February 5-6, 2023
“ I haven't been to Tasmania. I haven't been to the South Pole, and I haven't been to the North Pole. I want to see the polar bear migration before there are no polar bears. I want to see Glacier National Park before the glacier melts.”
- Martha Stewart
It was a brilliant sun against a cloudless blue sky our first morning. I don’t mean to exaggerate but there is something different about the sunshine here. At first I thought it was just me getting used to a bright day after a few cloudy ones.
But, that is not it. The sunshine is really intense here. Even with dark sunglasses it is hard to look around sometimes due to the brightness. I had to ask Uncle Google -
“The elliptical orbit of the Earth places the Southern Hemisphere closer to the sun during its summer months than the Northern Hemisphere during its summer. This means that the summer sun in Australia is 7 to 10 percent stronger than similar latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere.”
So it’s a real thing. We were thankful the temperatures are still mild. I can’t imagine what the interior heat would be like with this intensity. That is still to come later in the trip.
We are in Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. Tasmania is part of Australia and an island off the southern tip of Victoria.
YouTube sent us here.
There was a YouTube travel video that talked about the many things to see and do in Tasmania. The options seemed intriguing and less deadly than starting in the outback so we decided to add this island to the itinerary. The idea of being in “Tasmania” is still a little surreal to me. Prior to this trip, Mostly what I knew about Tasmania came from this guy -
When we were planning the Australian leg of the trip it was difficult to select where to go. Unlike some of the other countries we have visited, Australia is an immense place. It is approximately the size of the continental United States so you can’t just run all over the country like France. The distances are too vast.
Australia is also a weird place. 86% of the 26.6 million people that live here reside in the south east corner of the continent. The vast majority of the land is only sparsely inhabited. This is because it is generally incompatible with human life. So it made sense to mostly focus on the southeast for the trip.
Tasmania used to be attached to the southern tip of Southeast Australia. About 12,000 years ago, when sea levels rose, it became separated. It is estimated there were between 3-7,000 Aborigines on the Island. They were Hunter- Gatherers and they island provided them enough to survive.
Tasmania is named after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, the first European to sight the island, in 1642. In the very early 19th century it was claimed by the British. Never mind that the indigenous Aborigines had been there long before, the Brits were more worried about the French who had been poking around the South Pacific looking for new colonies to exploit. It was the time of the Napoleonic wars. The British were already entrenched in new South Wales and worried the close proximity of the Tasmania Island might get claimed by the French.
So they decided to race down to the island with a few marines, staple a British Flag, upside down according to history, to a tree and fire off some musket shots. There - “Done and dusted” one wrote into his journal.
The initial settlement here in 1803 was a penal colony that would house up to 80,000 inmates. The convicts were sent from Australia which , ironically, also started as a penal colony. When we get to Sydney we will explore this history a little further.
Oh and the indigenous Aborigines? They started out around 7,000 people. As the British continued to push, two wars broke out. But that was not the worst of it. The Brits brought smallpox which decimated the native population who had no immunity. In a few years 7,000 became 300. Then 300, would became zero.
Tasmania would remain a colony of Australia until 1903. Then it would join the Australian federation. The penal colony would be left to ruins and today the Island is popular with Aussies and Chinese for tourism.
Hobart, the capital, is a city of around 200,000. It feels very modern and western, You could place the town anywhere on the West coast of the USA and not notice the difference very much. (Except for the left sided driving thing). The city is on the coast and has a lovely waterfront harbor.
We walked around the downtown and waterfront our first morning. After breakfast in a local cafe we found this street market. The food stalls had the most international variety that I have seen previously.
There were produce vendors, buskers, street food, whiskey samples, fresh eggs, crafts and more.
From there we wandered down to the waterfront where we discovered today was the inaugural Tasmanian 70.3 Half Ironman competition. My friend Andy Burnett runs in these horrific tests of endurance. These races are timed and done back to back on the same day!
The distances of a Half Ironman are thus equivalent to half the Ironman circuit in each of the disciplines: 1.9 km swim (1.2 mile); 90 km of cycling (56 miles); 21.1 km of running, which is a half marathon (13.1 miles).
Despite that there were competitors from all over the world, hundreds of them, two Aussies took home the top prizes. The men’s division was won by Jake Birtwhistle (What a great name). He completed the event with a blazing 3:49 time.
We saw Ellie Salthouse, the winner of the woman’s division come over the finish line with an equally impressive time of 4:25. Both of these athletes are professional and travel to compete in races all over the world.
The next day we rose again to mild temperatures and the Tasmanian sun. But there were some beautiful clouds today that helped mitigate the harsh light. We drove to MONA, the local modern art gallery that has received high marks for being unique sight.
Try to imagine if you gave Lewis Carroll the job of museum curator and it will give you something an idea of MONA (Museum of Old and New Art). The architecture is a modern jumble of geometric shapes and sharp angles. To call it quirky is too tame. It is outlandish, playful, often bizarre, and at times quite beautiful.
I want to like modern art. I certainly appreciate the effort put into some of the pieces. I know they are supposed to be evocative and challenge your conventional thinking. But most of the time I just think, "WTF?". It’s .....hard to enjoy. Maybe that is the point.
This museum is part art exhibition and part theme park ride. It was filled with dark, cave like hallways punctuated with audio visual displays that are both jarring and mesmerizing. Some of the “art” went way over my head and seemed pretentious. But I tried, I really did.
Here are a few examples - (None of these are exaggerations).
Then there is this finale piece - This is a wall filled with plaster casts of women's labias.
Yep, not making that up.
After the MONA experience we needed a palate cleanser. We left for the Tasmania wine region near Hobart.
"Growing wine in Tasmania was deemed pointless by Diego Bernacchi in 1890. Bernacchi held claim to the first vineyard recorded in Tasmania, located on Maria Island. It was a failed project, and there-for the state was proclaimed incapable of producing wine. It was quite a harsh reality to the pioneers that travelled long distances to see the previously affirmed ‘fertile soils similar to that of France.’ The industry died for nearly 50 years.
Tasmania finally developed its first manufactured industry product in the 1950s from the Tamar Valley in Tasmania’s north. Since the ’50s, growth has been exponential with new regions that seem to be sprouting every year. There are now 160 licensed wine producers, along with 230 individual vineyards, 95 cellar door outlets, and over 2,000 hectares of vineyards in Tasmania". - wineregionsaustrailia.com
The mountains around the city add a rolling grandeur to the harbor. They are filled with Stringy Bark, Pencil Pine, and towering Eucalyptus trees. I have never seen so many eucalyptus before. They are not only the tallest tree here but also the tallest flowering plant in the world.
We found Frogmore Creek Winery on a lovely day and enjoyed one of the best meals in our long travel history.
The food and the wines were next level experiences. We were surprised and delighted. Truly a memorable afternoon.
Full of quality food and alcohol we made our way back into town. We stopped briefly at the Botanical Garden before calling it a day.
Tomorrow we begin a 6 day road trip through Tasmania.
My first impression of Australia is it's not hard at all for an American to assimilate. Like New Zealand, the locals are friendly, everything is in English, stores are easy to navigate, and the currency is almost a 1 to 1 exchange. There is little “cultural challenge” to encounter and that can be a good and bad thing.
Like us this is a very young country. There is much to explore here and we are just getting started
Oh, and they do have snakes - lots of them. And spiders as big as frisbees that come into your house — More on this subject later in the trip.
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