Tag Archives: Tasmania

Tasmania: Part 9 – Beer!

04 Sunday Mar 2012

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This will be my last post about my trip to Tasmania. I realised yesterday that I was there for seven days, but I have managed to write nine blogs about it! I think that’s a fair effort – granted they’re mostly photo essays.

Louise made a request when we were organising the trip that we visit the two main boutique breweries in Tassie: Cascade and Boag’s.

I will start with Cascade for a few reasons; we went there first, it was founded first and they let us take photos inside the factory.

The Cascade Brewery is located at the base of Mt Wellington, about 10min drive South from Hobart centre. For a fuller history please see the Wiki entry, however some highlights were that it was founded in 1824, constructed by convicts, one of the owners was jailed for a period of time for bad debts in England and it is the older continuously running brewery in Australia. Additionally they are one of a very few breweries that malt their own barley, most others buy it pre-malted, including Boag’s.

Cascade has a lovely restaurant that can double as a function centre, it would be lovely for a wedding as the gardens are gorgeous. Here we see Louise looking pensively back towards Hobart.

The brewery was set up at the base of Mt Wellington so that the brewers would have access to the cleanest water. I was particularly amused by the pipes in this photo: mountain water pumped directly into the brew house.

The beer lovers among you will appreciate how much beer there is in this shot. You may also be pleased to know that this is Beez Neez – a honey wheat beer not originally brewed by Cascade; unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view) Cascade is owned by Carlton United Breweries and Beez Neez was one of the brands CUB acquired from another boutique Melbourne based brewery.

In this shot I was trying to demonstrate how close the mountain is to the brewery, mostly all you can see is misty cloud where the mountain is. Also you can see the sexy yellow high-vis vests we were required to wear as modelled by the delightful Louise.

Our second brewery was J. Boag and Son in Launceston. This brewery was established considerably later, 1883, by buying out an existing brewery Esk Brewery. The original facade of this brewery is still on the site today (the photo appeared in an earlier blog. For more info see the Wiki entry.

This is the outside of the main brewery building, as you can see Louise is quite excited to be there. I don’t have as many photos of Boag’s as they wouldn’t let us take photos inside.

I found it interesting though that Boag’s was essentially a bogan beer for a long time, akin to VB or Fosters, until they launched their premium range in 1994. This launch included a number of photos by Helmut Newton and really put Boag’s into the minds of mainland Australians (and beyond). Above we see one of the Newton photo’s from this campaign; you can’t go wrong with seamed stockings.

Some of you will know that I choose not to drink alcohol, and that therefore it was weird for me to go on two brewery tours in Tas, however I appreciated the historical content, the manufacturing process is quite interesting, I tasted a number of different beers and I feel like I can now appreciate the different flavours and blends more, I also now know what hops and malt taste/smell like and their influence on flavour.

I was also very amused by the fact that both breweries sell/give their discarded barley (and in Boag’s case also discarded yeast) to beef and dairy farmers for feed; apparently it has a relaxing effect on the beef and makes dairy cattle very happy – I can’t imagine why. I will be looking at Tasmanian cows differently now knowing they are likely to be drunk!

This post concludes the Tasmania series; I hope you have enjoyed hearing about my adventure. I am going to Sydney next weekend so you’re likely to be bombarded by entries about that for a while. I need to spend some time this week writing, while I am in Sydney I will be attending a writing group and it would be good to have something to contribute!

Tasmania: Part 8 – Quirky shops and objedar

03 Saturday Mar 2012

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Towards the end of the trip I encountered a few lovely shops filled with quirky objedar. Well, either that or they were trussed up op-shops completely filled with over-priced shit depending on your particular point of view. Either way, I think I got a few nice shots.

This gorgeous clock was available for sale at the Makers’ Workshop in Burnie. The Makers Workshop is a collective of handcrafters who use the building as a place to sell their work and also a place to meet the makers – to watch them working on their crafts.

This was a calligraphy set on sale at the Makers’ Workshop in Burnie.

Here we have a sea green typewriter. For some reason the Laneway Café in Devonport had this in it’s front window.

I thought this was quite a nice angle of the coffee machine in the Laneway Café in Devonport.

