30 minutes up the Derwent, the privately built and run museum MONA is impressive. Eclectic is a good word for the art works; something for everyone. To like, and to hate.
The plaster casts of ladies' pink bits lined up at eye level were interesting. The most interesting aspect being how to look at them without looking like you were looking at them. I think I got away with it. But when asked innocently by the young lady at the cafeteria counter what my favourite part was I blurted out "The 3rd snatch from the left".
Tasmania promotes itself as a wine and food destination. Not just apples any more - cool climate wines, seafood, cheeses and organic produce in a pollution-free environment. And Bruny Island could be Tasmania in miniature - half wilderness and half farmland with a reputation for gourmet cheese, oysters, fudge, berries, wine and whisky. But, while the quality of the produce can't be questioned, don't expect a cornucopia - there's one oyster outlet, one cheese maker, one fudge maker, one berry farm and one vineyard. And all the whisky sold on Bruny is imported - the island is not big enough to capture sufficient rain water to support a distillery.
Bruny is pleasant enough. Lots of trees, fields and sea. But nothing we saw was of sufficient spectacle to justify whipping out the camera and snapping away. Green, clean but unremarkable. And the pace of life is best described by our drop into a general store/cafe for burgers and steak sangers; the pressure of taking 6 orders at once sent cookie into a panicked spin. She could only deal with 2 at a time.
If there were such things as ghosts, wraiths or phantoms then surely this place would have its fair share. The site's administrators play up the spookiness as a theme for tourists with the guides on the nightly ghost tours having a practised banter about hauntings, there's a "paranormal investigation experience" and there's the Isle Of The Dead tour. The guides themselves could be misplaced relatives of the Addams Family. Despite the convict era ruins and the harsh penal settlement history Port Arthur is not depressing or ghoulish. Although, on the at-night ghost tour did I see the back-lit silhoutte of a figure watching us from the abandoned tower of the old church?
The Broad Arrow Café, scene of the 1996 massacre of 35 people has been kept as a memorial - stripped back to bare brick walls in conformity with the convict era ruins. Martin Bryant committed Australia's worst crime at a place where 150 years beforehand the inhabitants were classed as criminals and shipped halfway round the world typically for misdemeanors as inconsequential as stealing shoes or a loaf of bread. Bryant was shipped a short distance up the Derwent to spend the rest of his days in a prison setting far grimmer than that at Port Arthur.
A ramshackle disassembly of shacks and holiday houses nearby to Eaglehawk Neck, Doo Town's claim to fame is the convention of including "Doo" in the name of each house: Doo Drop In, Doo Fuck All, Doo Little, Gunnadoo, This Will Doo, Thistle Doo Me, Wattle-I-Doo and so on. Of course there's always a curmudgeonly exception - the one non-conforming house is named Medhurst.
The Tasman Arch, Tasman Blowhole and Devil's Kitchen are grouped together near Doo Town and right by the road. Easy gawking at the wild coast for the lazy. Other spectacles such as the Tessellated Pavement, sea stacks north of Fortescue Bay, the Candlestick and Totem Pole need you to get off your arse and walk for an hour or so.