Tasmania and Adelaide, Australia -Week 3 (City of Churches)

Hello Family and Friends,

Our next stop was Hobart which is back on Tasmania's main island. We took the ferryboat back across to Tasmania. After "roughing" it on Bruny Island we got luxury accommodations in Hobart.

Complimentary champagne and a box of chocolates.

The next day we took a ferry to MONA. MONA is the Museum of New and Old Art, which I highly recommend visiting.

Yes, that is a champagne glass in Brett's hand. It came with the "Posh Pit" access.

I am not really a fan of museums and I'm definitely not a fan of art museums, but MONA is quirky. Even the ferry ride is quirky.

All the MONA ferries have this camouflage design, but in varying colors.

We booked the "Posh Pit" on the ferry because we like to be extra and it came with hors d'oeuvres and alcohol. Furthermore, we thought the description of the "Posh Pit" was too good to pass on; "a private lounge and deck with free drinks, tiny food and inflated egos". That is from their own website. I love it when businesses poke fun at themselves.

Some of my favorite exhibits were the machine that makes human poop, a box of chocolates molded from hospital patient wounds and the mummy.

Human poop machine. They stuff it with food on one end and then a few hours later poop comes out the other end.

Brett and Atlas walking across the stones to reach the mummy. All the black around is water which they told us not to fall into as it is fairly deep.

I mean there were so many cool and weird things to see.

This isn't even one of the art displays. It's just the children's play ground in the yard of the museum.

After our very cultured experience in Hobart, we drove out to this abandoned mining town, Queenstown, in order to catch a train into a rain forest. I'm sure it would have been great had we been able to procure a ticket. However, they were booked for at least the next three weeks. We even went to the train station early in the morning on the off chance that someone would not show up, but no luck. We were disappointed to say the least, but we moved on to our next stop Cradle Mountain.

We are standing in front of Cradle Lake with Cradle mountain rising behind the lake.

This area is considered a UNESCO World Heritage Area. Of the ten criteria that can quality one to become a World Heritage site, Cradle Mountain (and the surrounding park) meet seven of the criteria. The only other area that meets as many criteria is Mount Taishan in China.

The pathway out to Cradle Lake.

We did not hike up the mountain as that was a 5 hour hike. The couple we had run into on our waterfall walk on Bruny Island also were at Cradle Mountain! They did hike up the mountain and reported that it was not an easy hike and they had to do some scrambling. As with most things Aussie they also exclaimed they had been way undersold on how difficult it was. So they officially win the award for being crazier than us.

From Cradle Mountain we stopped in this little town called Sheffield to grab some food on our way back to Launceston. It had all the little town vibes, including everyone talking to everyone (yep, too little for me.) However, Sheffield is known as the town of murals. It has had a mural fest every year since 2003.

This is the mural that won in 2025. I really liked it.

This is a mural of Mural Park that I thought was cool.

Another mural that I really liked.

Yet another mural that I thought had a super interesting concept.

This is a mural that Atlas kept going back to, I think it's because of the bright red car. He loves cars.

Once in Launceston, we took a day to explore. We took a river tour of the South Esk River. This river use to be a major hub of industry, but now it is more of a boat graveyard. The river is so shallow that they would have to dredge the river constantly so that boats could pass through. We had to wait for the tide to come in so that the river was deep enough for our tour. Now it cost more money than it's worth to even collect the boats that are stuck.

A view of the gorge on the South Esk River.

We took a flight out of Launceston, a city on the island of Tasmania, to Adelaide, a city in South Australia. Once arriving in Adelaide we visited our first Australian beach.

Standing on the pier of the Glenelg Jetty

From this angle you can see the clearness of the water.

They had a splash pad feature that we were not ready for, but we improvised and had fun anyway.

Atlas, in his pull-up, realizing he has the power to stop the water with his hand.

Nathaniel, eight months younger than Atlas, at a splash pad, in his diaper, in Santa Rosa Beach also discovering that he can stop the water with his hands.

We also went to the train museum in Adelaide (Brett loves trains).

This train locomotive was huge. The wheels are almost as tall as Brett.

We then completed our travel by every mode of transportation by training from Adelaide back to Melbourne.

Don't recommend this particular train. Brett made a whole list of how they could make it better.

That was our little vacation out of Melbourne. We traveled by plane, car, boat and train. Would definitely want to spend more time on Bruny Island and would have a membership to MONA if I lived in Australia. Also would want to spend some more time in Adelaide as a possible place of permanent residence. We got the sense that the young people prefer Melbourne to Adelaide because the night life is better, but Adelaide is a real city with some good things going for it that we would like more time to explore. For example, they have this bike path that we would have liked to explore, the weather is a little warmer and it's an easy tram ride to the beach if we so desire.