The remainder of the shots in this post are taken in a shop called Mr. Wolf in Devonport. It was gorgeous inside, it had some really fascinating stock, but as Jennifer pointed out, a lot of the stock could have just as easily been in an op-shop. I’m sure you’ll agree that a lot of effort has gone into laying the shop out to make it beautiful. I liked how you can see my reflection in the teapot in this shot.

It’s all black and gold in this section. You can even buy your own silver spoon.

There were a lot of antlers in Mr. Wolf. A lot; here are some.

This is my gorgeous friend Wade taking a few photos of his own. The idea was that Wade’s photos would be used for a blog too, but I beat him to it!

This is a shot of the same part of the shop from a different angle showing Derek the deer. The shop owner told us that the deer was called Derek, she did not explain why.

I only have one more blog of Tasmanian photos to come; Beer!

Tasmania: Part 7 – Landscapes and the Great Outdoors

02 Friday Mar 2012

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Tasmania has been marketing for some time as the pristine state, it even says so on the number plates, for some time. It is known for it’s rugged wilderness, for Cradle Mountain, for beautiful coast lines, for islands and lakes and rivers and general gorgeousity.

While our trip was not particularly rugged or wilderness focussed there were a couple of excellent outdoor photo opportunities; here are my selected highlights.

This was the view from the café at Grandvewe Sheep Cheese Farm in Birch’s Bay.

Here we have the coast near Woodbridge, south of Hobart.

This wetland was part of the grounds at the Christmas Hills Raspberry Farm near Devonport (the same one with the creepy abandoned farmhouse).

I have no idea what sort of tree this is, but I like the way the photo has come out with only some of the berries in focus.

This was taken along the scenic route between Devonport and Burnie on the north coast of Tassie. I like the volcanic rocks stretching out to meet the sea.

As I said there was not a lot of nature appreciation scheduled for this trip, it was mostly spent appreciating food, wine and culture. I guess it just means I’ll have to go back!

Tasmania: Part 6 – Architecture

29 Wednesday Feb 2012

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There are lots of really excellent aspects to Tasmania and one that really stood out for me what the architecture. Unlike in Melbourne or Sydney the proportion of very old buildings is much higher in Hobart and in many of the small towns dotted around the state. Many of the bigger cities seem to have an overwhelming urge to tear down buildings when they get to a certain age, say 50 or 100 years old, but in Tassie they seem to be much more loving to their old buildings.

I took a few shots of some of the more interesting old buildings on my travels, I hope you enjoy them

Treasury Building in Hobart, the capital of Tasmania.

The Savings Bank, Hobart, est. 1845.

I liked these two buildings because they’re just so colourful. They are retail shops in the central Hobart area.

The State Theatre, now a really awesome cinema in Hobart est. 1913

This is in Salamanca Place, I liked the colonial (some might say convict) feel of this building.

This is the Cascade Brewery just south of Hobart. The building has two dates, 1824 is the year the company was established and 1927 is the year they built the top two stories of the building you see here.

The Esk Brewery (named after the Esk River where they sourced their water) est. 1881, bought by J. Boag & Son in 1883. I like the way the light comes over the top here, I like to think it’s like God approves of the beer.

This is the Boag’s Centre for Beer Lovers, originally (according to Wikipedia) this was the Lame Dog Hotel, built in 1826.

This was a church I went past on my way along the North Coast of Tasmania in a town called Penguin, which was built in 1903 (according to the internet).

To finish off I thought I would include these two buildings, they appeared to be part of a property which we visited where they grew raspberries. Unfortunately the raspberries did not even come close to the amazing melt in your mouth ones we bought at Salamanca Markets, however these cool dilapidated buildings almost made up for it. I get a very Texas Chainsaw Massacre feeling when I look at these ruined farm houses.

Tasmania – Part 5: Arty Photos

28 Tuesday Feb 2012

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There are a number of photos that don’t really fit under any of the headings so far; photos that I thought were artful, some of the slightly more adventurous shots.

These are some awesome silk scarves that were at the Salamanca Markets.

The bar stools at the Café in MONA

Cascade Brewery from inside the beer museum with some antique bottles in the foreground.

Clouds in Deloraine.

The interior mural wall of the Rain Check Lounge in North Hobart.

Just a few of my favourite experimental shots, I hope you enjoy them.

Tasmania – Part 4: Sunrise, Sunset

27 Monday Feb 2012

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I went over to Tasmania on the Spirit of Tasmania, which is a ferry service from Melbourne to Devonport, it takes all night. The Spirit allows you to take your car over so it was very convenient for Louise and I to travel around the island state.

