Tag Archives: hobart

MONA, Hobart

I was down in Hobart a couple weeks ago for PyCon AU 2013, a Python programming conference organised by a friend of mine. Whilst I don’t do that much in Python currently, it was just a good excuse to go hang out with a bunch of interesting people and friends for a couple days and to get out of Sydney for a bit.

I’ve been to Hobart before, it’s a nice place for a visit, with a very NZ-like climate and fauna and an interesting mix of small town with a blend of great coffee, bars and distilleries mixed in.

mmm, cool fresh air – just like back home!

Soaking up some fresh air and sun before retreating into a dark room with my laptop for the rest of the day.

This Hobart pub has a better beer selection than most of the places near my home and work in Sydney’s CBD – it’s like being back in New Zealand again!

One of my other big motivators was to go and visit MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art, a massive underground museum created by an eccentric wealthy Tasmanian who has built an amazing collection of contemporary art.

It’s an absolutely stunning collection, worthy enough of making a weekend visit to Hobart purely to check it out. Sadly I only had a couple hours allocated to explore it, but I could have possibly spent a whole day there – particularly with them having a bar in the museum!

I am the data lord!

Is that the source up there?

Where old art and new art meets.

It’s easy to get out there with a short ferry trip from the town, so sit back with a craft beer or go and admire all the street art around the boat whilst it whisks you past Hobart.

Art! And not just me, the stuff on the wall!

Upon arrival, iPod-based guides are handed out, which were actually much more useful than the traditional approach of having everyone crowding around a small plaque on the wall, as it allowed you to select and read in your own space and time.

One of the nice things about MONA is how they manage to not take themselves too seriously, with easter eggs and other playful pokes at themselves around the place.

Love it!

I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to MONA and certainly recommend it as a must-see if you visit Hobart and a worthy contender to be a reason for making a trip to MONA solely for it in particular.

Hobart: Day 02

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My third day in Hobart is more of a half day, as my flight to Melbourne was scheduled for early afternoon, which did limit what I could get up to.

Ended up spending a good 1.5 hours at The Cupping Room, a very excellent cafe and coffee roastery.

To give you some idea of how much this company loves it’s coffee, there’s a bit blackboard showing the “family tree of coffee”, how different styles have become derived from one another.

OMG coffeeeeeee

And there’s a menu for the beans you’d like today….. @chrisjrn and myself went through the menu – my favourite is undecided, they are all quite different, yet all of them delicious.

So much awesome

And of course, the tasty, tasty cup porn:

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Certainly beats the “flavoured milk” airport coffee I had at Brisbane Airport which left a terrible aftertaste and breath. :-/

Aside from coffee, spent the morning getting shown around Hobart at high speed before heading to the airport to depart to Melbourne, all in all, a great trip. :-)

Many thanks to the awesome Chris Neugebauer (@chrisjrn) for acting as my personal guide for the three days I was in Tasmania. :-)

Hobart: Day 01

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Wow, been so busy socialising and being outside I haven’t had time to blog post for the last few days… the horror! Currently sitting at Melbourne, waiting for NoFlyAirNZ to arrive 40mins late so catching up on posts….

My second day in Hobart was actually really a trip over all different parts of Tasmania – started off in Hobart, but headed up into the highlands, visited hydrodams and took a long scenic route to get to Launceston to meet my twitter friends IRL.

We started the day with a visit to the Cupping Room, a very excellent coffee roastery that I’ll blog about in more detail in tomorrow’s post. After filling up on delicious caffinated fuel, we headed off into the wilds of Tasmania.

@chrisjrn planned a route around the state that involved taking me through the hydroelectric dam areas, the highlands, many dirt roads and the reservoir lakes used by the dams.

The hydroelectric power stations themselves are actually not that large compared to the huge pipes running to them – I managed to get a picture of the pipes running down the side of a valley to one of the many stations:

My pipes are bigger than your pipes!

After seeing the dams, we headed up into the highlands where there are heaps of large lakes feeding water to the dams – I believe most of the lakes were originally around, but extended and enlarged for the needs of the dams.

It’s pretty barren up there, but a number of holiday homes/batches around, apparently there’s some decent fishing to be had.

Look upon my camera oh lakes and tremble as I convert you into pixels

Look, I'm being a posing tosser by some lakes!(pic by @chrisjrn)

I'm king of the highlands!! (pic by @chrisjrn)

We made it to Launceston in the afternoon, to meet my twitter friends @stumbeline, @kestra and @Wordy_Anansi for the first time IRL, which was awesome.

There was some time to kill, so we detoured to Cataract Gorge which seems to be a very popular swimming area – probably helped by the 30 degree sunny day :-/

It's got a bridge that's bouncy! *insane glee*

After crossing the mighty bridge of almost certain death, I headed over to meet with @Wordy_Anansi, who had made a huge amount of vege food deliciousness for us.

With the addition of wine, we had a fantastic evening and it was awesome to meet so many great tweeple IRL for the first time. :-)