Tasmania Part 5: A Day at the Royal Botanical Center and Back to MONA

Today was the most perfect day we could have asked for, and certainly the best we have experienced with the weather.  A bright sunny day with light wind, temps in the 60's.  A perfect day to wander the Botanical Garden.
I have just begun reading about the history of the garden.  Officially founded in 1818, the garden was actually started by an ex-convict who was granted some land to develop.  It sort of sounds like it was taken away from his family when the garden started looking nice.  I need to keep reading, I guess.

The garden seems quite large,(14 Hectares, if that means anything to you) larger in area than the San Antonio Botanical Garden (which is my point of reference).  We really enjoyed our time in it.  There was a beautiful Food garden, an orchid house, and even a sub-Antarctica garden display.  The Japanese Tea garden was beautiful even in mid-winter.  One can only imagine what it must be like in the fall when all the trees are in color.

Impressive entry gate to the garden.

This is a giant rhubarb plant.  It was an alien-looking thing, for sure.

A pink magnolia.

Part of the Japanese garden.

The tiniest of pine-cones.

The beautifully maintained food garden.

Here is a pano of the food garden.

And a wonderful cactus display.

I swear this is a cactus. See above.

This is an Empress Tree.  Here are images of such a tree in bloom.

Eventually, we drove back out to MONA and decided to have lunch outside one of the restaurants.  We enjoyed a delicious lunch and accompanied it with a glass of the Morilla sparkling wine.  The Morilla vineyard is on the property of the MONA museum.  Their pinot noir grapes are grown on property.  The other grapes are grown elsewhere on the island.  The pinot is quite good.

And because we could, we stayed and watched the James Turrell installation, "Amarna", 

through its sunset illumination.  Sigh.

Here are the (curly) heads of my daughters as they attempt to figure out which planet

we are seeing through the opening of the installation.  (Jupiter)

We were further rewarded with the most stunning moonrise over the water.

It was HUGE and bright yellow-orange.  Just a spectacular evening.

Tomorrow I made reservations for the family to fly over to the southwestern part of Tasmania.  There is a World Heritage site over there and I am psyched to spend time in it.  Stay tuned!  xo L

Tasmania Part Three: James Turrell, Mid-WinterFest, and Animals....

We had rain, wind, snow, then some warmer temps and even sun yesterday, but today we are back in the rain.  This round is much warmer, however, so despite the strong winds it isn’t biting quite as much.

Saturday we drove up to MONA and had lunch before wandering around in the museum.  When you arrive you are issued a “O” phone, basically an Itouch that has the contents of the museum loaded onto it.  It can determine what is close to you and, if so-desired, you can touch the screen for information.  Some of it is part of a setting called “Art Wonk”, and some pieces have extra info such as artist interviews.  It is an unusual trait that the work has no traditional labels next to it.  I sort of love that.  You simply view the art on its own merit and respond to it versus having some “expert” telling you whether or not it should be important.  You can certainly have an expert tell you that, but you don’t need to have it interfere with your own response. I think it is a very interesting and more “pure” way to view art, to be honest.  I like it.  Some of the pieces have tiny little videos attached to the  info.  There is a large installation outside the building that is two sections of concrete with a crumpled car wedged between them.  Upon watching the video I learned that David Walsh had seen the original installation (I think at Art Basel?) and wanted one for MONA.  So, on the opening day of the museum, a stunt driver crashed yet another car into two previously installed pieced of concrete on the grounds.  It is pretty cool to see the video and hear the artist talking about it.  

MONA is simply amazing.  Every bit of it is special.  The architecture, the landscape, the materials used everywhere.  Even the art I don’t really care for in it.  I love it because it is stuff that David likes and I find that intriguing.  

Yesterday morning we were scheduled for a private tour of Bonorang, a wildlife rescue organization.  The history of it is that it began as a small wildlife park but sometime in the early years transitioned to rescue.  Some of the animals, due to their injuries, will reside permanently at the park, whilst others are rehabbed and released.  Our guide was very generous with information and also allowing us the opportunity to interact more closely with the animals.

 We each got to pet a Wombat(!)

 a Koala, 

and watched him feed the Tasmanian Devils.

We were able to hand-feed Kangaroos and even saw a mother with a Joey in her pouch.  It would be hard to say what I loved most.  So many birds!  We even got to see a Echidna, an egg-laying mammal that resembles a hedgehog with a longer snout.

 This one’s name was Randall.  I fell in love (truly). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echidna

After leaving the wildlife rescue we drove directly to MONA for the birthday party of the museum owners' daughter.  It was held in what I assume is an area below one of the restaurants that is used for private events.  The room spilled out onto a beautiful lawn area that extended between the building and a pavilion that is used for musical venues and other events.  During nice weather (which we were fortunate to have yesterday) there are many many large bag pillows thrown out all over the grass.  A large sandbox and other toys were all around the area:  a paradise for kids of any age!

The party planners had face-painting supplies and asked my daughters if they wanted to help.  Since one used to have a job at Fiesta TX doing face painting for an entire summer, the answer was yes.  Many littles had their ninja, lion, hello Kitty, and other superhero faces painted.  We ate an amazing selection of food from the buffet, pizza from their wood oven and even some pork from their smoker.  Their outdoor kitchen makes mine look like the amateur place that it is, but it was so much fun to see their outside equipment that serves all the restaurants at the museum.  We watched the children play an Australian game called “Pass the Parcel”, a sort of musical chairs-type game that involves passing the wrapped parcel until the music stops, then whoever holds it opens a layer of the parcel to find a small gift.  It ended with the parcel being opened by Sunday’s mother for her small gift.  Such fun!  I want to do a grownup version of it someday soon!  Should we?  Lets!

We spent more time at the museum until closing, and then drove back to Hobart for a brief rest before dinner.  Again, I was tired to the point where all I wanted to do was shower and flop into the (very comfortable) bed.  

This morning it is warmer but windy and rainy.  No idea what the day will bring but whatever it is will be good.  

Tasmania Adventure part 2

I'm finding myself feeling better, with less jet lag each day.  Actually, I feel fine all day but I can tell the jet lag still has me in its grip when I want to face-plant at 8:30 each evening.  If you know me at all you will understand how extraordinary that is....
Today we drove out to MONA and spent the afternoon, even staying after the closing out under the James Turrell installation, "Armarna".  Oh my goodness it was gorgeous.   My first shot of the installation was taken as I approached it just before sunset.  I took many, many photos because I was entranced with the color of the installation as it contrasted with the sky color.  It is such a great example of how relative color is to others.  Apologies in advance for the stream of images that follows.... (sorry, not sorry)...you are seeing them in the order in which I took them.

Last night we attended Midwinter Fest,  a rather pagan affair out in the middle of nowhere.  Huge bonfires and the burning of what appeared to be some sort of huge scarecrow effigy.  I need to read up on the significance of it, but it was a great time.

We all went to Target and bought Wellies, or as they are referred to here, “gumboots”, for the occasion and it was very good we did.  Talk about a mud-fest.  It reminded me of a smaller sort of woodstock.  Loads of music, food, and drink.  People here are 

so friendly.  We even got to feed some interesting cattle (you would have loved it, Ellie):  Highlands and (I think) Swiss.  They had funky fur.  One had a rather unfortunate, Trump-esque looking comb-over.  She couldn’t help it, I guess.

Trump comb-over on cow....