This photo essay was taken on the boat on the way back, and technically the sunrise photos are of Melbourne but I think it has its place in the Tasmania travel series.

I don’t really have much commentary for these, so I will let the pictures speak for themselves. I took pictures of the sunset on the way out, and the sunrise when we got there.

Sunset

Devonport on the way out.

Sunset over the north coast of Tasmania.

Again…

Some more…

One more time.

Sunrise

Port Melbourne at about 6.15 am.

View of the Melbourne sunrise.

Once more.

I liked the gradation of colour in this picture.

 

Tasmania – Part 3: MONA

26 Sunday Feb 2012

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Up until now I haven’t really told you all why Louise and I went to Tasmania; we went to see MONA. Louise read a review of the Museum of New and Old Art which had opened in Hobart in January 2011 (it may have been this one) and sent it to me with a message to the effect of ‘Hey this looks cool, we should totally go sometime’. After reading the review and having a look at the MONA website I sent back something like ‘Hells yes! We should go as soon as possible, how about February?’ and so the journey was begun.

When I drew up the itinerary (yes I made an excel spreadsheet with an itinerary including as much cheese, chocolate and beer as I could find because I was unemployed at the time) I allocated an entire day to MONA. We arrived at about 10.20am on Sunday morning, just after it opened and already there were 25 people in the queue before us.

I took this photo of myself in the mirror wall of the gallery in an effort to be meta.

The gallery has a wide range of art in it, as the name may suggest. It is the brain child of a man called David Walsh; a man who has been described as a Willy Wonka style rich genius, by Tim the tattooed man (more on this later) and a prick by both his own website and some of the locals (names redacted).

I have it on good authority that David is a mathematical genius and made his fortune by spending 10 years working out the formula to winning at horse racing and succeeding. He then won a lot of money and decided to spend it buying art. What is on display MONA is apparently only a third of his collection (some 260 works), it is a privately owned gallery and he did not receive and funding (government or otherwise) to build it. It is an impressive effort.

I would say he’s got a bit of a Bruce Wayne thing going on too, particularly when you see some of the shots of the MONA grounds; for example the gallery’s private ferry landing, above, and the subterranean feel inside the gallery, below.

The gallery has been carved into the side of a hill so that you enter on the ground floor, where the gift shop and reception are, and go progressively further into the mire through basement levels 1, 2 and 3.

When you arrive the staff give you a little ipod with the catalogue on it because there are no tiny signs. The ‘O’ device has information on what a work is, who is it by, and for many of the works it has two tiny reviews; one called Art Wank, complete with a picture of a cock and balls, and one called Gonzo. It is not hard to guess what Art Wank is; it’s the typical artist and work review designed to give you an insight into what the artist was thinking. Gonzo on the other hand is written (mostly) by David Walsh and gives you and insight into what the work means to David (who owns it) or things it reminds him of or why he bought it or just some stuff he wrote. It was one of the highlights of the visit reading about each work.

The ‘O’ device also records your tour and puts it on the server so you can access it later. It gives you a count of what you’ve seen, and allows you access to the commentary from the comfort of your home. It’s super cool.

The permanent collection is huge and diverse. Among my personal favourites it includes works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sir Sidney Nolan, Daniel Mudie Cunningham, Marina Abramovic, Vernon Ah Kee, Erwin Wurm, and an entire room dedicated to Brett Whitely (which I didn’t even get to see because we ran out of time).

The current non-permanent exhibition is a retrospective of Wim Delvoye. Before I went to MONA I had heard of Delvoye from a link shared on Facebook condemning his work with pigs. Delvoye had a farm in China for several years where he kept a group of pigs which he would have tattooed (under sedation) when they were small, allow them and the tattoo to grow and then the idea was to sell the skins as art. PETA have apparently blacklisted him for this and when I read the article I admit I was pretty outraged too (now I’m fairly sure it was not outrageous, especially on balance with some of the other horrendous stuff we do to animals). We had a guided tour through this exhibition by a man called Tim Steiner, a Belgian who volunteered to become one of Delvoye’s works.

