Mona and Freycinet National Park

 The entrance to MONA. It is all distorted metal that reflects everything.

 Wineglass Bay from the lookout. 

Some of the hundreds of steps.

 Wineglass Bay at the bottom of the hike.

 Cook's Bay.

Some of the locals.

Wednesday, March 30^th.

I woke up earlier than I wanted this morning because of noisy neighbours leaving early to catch a flight, so I used the time to type up the last couple of days. Then I had the breakfast, packed up and left. I drove back through town to MONA. This is the largest privately funded museum in Australia (apparently funded with gambling money). MONA stands for Museum of Old and New Art. It is a complex of museum, winery, hotel, and bars. It is built on a peninsula and they have a large private (camouflaged) ferry that shuttles people from the city. You can also drive to it, which I did. The museum itself is built underground. The entrance is at ground level but as soon as you go in you take stairs (or a circular elevator) down three floors. The building is incredible and a work of art in its own right. The walls and ceiling are all different, at different angles and some of the walls are the cut bedrock. They tell you to start at the bottom and work your way up. They provide a smart phone with a GPS that locates you and tells you what piece of art you are looking at and some details. It also indicates if there is audio information as well and they provide you with headphones to listen to that. It also tracks your route and if you provide your e-mail they will send you all the information about what you saw.

The art itself is ancient (mummies and sarchagous), bizarre (a hall with plaster casts of about fifty vaginas), incredible (an overhead water fountain that spells out words with the water as it falls), and unfathomable (a video of two people with hugely bulbous, obviously fake noses and hands acting and arguing about something) and strange (a man with a totally tattooed back sitting on a bar stool type chair looking away from everyone. I asked and he sits for 5 hours with a break on the hour. I wonder is he the art or the artist?). Art is not my thing and I never go to galleries, but everyone who hears that you are going to Tasmania says you have to go here and I am glad I went, just to see the building if nothing else. I spent a few hours there and then headed out again.

I realized I don't have time to go to the Bruny Islands so I headed north to go to Frycinet National Park. This is where there is one of the world's most beautiful beaches that regularly shows up on the list of top ten beaches of the world. It is called Wineglass Bay.

I drove the Tasman Highway which is another scenic, under traveled, winding road through some very dry rural areas in brilliant sunshine. The east coast gets less rainfall than the west and is much drier. I arrived at Frycinet about two thirty and after checking out the visitor centre I took the steep two kilometre long hike to the Wineglass Bay Overlook. The view was spectacular, with turqoise water, white sand and mountains all around, but from this vantage point you cannot see the wineglass shape. I think it is really only visible from the air.

Since I had time and it felt good to be walking I decided to take the hike down the other side to the beach. It is all a steep descent (which means you have to climb back up). Down at water level it was very beautiful with the sounds of the waves, the colour of the water, sand and rocks. I walked around for a while before undertaking the ascent.

When I got back up, I drove back to the highway through Coles Bay where I stopped to buy a few things to eat. Then again conscious of positioning myself for tomorrow, I decided to drive as close as I could to Launceston. The roads were again winding and deserted. I finally reached the main highway from Hobart to Launceston. It was much more direct, flatter and 110 kms (which I could do). I drove to the town of Deloraine where I found a local bar/hotel that had a room for the night. It is a little divey room in an old hotel. I sat in the bar and typed for a bit, but the lady told me they were closing. What kind of bar closes at 9:30? I retired to my room and went to bed early for an early start tomorrow.

Drove a total of 451 kms today.