We started today as per usual with a "healthy" breakfast at our local breakfast. Another recommendation and a Tassie institution, Jackson & McRoss. We shared a lemon curd tart and a custard Berliner to get our day off to a strong start. A coffee and juice and we were ready to go...
With clouds overhead we decided to drive out to Mona rather than take the boat. 'Mona' s the Museum of old and new art and is the brainchild of David Walsh, an Australian Multi Millionaire who made his fortune gambling. With his wealth he's turned his passion for modern art into a gallery set beneath the earth on the outskirts of Tasmania.
Not knowing quite what to expect we arrived just after opening and headed in. I had heard so much about Mona that I was weirdly excited for a trip to an art gallery! My big concern was that it was going to be like the Tate Modern and a monumental disappointment! Carly was definitely more sceptical than I was but we were both very intrigued.
We were both very pleasantly surprised and had a lovely few hours exploring the different levels. I can see how it's not everyone's cup of tea and there are some controversial pieces of work but it's not as "out there" as some reviews make you believe!
We both loved the waterfall piece where words from social media fell in tiny droplets of water! It was a beautiful piece and symbolised the throw away nature of the written word on the Internet. The artist talked about how you can try and stop the words but all you end up doing is getting a little bit wet.
To me the whole experience shows what can be achieved by one guys vision and a fairly substantial budget! In most art galleries your eye is drawn from the work by a plaque with too much writing on it. Here you are handed an iPhone and a air of headphones as you walked in. The phones updated depending on where you were in the gallery and allow you to read or listen to as much as you want. The art is allowed to stand on its own and is much the better for it.
I could talk about the art for ages, very rare for me, but I'll just mention our favourite pieces. Mine was the white library, a room full of blank books and white spaces. The work was portraying 'What is more important in a library than anything else – than everything else – is the fact that it exists.' 
Not sure if I'd have deduced that myself but I loved the concept of the room. Carly loved the three faces piece because she thought it was really cool and who can argue with that! Weirdly actually I thought it was a particularly unpretentious art gallery and the main reason we loved it.
After the gallery we headed back into town in search of salad! The last week or so has been pretty heavy on rich foods so we need to start eating a bit healthier. The supermarket in town had some lovely made up salads so we were able to enjoy these in the sun down by the waterfront.
As we were heading back to the hostel we walked by the Tasmania & Art Museum. We had a few hours spare so decided to pop in and were so glad we did. It was a bit of a mush mash of all sorts of museum styles thrown together but really well done. There was aboriginal history, natural history, art, an exhibition on boat wrecking's.
The highlight was a very interesting room on antarctic exploration. Tasmania has one of the highest concentrations of antarctic scientists due to the relative closeness and the exhibition was very well put together. We enjoyed a lovely few hours wandering the various exhibits before heading back to the car.
After this we'd decided to drive up to the viewing point at the top of Mount Wellington which overlooks Hobart. It's not very often that you can drive to the top of a mountain, generally its at best a hike and often full on rock climbing to the top. With the hire a car and some time left in the day we decided to take a look at the views on offer.
Halfway up the hill it didn't seem like such a good idea! We were in thick cloud and the views that we'd caught glimpses of all the way up were now totally obscured. 3km from the top we decided to turn back but with nowhere to turn around we continued to the top. As we rounded the final bend we actually made it through the top of the cloud and the skies cleared to gorgeous sunshine!
I'm not sure that I've ever driven up through a cloud before but wow were we rewarded with views! It felt like the whole of Tasmania stretched out before us and it was so lovely to wander around and enjoy everything stretched out below us, a very fitting end to our short stay here in Tas.
Back at the hostel we had a cup of tea and got back to looking at plans for New Zealand. My work colleague, Elle, has recently moved out to live in NZ and has been super helpful with ideas for exploring the two islands. We're now on our second plan with less driving and more time for taking in the sights!
We headed back to the craft beer pub later for more tasting paddles and amazing bar snacks. The corn and chorizo croquettes were a highlight and the halloumi salad came with some of the biggest slices of cheese you've ever seen! Moving on to New Zealand the plan is to eat more healthily so we'll see how that goes!
And so the bed! Tasmania and Australia have both been totally amazing! Tomorrow we fly to New Zealand and we cannot wait to start exploring! Tomorrow marks the half way point of our trip and while we've still got a long way to go it's starting to fly by way too quickly!
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