This is Tim displaying himself in the Delvoye section after the tour. Essentially Tim has had his entire back tattooed with a Delvoye design and agreed to be sold as a work of art. He is expected to be shown at exhibitions (like the one at MONA where he sits on his display plinth for several hours a day) and a stipulation that when he dies the skin on which he is tattooed belongs to the collector who owns the work. Many of you may think that this is bonkers, and perhaps it is, but Tim seems very happy with the arrangement, Delvoye is happy, the collector is happy and the galleries are happy. I mean Tim can, at any time, decide he’s sick of it and leave and there would be nothing anyone can do about it, but I think it gives Tim a purpose.

He spent over an hour talking to us about what art means to him, about his journey to where he is today and about how inspired he is by people like Delvoye and David Walsh for bucking the system. Tim said he thinks MONA is the best, most controversial, challenging and most forward thinking gallery in the world, and I think he might be right.

If nothing else it is the most engaging I’ve been to; we were there from opening to closing, we forgot to have lunch, and we only saw about half of the collection. I left with a feeling of complete saturation, awe and satisfaction and I can’t wait to go back.

It is very hard to do justice to the experience of going to MONA, to the effect that the eclectic collection has on you, to the fascination, disgust, excitement, inspiration and confusion that you feel for having been there. It is said that Walsh uses the ‘Love’ and ‘Hate’ options for each work on the ‘O’ devices to rate their popularity and if a work gets too much love he will take it down. I think that this is a mind-blowing way of looking at art – art should push boundaries, it should create uproar, it should be challenging and piss people off, and if it doesn’t well, is it really art then?

Tasmania – Part 2: Food

25 Saturday Feb 2012

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There are many many many people in the world who will tell you that the food in Tasmania is amazing. Food critics rave about the local produce, the restaurants and the coffee. My experience with the food in Tassie is that it is bloody brilliant! Honestly it’s some of the best food I’ve ever had and it was very reasonably priced, and everywhere we went was good and I feel spoiled having been able to experience it.

As I mentioned in my last post I have pictures! So here goes; some food photos to make you hungry.

To start with we have the first breakfast of the trip, at a café called Zum in Salamanca Place in Hobart. I had the Italian beans with eggs and toast, it was delicious.

Louise had the ricotta pancakes with mixed berry sauce and King Island cream, also delicious and very rich!

For dinner the next night we went to a place called Rain Check Lounge in North Hobart after having seen Shame at the State Theatre (cinema) across the road. What you see here is falafel balls with mint yogurt, chorizo with lemon wedge, gorgeous green salad and chips with wasabi mayo. So very very tasty. The lounge also had a really gorgeous interior feel; laid back and hip but not in a try hard way, there is a photo of the wall that will appear in a later post to demonstrate.

Here we have mini lamb burgers with sweet potato chips. This was at the Brunswick Hotel in central Hobart (we also stayed here in their hostel, it was one of my best hostel experiences ever). The flavours were subtle and lovely, the sweet potato chips were both chippy and gourmet-y therefore satisfying the food snob and the bogan within me.

Louise had this open Turkish bread pizza thing with ricotta (I think), eggplant, sweet potato and a tomato-y sauce but the photo of that isn’t very good. The meal however was super tasty. The interior of the restaurant was also cool, photos of that to feature in a later post.

The last meal I am going to put up is the ham, cheese and tomato toasted sandwich that I had at a place called the Larder in Devonport. The Larder is one of those places that don’t spend too much time on interior design, they have a clean, simple look and they focus on good quality food for very reasonable prices. This is possibly the largest toastie I’ve ever seen, served with a cute retro parsley garnish and lovely coffee. Apparently this is one of Jennifer’s favourite places to go in Devonport. The people who ran the place seemed very down to earth people who seemed to have a genuine love of what they did. Getting that sort of love of your work in Melbourne is pretty rare.

Now for the produce; on Monday we drove down to Grandvewe sheep’s milk cheesery. The drive was just less than an hour south of Hobart to Birch’s Bay. The farm is certified organic, the view is gorgeous looking out over the ocean, the sheep looked very happy pottering around the farm. What you see here is the platter we ordered; a white ricotta-like cheese in a lemon thyme oil, green olives, warm sourdough bread, mutton sausage and blue vein cheese.

This is the blue cheese closer up (after we’d eaten some). The cheese was really smooth and intensely flavoured. The sheep’s milk is apparently more suitable for people who can’t have cow’s milk, so I brought some home for my mum to try. I highly recommend if you get the opportunity to try sheep’s milk cheese that you give it a go.

