hobutt, tas

mt wellington

What a reprieve. I arrived with minimal expectations and hoped just to enjoy a few days away and Hobart was the perfectly slow-paced, small-big town that insisted on kicking back and taking it easy. 

The airport looked like a farm, the city sat between mountains and a river, and even the sea gulls outside the fish and chip joints were mostly chill. We took the ferry to MONA and a bus up Mt Wellington. Both were so fantastic. MONA was confronting and even frightening sometimes. There was an installation where you entered a series of chambers set inside each other, getting smaller and smaller. The walls were low lit from the ground and binary code spelt some ancient text + ominous English words. In the smallest chamber on the ceiling there was a mirror, and that was when I screamed like a little bitch. Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed that one. And most of them. The ride up to the pinnacle of Mt. Wellington was quite pleasant. The bus driver was so amicable and though there was a lot of cloud cover at first, it did clear up a little. You could only just see the city peeking through the thick cloud, but I think I'd have preferred it that way anyway. Against the strange plants of the mountainside, the clouds made Mt Wellington look even more alien. Shrubbery was dense with thick, heavy leaves all clustered together to withstand the wind. Rocks were spotted with lichen and in some areas, smoothly cut as if a side of the mountain had just risen and left the rest behind. It was breathtaking. Painfully cold, because we were dumb enough to forget our jackets, but we got used to the wind after a while. It was so amazing. 

The rest of our time was divided between sleeping (I hadn't slept so much in so long), eating fish and chips and pie, and walking through the grid map streets of the city. We made our way through Salamanca Place, Battery point and found old Georgian buildings and newish weatherboard houses. It was a beautiful manifestation of the changing culture throughout the history of the town. Old buildings were repurposed into new spaces for offices and restaurants without losing the old charm. Everything was so peaceful and so were the people. Everyone also owns vintage cars and motorbikes apparently.

I was definitely sad to leave. I guess I'm glad that I'm now much more calm and relaxed compared to before, but returning from the peacefulness of Hobart feels like being forced out of the comfort and security of my warm bed, into an unwelcoming morning. Knowing that I have to inevitably deal with things once we got back put a damper on my spirit, but I feel a bit more ready to face whatever may happen.