OK, I'm back....

My last post was a first for me; I posted while we were away on one of our trips.  In this case, we were on the eastern coast of Australia just before Cyclone Debbie came along to kick some ass.  It was definitely a case of good plans gone bad.  But let me start from the beginning.

We flew out of Las Vegas to Los Angeles then on to Sydney.  Needless to say, it makes for a long day!  Well, since you cross the international date line, it's more like two days.  We left Vegas at 18:00 on Tuesday the 14th and arrived at our hotel in Hobart, Tasmania on Thursday the 16th.  Hmmm.  The LA to Sydney flight arrived fairly early in the morning so rather than trying to find something to do while we were all jet-lagged we figured we could fly down to Hobart and arrive at a more normal time in the early afternoon.  So that's what we did and it really did work quite well.

We really enjoyed our time in Tasmania.  We mostly stayed in Hobart.  It is a small city (in the 150K people range) but has a waterfront and a nice downtown area.  We did a lot of walking!  Of course you have to visit MONA - The Museum of Old and New Art so we signed up for the boat trip.  You can get to the museum via car or bus or via their own ferry; we love the water so the ferry was obviously the thing.  On the ferry you can go 'normal' or 'posh'; we went for 'posh' which basically means you get a glass of wine and some little nibble while on the boat.  The museum itself was interesting and it did have both old and new art work.  Some was mildly titilating but overall it was really quite interesting.  We enjoyed it a great deal.  The guy behind it, David Walsh, has a sense of humor that is also on display.  It makes the museum more of an experience than a conventional museum.  I'd like to be able to go back more often. There is a winery on the same property as the museum and we toured it as well.  It is the Moorilla winery.  Though it is small it seemed to be a very high-end operation and I understand the wine is well thought of.

One of the things I most liked about Hobart was the continued use of older buildings.  Everywhere we went there were old buildings still being used.  I'm sure the interiors were completely revamped but it was pretty cool seeing '1896' or 'Hobart Gas Company' inscribed in the stone.  We also managed a walk though a park where there was a tree planted for every man killed in World War I.  We may do things like that in this country but I haven't come across them.  There was also a small group of trees planted by the crew of the USS Enterprise when they visited Hobart in 1976!  I'm not sure why that affected me but it did.  Of course I consider New Zealand an ally of the U.S. in general terms.  I guess this just made it a little more specific.

Just one of the older buildings. For all I know it is still used by the Marine Board!

A map of the trees planted in honor of soldiers lost in WWI.  As trees die via storms or whatever they are replaced with new ones.  

Next we will move on to visit New Zealand then return to Australia for more fun and frolics.  Thanks for stopping by!