On the Saturday Louise and I spent the morning at the Salamanca Market. These markets are about 300 stalls, mostly local produce and crafts, lots of really gorgeous people running the stands, with a view across the harbour. You see here possibly the best raspberries I’ve ever eaten! They were creamy in texture, bold in flavour, their colour was gorgeous, and it was an eating experience I doubt I will have again. I don’t know what the farmer did to make them so amazing, maybe he watered them with his own tears, because seriously they were magic.

Also while we were at the markets we saw some filming of Master Chef (it’s a reality TV show where people compete to become chefs as the name suggests). There were four teams of amateur chefs cooking and serving different dishes to the market-goers. I believe the idea is to see who makes the most money and declare that team the winner. There was a hive of activity around the stands but mostly it was people with their phones out taking pictures, not a lot of buying happening.

I got this photo a bit later having pursued the hosts of the show to a spot slightly away from the throng. Pictured are Gary Mehigan, George Calombarus and Matt Preston; Gary and George are Melbourne based chefs/restaurateurs, Matt is a food critic. You can see from the picture that Matt is a giant of a man, and to be honest he’s my favourite (I may also have a secret celeb crush on him). While not an avid fan of the show, I did get excited to see them all there. Interestingly I was one of the very few people among the crowd taking pictures who was not doing so on their phone. It made me feel like a proper paparazzo! It was pretty cool.

During the trip we also visited a number of other producers; Ashgrove Cheese Farm, Christmas Hills Raspberry Farm, the Tasmanian Gourmet Sauce Company, The Honey Farm, the Cadbury Chocolate factory, the House of Anvers Chocolaterie, the Cascade Brewery and the Boag’s Brewery. Photos from some of these places will be featured in blogs to come.

The week in Tasmania was a week of some of the best food I have ever had. People who say Tassie is backwards or not up to scratch in terms of dining and good produce clearly have never been there. I think it’s definitely an experience that Australians (if not everyone) should have in their lifetime.

Tasmania – Part 1: Coffee

24 Friday Feb 2012

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I have just spent the last week having a fabulous holiday with my gorgeous friend (and fellow writer) Louise.

Louise and I met in about 2005 in Melbourne when we were both out at a bar on our own. We had both recently experienced break-ups, hers was just before a romantic trip to Melbourne (she hails originally from Sydney) and she subsequently took the trip alone.

We have kept up the friendship over long distance and it means a lot to me that we can still spend amazing quality time together for things like this.

I have taken a lot of pictures on this trip, some of which I am really pleased with. I have decided to blog them in themes. I feel like this will give cohesion and allow me to showcase the good shots in a way that won’t just be 25 shots in one post. Today’s theme as you may be able to tell will be coffee.

As a native of Melbourne, well known for its coffee snobbery, I was VERY impressed with the calibre of coffee readily available in Tasmania. Everywhere we went we tried the coffee and a few places were so well presented I had to get some shots.

Behold: the coffee

My second coffee after the trip over on the ferry, courtesy of Hobart’s Pilgrim café.

It tasted as good at it looks. This place was super cute and had a bit of a quirky feel. They also served very pleasant food. It was in the main city centre of Hobart.

This cup is from Vice Coffee in centre Devonport. We chose this place mostly because it was called Vice. It had a lovely rich wood and dark leather interior feel.

I got the leaf type pattern, Louise got this heart.

This is technically an Aztec hot chocolate (it was flavoured with strong cinnamon and subtle chilli, it was amazing and huge) which we got from the House of Anvers Boutique Chocolaterie just outside Devonport. You can see Louise in the background giving very serious consideration to her tea.

This coffee was at the Laneway in central Devonport. Apparently this place hasn’t been open long, but it definitely makes nice coffee so I hope it sticks around.

This shot was taken by my friend Wade. His wife, Jennifer (who is a fabulous artist and blogger), is from Devonport and they pop over quite frequently from Melbourne to visit. I didn’t know they would be there while I was but it’s funny how things turn out! Wade took a few shots with my camera, he usually uses a Canon 600D with a macro lens and I think this is awesome. It’s quite different from the shots I usually take don’t you think? Thanks Wade.

Look out for more of my Tasmanian adventure coming soon!