On Monday it was time to go to MONA. We started with a great breakfast at the Harbour Lights Cafe, right across the street from the MONA ferry wharf. I highly recommend pre-booking your tickets as you can just walk right on without queuing up.

The ferry itself was pretty wacky. We didn’t spring for the “Posh Pit,” so our options were the back of the boat or upper deck. We started out at the back. The graffiti was fun.

There’s the Tasman Bridge again, this time as seen off the back of the ferry.

I will never get over Australian cities that have giant industrial complexes sitting in beautiful places. Here’s the Nyrstar Zinc Smelter right on the Derwent River in Hobart.

We went upstairs to peek at the captain as we approached MONA. Unfortunately it started to rain so we couldn’t see much. Oh, and they have statues of sheep upstairs that you can sit on.

We disembarked in the rain and quickly climbed the stairs up to the entrance. Again, prepaying will get you in much faster! In this museum, you start at the bottom so we took a lift all the way down. It was like descending into some supervillain’s underground lair. We picked up our “O devices” (so tomorrow) and went into the Matthew Barney exhibition.

Look, we’re not really modern art connoisseurs. I didn’t know Matthew Barney before, and frankly much of the exhibit was bewildering to me. It was about a movie, that he made based on a book by Norman Mailer? And there was a lot of sex and death and Egyptian gods, but also somehow the Detroit motor industry? I coped by finding the small things that I liked. Egyptian funeral urns, for one.

I also liked this little blue ram.

I didn’t take too many photos in the museum, mostly because I think it’s best if you go in as “unspoiled” as possible. Yes, some bits were confronting, but nothing that really jolted me too badly. The further I got, the more I started using the “hate” button on the O. I think that’s a good thing though; I started really questioning the pieces more than I usually do in a museum.

Some things that I loved: Saskia Olde Wolbers’s film Placebo; Candice Breitz’s Queen: A Portrait of Madonna; Zhang Huan’s Berlin Buddha; and the TOILETS. (Seriously, MONA has the most amazing bathrooms I’ve ever seen in my life. You’ll see.)

Some things that I hated: Meghan Boody’s The Mice and Me (*shudder*); Tessa Farmer’s The Fairy Horde and the Hedgehog Host (nightmare fuel); Zizi the Affectionate Couch (mutant tribble furniture); and Yves Netzhammer’s The Subjectivisation of Repetitiveness (boring and inexplicable).

The tennis court at the entrance (on top of the building) isn’t actually art. David Walsh just really likes playing tennis, apparently.

The Snook really liked this ornate metal truck outside.

Back in Hobart, we managed to score a table at Frank Restaurant and Bar for our final dinner. Rob had recommended this place as the current “IT” restaurant in the city. It didn’t disappoint! The portions were small, but everything was really tasty. We had sopaipillas, empanadas, ceviche, sweet potato with goat’s cheese, and a big ol’ rump steak. For dessert, I had the cornbread and ice cream while the Snook opted for hte chocolate “Nemesis cake”. This place is definitely worth a stop, but be prepared to pay a fair bit.

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