthetic expectations.

My feeling is that the purpose of those 99 steps is to create a mild level of physical discomfort in the visitor as audience or viewer of the works within MONA, in a way which to some degree of disengages them from the everyday existence the ferry ride carried them from, in preparation for being confronted with, surprised and perhaps shocked by art which questions preconceptions and suggests alternative descriptions and expressions of what we contrive to ‘know’ of what we perceive.

Which brings me to Dark Mofo. We were there to experience and celebrate the 2018 and 2019 Winter Solistices, were heartbroken to miss (as did everyone else) the 2020 festival. We are counting down the days to our flight to Hobart to discover what Mr Walsh and The Dark Mofettes have in store for Us All in 2021.

Anoint us David with Unholy Water, make us dance in the night crying Tears Of Joy, and Be Gladdened at The Winter Feast. May the Ogoh-Ogoh burn, brightly in the Dark Winter Night.