BusTed at MONA in Hobart

Hello,
Q. What is MONA???

some of you may ask. 

A.  Museum of Old and New Art

It is the most mind blowing place...we loved it, a lot.

From the surface there is a taste of things to come.

With exquisite detail and the promise of fun. The idea of this trampoline is to make the bells ring.

We eagerly went inside to the bowels of the earth....and ART.

It's all underground, dimly lit and a real voyage of discovery.

There are no tags on the walls here, everyone is given an ipod and headphones on arrival with all the information on the artist and their work, taped interviews etc, there at your finger tips. You just press the pink 0.

Your tour is then saved on their website for you to access later if you wish...how cool.

We witnessed strange constructions, with a great sense of adventure.

I felt welcomed, Ellen thought it was just an M..... I definitely saw an MP.

This little treasure was on the second level.....It had a series of wind catching elements outside.

There was an arm coming through the wall and into the gallery.

this all led to a series of pulleys.

and ultimately to an ink pen entwined in flexible wire.......the result. A pretty cool drawing, done by the wind.

This place is like a maze or a rabbit warren, we found a lovely pink fluffy room to play in, needless to say we felt quite at home.

After a couple of hours down in the depths, we enjoyed some fresh air and a cuppa.

The second level proved to be just as enthralling as the lower one.

Now these little things are amazing, they're Caddisfly Larvae Cocoons.

Basically this artist, gave these little guys precious metals and jewels to make their cocoons from, they usually use slivers of stone, but they don't care as long as they build a cocoon, and the result is extremely tiny exquisitely made objects. Who thinks of this stuff?

This metal Buddha

 is filled with sand then dismantled and reassembled opposite its sand made double. 

Over time of course the sand disintegrates while the metal stays unchanged.

Makes you consider the fragility of life and the beauty in change, eh.

Once more I saw my initials, this time amongst a flow of words projected into water drops falling from a great height. Ellen agreed that this was definitely MP.

This was by far my favorite, a guy called Yves Netzhammer produced this marvel.

'thought imagery' was in his "artist wank" on the ipod. I found it all intriguing. The rope fence behind me is half painted on the wall then rope is attached to it and strung around actual poles.

Back up on the surface, our heads still a little spinning...I thought I might see if I could make the bells ring on the trampoline....the little ones did a lot.

Ellen certainly got my bells ringing doing this little jump.

Yeh, we are out of here, how exhausting...5hrs at MONA...
till next time
xxxx
Ellen and Michelle

BusTed in Joyville (at Last)

Woohoo !!

  

Need I say more ? I'll let these photo's speak for themselves.

Oh yeah, you get it...

xxxx

Till next time

love from 

Ellen and Michelle

BusTed in Oatlands

Hi Everyone,

Here is Ellen waiting for a train.....

....in Perth?? What the???

So easy to get to, I thought it would take so much longer, through South Australia, across the Nullabour...haha

Enough of that, seriously we are heading down the centre of Tassie on the Midland Hwy towards Oatlands and look.. more topiary.

The first night we camped on the edge of Lake Dulverton, right in town, it was so picturesque and had a resident Ducky Daddles and her babies who came to visit. 

Of course being right on the water edge we had a beautiful view of the wetlands. If you look real close you may be able to see the silhouette of a Tassie Tiger on the rocks. 

So what's in Oatlands? I hear you ask. This town is a unique place, seamlessly blending the past with the present. It grew up around the Military Precinct and has the largest collection of Georgian buildings in Australia.

The Callington Mill stands tall and is an awesome sight . It was fully restored in 2010 and produces the finest flour all using wind power, the only working example of its type in the southern hemisphere.

The buildings around the mill complex are fully restored as well, and are just charming.

We took a lovely little stroll up the main street.

Stopping here and there.

Then we saw a sign for Yoga classes in the window of the IGA, they were on right then, so off we went in search of the old Town Hall, what a great yoga studio.....that's where I left Ellen to it.

...and went on my own lovely walk of discovery.

A large group of vintage Rolls Royce s  from Canada arrived, they were on their own Tassie adventure, travelling with maybe just a little more style than us.

We had been hearing about these awesome pancakes in Oatlands.

They were not wrong.

Soooooo good.

The second night we moved the bus up to the Mill Complex and camped in the shadow of its blades.

This place was stunning.

Definitely worth a look if you are ever down this way. 

Till next time

love 

from 

Ellen and Michelle

xxxx

BusTed in Tamar Island Wetlands

Hi Everyone,

Us again, this time we are on foot and about to walk for a couple of hours....woohoo.

Look at this lovely bird in the bird hide. Haha we love bird hides.

Can you believe that is Launceston in the background. How beautiful and untouched is this place and only 

10 mins out of the city.

Looking on a map it's part of the waterway that travels south west towards Launceston from the north coast of Tassie.

Between the 1920s and 70s the local farmers sunk 14 vessels to create more flow in the main channel to keep it free from silt. However the scheme failed and the first big flood breached the barrier. I guess nature will have her way in the end, plenty of silting here. The vessels are still there and are a lovely nesting place for egrets and cormorants but they were a boring subject matter unlike these fascinating silt patterns.

Poor Michelle, I think all this walking is taking its toll. She looks comfy.

The track crossed two waterways and ended on Tamar Island in the centre of the Tamar River. It used to contain 3 cottages used for dredger workers. In the late 1800's exotic trees were planted to beautify the island for picnickers including this English oak, beautiful.

Michelle felt some creative play was needed. Not bad eh?

 Catch you next time.

Michelle and Ellen.

BusTed in "Symphony under the Stars"

Hi everyone,

Well after that busy day at Evandale with the Penny Farthings we were in for another treat.

The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra

Thousands of people gathered at City Park for a free concert and we were right in the thick of it.

We rode the motorbike in for ease of parking and got a spot right next to the front gate, nice.

There was a roped off section for VIPs at the front so we popped ourselves at the edge of that and had awesome views.

Not hard to pick me out of this one.

The night air was filled with some very popular classics, and the guest solo violinist was magical, I am sure Ellen cried.....

We drank red wine and feasted on cheese and biscuits mmm mmm.

They played the Can Can last and a few people stood and danced.. it was a sight. After overwhelming applause and standing ovations, the conductor said, "I am sorry, we have no more," it was as if the whole crowd sighed together not wanting it to end.

Most of the crowd now on their feet.

"We can play the Can Can again" 

The Conductor turned to face his Orchestra, Baton in the air and the cheers could be heard in Hobart.The Can Can loomed out into the air and everyone young and old danced. I have never seen such a sight.

....and that was the

Symphony under the Stars

in

Launceston.

What a night.

xxxx

till next time

Ellen and Michelle